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<p><tt>Mary, would you be willing to offer a brief explanation of what obviation means in Algonquian? There has certainly been a good deal of discussion about a distinction, or a partially overlapping pair of distinctions, in Omaha-Ponka, for which the categories "proximate" and "obviative" have been proposed, I believe originally by John Koontz. My understanding is that there is some uncertainty as to whether the distinctions in question are equivalent to the Algonquian distinction or not.</tt><br>
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<tt>Thanks,</tt><br>
<tt>Rory</tt><br>
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