obviation

[Bryan Gordon]

Back to the main topic:

I found this example from Nishnaabemwin/Ottawa/Odaawaa/East Ojibwe:
Gakina ogii-boodaakwenan aniw makakoonsan bangwaaboo ate-magak.
All PST-she.put.in.kettle the little.boxes lye being.there
Nibaagoba aw abinoojiins.
Sleep.DUB.PRET the child.
Ogii-odaapinaan.
PST-she.picked.her.up.

What's interesting here is that the object marker in the third
sentence is obviative, but the child is not marked obviative in the
second sentence. I'm not saying this is different from how it would
work in Siouan, in fact it's probably exactly the same. What it
definitely means for me is that obviation has just as much to do with
simple case as with referent tracking. The only reason the child needs
to be marked obviative in "Ogii-odaapinaan" is that there is another
third-person referent from which the child must be disambiguated, and
as the object the child gets marked obviative.

2007/6/4, Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu>:
> Taking off from Dave's comment, since the granting agencies are forcing us to play these little games, I'd suggest (tongue- partly- in-cheek) that Mark call the language he wishes to document "ie angota" 'our language' (at least that's how it would be in Kansa).  Then in parens use the ISO 3 letter codes for the bureaucrats.  If that isn't viable, then just vary "Omaha and Ponca" with "Ponca and Omaha" throughout the document.  I can't imagine how everyone could possibly be made happy no matter what you do though.  People can be wonderfullly creative when it comes to obstructing the advance of knowledge.         Bob
>
> > I'm no expert, but my impression was that the most commonly preferred name
> for the language of the Odawa by the people themselves was Nishnaabemwin. Of
> course, Nishnaabemwin is the same word as Ojibwe Anishinaabemowin, but run
> through Odawa's syncope rules.
>
> >> Actually, that can be a pretty serious issue (speaker preference).
>
>
>