Verbs
Verbs are the central component of a sentence in Mi'gmaq and are made up of many different pieces of information. They contain enough information that they can represent a complete sentence, and are often the only element in a sentence. The verb shown below is composed of the parts shown and roughly corresponds to a full sentence in English.
| preverb | verb root | person & number | tense |
|---|---|---|---|
| poqju | angitelm | ag' | p |
| 'begin' | 'think' | I (1) > her/him(3) | PAST |
| 'I began to think about her/him' | |||
This section will discuss some parts of verbs.
Verb roots
Verbs in Mi'gmaq can describe events, comparable to verbs such as in English, and the qualities of nouns, comparable to adjectives in English. Verbs that describe events include nem- 'see' and gelus- 'speak' and verbs that describe nouns include maqtaw- 'black' and ewe'g'- 'loose'. For more information see Verb stems. [Let's add more information about initials, medials & finals as we go along]
But verb roots cannot stand on their own. They minimally need to show information about the subject, and if relevant, the object.
Animacy & transitivity
For more detail, see Nouns or Animacy
Animacy is a classification of the status of a noun as animate or inanimate. This classification is often related to whether the noun is alive (animate), such as humans and animals, or not alive (inanimate), such as a chair and a table. But sometimes there may not be an obvious connection between the meaning of the noun and whether it is animate or inanimate. For example, containers tend to be animate, and some foods and items of clothing are animate (such as gmu'jmin 'raspberry') while others are inanimate (such as aloqoman 'grape'). This is similar to gender in other languages, such as in French, un couteau 'a knife' is masculine and la cuillère 'the spoon' is feminine.
Transitivity refers to how many people, things, or groups need to be involved in the action of the verb. If the verb only has a subject, we call it intransitive, and if it has both a subject and an object, we call it transitive.
Both animacy and transitivity are important and result in a 4 way classification of verbs: intransitive verbs with an animate subject [VAI], intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject [VII}, transitive verbs with an animate subject and object [VTA], and transitive verbs with an animate subject and an inanimate object [VTI]. Verbs within each classification have different forms to encode information. Please refer to the specific pages for each classification for the details of each.
| Intransitive | Transitive | |
|---|---|---|
| Animate | VAI | VTA |
| Inanimate | VII | VTI |
Depending on which classification the verb has, person and number marking will differ.
Person & number
Person and number distinctions refer to the specific characteristics of the subject and, if present, the object. Person refers to the relationship of the people involved, the speaker, 1st person, the listener, 2nd person, or another, 3rd person. But not only animate persons are referred to, as inanimate things, 0 person, can also be referred to.
An additional distinction, shared by many Algonquian languages, is a distinction between a 3rd person, i.e. John, and a 4th person, i.e. John's brother, who is an additional 3rd person in the sentence (or even in the conversation). For more information see Obviation.
| person | term | gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | first person | 'I/me' |
| 2 | second person | 'you' |
| 3 | third person (animate) | 'she/her' 'he/him' 'it' |
| 4 | fourth person | 'her daughter' |
| 0 | third person (inanimate) | 'it' |
In addition, the number of people involved is also important, such as singular, a single person, or plural, 2 or more people. Mi'gmaq makes an additional distinction between dual, 2 people, and plural, 3 or more people. As well, with 1st person plural 'we', Mi'gmaq makes a distinction between whether the dual and plural involve 1st person and the 2nd person, called inclusive, or the 1st person and a 3rd person, called the exclusive.
Below is a summary of the full list of distinctions made. For more information see Person & Number marking.
| person | singular | dual | plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13 | I | we (me & another) | we (me & others) |
| 12 | we (me & you) | we (me & you-all), (me, you & another/others) | ||
| 2 | you | you-all | you-all | |
| 3 | s/he | they (animate) | they (animate) | |
| 0 | it | they (inanimate) | they (inanimate) | |
Mode, Tense & Negation
[We might want to split these up] 'Mode describes the speaker's attitude toward a situation, including the speaker's belief in its reality, or likelihood.' (Payne, 1997; 244) In each class, there are a variety of different mode's which can be expressed. Most of them can be expressed in different tenses, present, past, future, and/or pluperfect. For more information about tense please see Tense & Aspect. In addition, most can also be in the affirmative or the negative. Negative verb forms are preceded by mu, or ma in the future, and have a negative marking on the verb itself, i.e. -w in mu teluis-iwg 'her/his name isn't...' For more information on negation, see Negation.
Below is a table, based on Pacifique's grammar (as translated in Lesson 10 in Hewson & Francis (1990), although ), that summarizes these observations using the first conjugation of VAI (intransitive verb with animate subject) with third person subject agreement. For more information about mode, see Mode.
| mode | tense | teluis- 'name' | gloss | negated form | gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indicative | present | teluis-it | 'her/his name is...' | mu teluis-iwg | 'her/his name isn't...' |
| past | teluis-iss/ip/isp | 'her/his name was...' | mu teluis-iwgs'p | 'her/his name wasn't...' | |
| future | tluis-itew | 'her/his name will be...' | ma' tluis-iwg | 'her/his name will not be...' | |
| Imperative | tluis-ij | 'let her/his name be...' | mu tluis-iwj | 'let her/him not be named...' | |
| 'When...' (Subjunctive) | present | teluis-ijl | 'when her/his name is...' | mu teluis-igwl | 'when her/his name isn't...' |
| past | teluis-iteg | 'when her/his name was...' | mu teluis-igweg | 'when her/his name wasn't...' | |
| 'If...' (Subjunctive) | present | tluis-ij | 'if her/his name is...' | mu tluis-iwg | 'if her/his name isn't...' |
| past | tluis-iss | 'if her/his name was...' | mu tluis-iwgs'p | 'if her/his name wasn't...' | |
| pluperfect | tluis-isn | 'if her/his name had been...' | mu tluis-iwgs'pn | 'if her/his name hadn't been...' | |
| Conditional | present | teluis-iss | 'her/his name would be...' | mu teluis-iss | 'her/his name would not be...' |
| past | teluis-isoqq | 'her/his name would have been...' | mu teluis-isoqq | 'her/his name would not have been...' | |
| Subordinative | wtluis-in | 'that her/his name is...' | |||
Preverbs
Gretchen go crazy!