The Obviative Suffix -ni- In Algonquian

Abstract

The obviative category in Algonquian languages serves to disambiguate subject and object nominals in transitive relations where both have third person animate referents. It has been claimed (Dunnigan, O'Malley & Schwartz 1978) that in Ojibwe the marker -ni- is used specifically when an argument has been established as obviative earlier in the discourse. By tracing -ni- in the morphology of Fox and Kickapoo and in Bloomfield's comparative Algonquian work (Bloomfield 1946), the present paper establishes the internal syntactic function of this element and the non-relevance of a discourse based description of it.