[Algonquiana] animacy question

[Mary Ann Corbiere]

>From a few examples off the top of my head, in the case Nishnaabemwin as
spoken in my home community, gender stays fixed -- not even a remote pun
intended :) whatever the state of a particular object denoted by the
noun. (I'm refraining from saying "meaning" as I've just finished a
report on a
 translation of a text, and in my report, I cite the types of
 "meaning" that "lexical items" can have as conceptualized in
translation 
studies, "denotative meaning" being one type, per such scholars as
Jeremy 
Munday and Mona Baker.)

To illustrate, one can say of zaagkiichgan (inanimate) denoting
"houseplant", while it's alive, "Bmaadziimgat go aanwi geyaabi"
(Fortunately, it's still alive [despite my having forgotten to water it
for five days].)

When we speak of a delicious apple that we've bought at the farmers
market, "Enwek sa naa mnopgozi", using the same gender though it's long
been plucked from the tree.

The only inconsistency that I've noticed is the kind arising from
differences between how different communities -- and sometimes different
families within a community -- customarily speak of certain things.
Roger Spielmann was shocked when I told him "sin" is inanimate in our
community -- e.g. Sin ngii-dkokaadaan (I stepped on a stone.)  Siniins
te nmakzining. (There's a pebble in my shoe.) I don't do the sweat
lodge, so I can't say whether eNshinbaabemjik from my home community
switch the gender of sin in that context.

bsagaak (board bigger than a small board) -- animate;
bsagaakoons  -- animate

mtik -- animate even once the tree has died, say from Dutch elm disease
-- e.g. of a dead tree, "Gdaa-gii-giishkboonaa wa" (Could you please cut
that down.)

mskomin hanging on the (inanimate but living) raspberry plant --
animate;
mskomin sitting on top of my cheesecake -- animate (e.g. Bezhgomnak eta
mskomin bi ndoo-cheesecake-ong. -- There's only one raspberry on my...)

Must be suppertime. Food examples are starting to pop up left and right.

MAC


>>> MONICA MACAULAY <mmacaula at wisc.edu> 12/10/15 4:32 PM >>>
     That one holds in Menominee too - it seems to have something to do
with size (large boards are animate but smaller ones are inanimate,
according to Bloomfield).  
 
 - Monica
 
   On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:07 PM, Guillaume Jacques
<rgyalrongskad at gmail.com> wrote:
 
  In Ojibwe, mitig means "tree" when animate (pl mitigoog), and "stick"
when inanimate (pl mitigoon), which looks in some way similar to the
"apple" case you mention (becoming inanimate when removed from the place
where it grew). This  pair exists in other Algonquian languages, I
think.
 
 2015-12-10 21:48 GMT+01:00 MONICA MACAULAY  <mmacaula at wisc.edu>:
  Recently I’ve heard Menominee learners saying that “apple” is animate
while it’s attached to the tree, but inanimate when it falls on the
ground.  Bloomfield does talk about how inanimate nouns can be treated
as animate in, for example, stories where some object  takes on magical
qualities, but I don’t think he talks about this kind of switch
(although I could just be missing it!).  Do you find this in other
Algonquian languages?  Or do you think this is an innovation by the
learners?  I’ve heard it from a lot of people  and have been wondering
about it for a while.
 
 thanks!
 
 - Monica
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 -- 
 Guillaume Jacques
 CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO
 http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
 http://himalco.hypotheses.org/
 http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
 
 
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