Gekinawaabid
5 |
| Ojibwe
Verbs |
| A.
INTRODUCTORY NOTES: |
| We
have now come to really the most important part of speech in Ojibwemowin
- Verbs. If
one combines all the Verbs and the available
additions one can make to them, such as Prefixes, Prenouns, Pronouns,
and Preverbs, these make up approximately 80% of the language.
Astounding! On the other hand, English is heavily laden with Nouns
- things or objects in other words. Interesting! |
| Transitive
and Intransitive: |
The
next most important thing to Verbs themselves
is making the distinction between Transitive
and Intransitive
Verbs. Literally,
the word "Transitive" means "
that which has the quality to go across." So if something
is "Intransitive" that would
mean "not going across." Let's
investigate this a bit more. It is essential that you understand this
concept. Consider the following sentence:
(The) bear
eats.
Remember
that a Verb shows "action"
or a "state of being."
In the sentence above, the Verb is
"eats."
Obviously, there is quite a bit of action when a bear is eating. The
"bear" then is the
"actor" (or
noun) in this case. The reason that "the" is
in parenthesis is because there are no articles in Ojibwemowin,
so technically if this were a sentence in Ojibwemowin,
we would not have to account for it. I am not sure whether it is easier
or more difficult to forget about including "the" in one's
sentence. |
| Notice
in our sentence above that the action stops at the Verb.
It goes no further - just - "(The) bear
eats" - period. It does
not proceed any further. We say then that the Verb
is Intransitive as
we defined it above. The Verb does "not
go across." |
Our
next task then in this case is to determine whether the
"Actor" (bear) is Animate
or Inanimate. If your logic kicked
in immediately, you're saying to yourself, "It's alive, therefore
it's Animate!" Works for me!
Looking it up in the dictionary: bear
= makwa (g) na
- Yep, you got it!
So what do we have here then? We have a Verb
Animate Intransitive
or a VAI
Verb. Our sentence
in Ojibwemowin would be...
Makwa
wiisini. |
| By
the way, Linguists call Ojibwemowin an "unordered
language." Simply put, that means that the order in which
words come is very flexible. English on the other hand is very ordered.
We will use the order found above for many of the Basic Lessons
- Noun +
Verb until you can
find out which order is used in your community. We will consider this
later, and I will mention some references later that you can consult to
get an idea. |
Let's
consider another sentence:
(The)
bell rings. |
Can
you identify the Verb? Where is the
"action?"
Does the "action"
stop at the Verb? If you said "yes"
to the last question, what does that mean? Mii
gwayak! The Verb
is Intransitive just like before!
BUT
- this time check out the "Actor."
What do you think, Animate or
Inanimate? When we look up "bell," it shows bell
= godotaagan (-an) ni. Yes,
it is Inanimate. So
what do we have this time? We have a Verb
Inanimate Intransitive
- or VII Verb.
So our sentence in Ojibwemowin would
be...
Godotaagan
madwesin. |
| Important
Note: |
It
is possible to add Modifiiers (Adjectives,
Adverbs, and some Prepositional Phrases)
to this simple sentence without changing the status of the sentence.
(The)
big bear eats
quickly in the forest. |
| Obviously,
"what kind" (Adjective
- "big") of bear
it is doesn't change the Verb. Similarly,
"how" the
bear eats (Adverb -"quickly")
and "where"
(Prepositional -Adverbial phrase - "in the
forest") as well do not change the Verb.
The main distinction to make here is to
see that the action of the Verb remains the
same. The words after the Verb are not objects
receiving the action of the Verb - or in
other words, they are not being eaten! If this is not clear, reread this
section again. |
This
now leads us to the obvious question of, "What
happens when the Verb
action does proceed across the Verb
and is received by an Object
- the Direct Object?"
Consider the following:
(The)
bear eats maple
sugar. |
| First,
can you see the difference here between the words that followed "eats"
in our original example ("quickly
in the forest") and the word that now follows "eats,"
maple
sugar? The
action of the bear is actually being received now - the bear
is now eating an object. |
| Now
that the Verb action has proceeded across
the Verb and on to a Direct
Object, we must change
our approach. The Verb that we now use is
determined by the "Animacy" of
the Direct Object. Stop
and think about this for just a moment! If
you really think about this, you have to say to yourself, "There
must be at least three Verbs that mean to eat in Ojibwemowin! One for
Intransitive Verbs, one
for Animate Objects and
one for Inanimate Objects."
Does that make sense? If you actually said
that, you are 100% correct! Mii gwayak! |
Here's
the change in thinking: If there is a
Direct Object receiving
the action, look at the Animacy of the Direct
Object - the Noun.
Again, as we consult the dictionary, we
see the following: maple sugar = ziinzibaakwad
(no plural) ni. It
is an Inanimate object. So what do
we have then? We have a Verb
Transitive Inanimate
- a VTI Verb.
So what is our sentence in Ojibwemowin?
Makwa
omiijin ziinzibaakwad. |
| We
are almost done with this very difficult section. The last thing we must
consider is "What if the Object
here being eaten is Animate?
Let's try that.
(The)
bear eats
fish. |
Of
course, you now recognize the fact that our Verb
is still Transitive, that is, the action
goes through it and is received by a...? That's right, a Direct
Object. BUT...now
let's look up the word "fish."
Any guesses here? fish = giigoonh
(-yag) na
Yep...it's
Animate. So
what do we have then? We have Verb
Transitive Animate,
or a VTA
Verb. Our sentence
in Ojibwemowin looks like this...
Makwa
odamwaan giigoonhyan |
Well,
there you have it! Pretty simple, huh? Yeah...right!!!! Hopefully, you
can plainly see that there are three basic Verbs
for the word "eat." You
now have the basic types of Verbs in Ojibwemowin:
VAI, VII, VTI,
and VTA. There
are a few variations on these, but we won't discuss those until later
lessons. One last note here. You could of course still have the
modifiers we spoke about above in the last two types of sentences.
(The)
big bear
eats fish
quickly in the forest.
Gichi
makwa odamwaan
giigoonhyan
wewiib megwaayaak.
|
| B.
SUGGESTED PRACTICE |
- Take
several English Verbs and make some simple sentences. Examples might
be "run, sleep, play, fight, sees, hears, etc." - you get
the idea.
- See if
you can figure out which verbs lend themselves to the types of verbs
we mentioned above: For example:
(The) dog
plays. (VAI)
- (The) dog plays
in the yard. (VAI) -
(The) dog plays
(a) game.(VTI) |
| You
will be surprised that all verbs will not fit neatly into all the slots! |
© 2008 James
A. Starkey, Jr. All Rights Reserved |
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