89 łiʔ
k’asą hanáágóółxaal
someone almost
4:3.whip.again ‘he nearly hit someone again’
In this case, łiʔ is coindexed with the fourth person object pronominal go-.
6.3 Semi-activelapsed-active fourth person
Writing about Sarcee Athabaskan, Cook says: “Textual contexts suggest that ts’i
6
- [cognate with Apachean fourth person ji-] is chosen instead of Ø [third singular subject] or gi- [third plural subject], not necessarily because the identity of the subject in question is unknown or unspecified, but
because such an identity is irrelevant or redundant in a given context” Cook 1984:195. Something similar occurs in Kenoi’s “Coyote Dances With the Prairie Dogs”:
90 [naaki -ná -í
ntǫ́ǫ́yé -í
] ʔákaa bánnájíńlá
-n -í
[two -
EMPH
-
REL
worthless -
REL
] there 3:3:4.put.pl.back.for -
PAST
-
REL
[hayéʔóółtsi -
náʔa ]
[3:
INDEF
:3.poke.out -
NARR
] ‘[just the two worthless ones] that had been put back there for him [he poked out]’
ʔákaa bánnájíńlá-n-í ‘the prairie dogs that ji- had put back for him’ is equivalent in context to ‘the prairie dogs that had been put back for him’ by Puma, not a passive in grammatical form but here ji- serves to background the known agent, Puma. Puma, having stolen the fat prairie dogs
from those that Coyote had left cooking, has not been mentioned for five sentences eight clauses and there is no later reference to Puma. The point to be made in the narrative is simply that only the worthless prairie dogs were left and it is immaterial at this point who left just those
though it is known to have been Puma.
In fact, the fourth person subject pronominal ji- can be used when in the context ji- makes only passing mention of the referent though at some earlier point in the narrative the referent in question is specified or exists in the narrator’s world view. In Chafe’s terms, the concept of the
referent is ‘semi-active’ in the speaker’shearer’s memory Chafe 1987:25.
41
However, in the usage described here, it remains semi-active it is not raised to active status by its mention. Perhaps ‘lapsed-active’ might be a better term for the phenomenon to be described here. Other
examples follow. In Kenoi’s “The Visit of the Mountain Spirits”, the wise men among the Indians have suggested how they might find out who the unknown
dancers are. The wise men are not mentioned again except in this one allusion to their instructions two sentences later:
41
Concepts “may be in any one of three different activation states…‘active’, ‘semi-active’, and ‘inactive’…. A semi-active concept is one that is in a person’s peripheral consciousness, a concept of which a person has a background awareness, but which is not being directly focused on” Chafe 1987:25.
91 ʔákoo ʔádaagołjiⁿdí
-n -yá
ʔádaajilá -
náʔa then
4:4.
DISTR
.say.so.to -
PAST
-
MKR
3:4.
DISTR
.do.so -
NARR
‘then they Indians do as had been told them’ ji- in the embedded verb refers to the wise men and the other fourth person pronominals to the Indians who are fourth-person-tracked. At this
point who precisely gave the Indians the instructions they followed does not matter. The following example is from Kenoi’s “Coyote Marries His Own Daughter”:
92 ʔákoo, dáʔałtso jı ̨́da, bitł’áh -ee gojishó
- náʔa
then every
day 3.under -at
SIT
:4.sweep -
NARR
‘then, every day, the area is swept under him Coyote’ Coyote has retired, with a rotten liver, to the bed that his wife has made for him on a tree. He has led her to expect that worms will appear under
the tree—so she will suppose that he has died. The three sentences before the example sentence give certain facts concerning Coyote that he has a wart on the side of his head and so on containing no mention of his wife. In the example sentence, it seems that the use of the fourth person
subject pronominal ji- in the verb gojishó ‘she ji- sweeps the area go-’ again ‘backgrounds’ the agent, his wife, so that the ‘file’ of earlier
mentions of Coyote’s wife is not properly re-activated in the hearer’s memory for this use of ‘file’, see Givón 1990:918. Following the example sentence, two sentences describe how Coyote begins to drop down worms from the liver to the ground. Then at this point, Coyote’s wife’s file
does become re-activated as one day she discovers the worms and believes him to be dead. Her report to her children follows. In Kenoi’s “The First Mountain Spirit Ceremony”, the man who knew about mountain spirits, third-person-coded, has told the Indians that
only when the fourth night of the ceremony comes to an end will they know how things will turn out for the girl who has offended the mountain spirits. No further mention of the man is made except five clauses later there is a verb kágoshdees
ʔą́-n-í ‘what he had promised them’ in which sh- ji-, the fourth person subject pronominal, codes the man. As in the previous example, a ‘file’ of earlier mentions is not properly re-activated
and the verb could be translated ‘what had been promised them’. In Mithlo’s “Coyote Obtains Fire”, from the first three sentences it is known that only the flies have fire and they, the flies, hold a ceremony
which in the nature of things will have for its focus a ceremonial fire. Attention in the next sentences shifts to Coyote who puts in an appearance there. The location is sufficiently defined as the place where a ceremony is being held. The file of earlier mentions of the flies is not
properly re-activated and ji- backgrounds the agents, the flies, in gotál jiisʔą́ ‘they flies; ji- hold a ceremony’, or ‘a ceremony is held’:
93 gotál jiisʔą́
-í ʔá
-ee, ceremony 3:4.hold -
REL
there -at [maʔye tsíbąąee
naanáʔazhish -
náʔa ] [coyote at.the.fire.edge 3.dance.roundround -
NARR
] ‘at the place the ceremony is held [Coyote is dancing round and round at the edge of the fire]’
The flies begin to interact with Coyote two clauses later and are then fourth-person-tracked. In the examples above, the fourth person pronominal has been the subject pronominal ji- but the object pronominal go- may occur in a
parallel function:
94 “shibaʔsíndá” goołⁿdi
-n -ee
a
[náłgho -
náʔa ] 1s:2s.wait.for 4:3.say.to -
PAST
-
AT
.
WHERE
[3.go.back -
NARR
] ‘[he went back] where he Coyote had said, “Wait for me”’
a
The verb goołⁿdi-n-ee has an additional segment -í in Hoijer’s transcription, goołⁿdiínee, but elsewhere the
stem and suffix sequence - ⁿdi-n-í occurs. -í, the relative enclitic, occurs in the same suffix order as -ee.
Coyote has told Beetle to wait for him six clauses back Kenoi’s “Coyote and Beetle”. The four immediately preceding clauses have explained why Coyote was leaving Beetle and have described the business Coyote was about while away. The verb
goołⁿdi-n-ee effectively translates in context as ‘where he had said’ and does not re-activate the addressee’s file. Two sentences on, there is a further fourth person coding of Beetle
which will be discussed in the next section. In Mithlo’s “The Gambling Game for Night and Day”, the small ones the birds and small animals are fourth-person-tracked throughout
most of the narrative. They are seeking to kill the big ones and first they attack ‘the Big One’ but they do not know that his heart lies under his foot:
95 036 bi-
ji- V They small ones attacked him the Big One.
037
a
pNP bi- kétł’áh-yá sbi-NP Ø-V
That big person under his bi- foot his bi- heart lies. 038
bi- ji- V
They do not know it.
039 sNP go- Ø-V
Grey Lizard speaks to them small ones: [enter Grey Lizard]
040 “The heart of that one Big One lies under his foot,”
043 go- Ø-V
he says to them.
044 sNP go- kétł’áh-yá Ø-V
Grey Lizard went in under his Big One’s; go- foot. 045
b
go- kétł’áh-yá yi-Ø-V
He shot at it it, his heart? under his go- foot. 046
go-Ø-V He killed him go-.
[exit Grey Lizard] 047
oNP bi-
ji- V Now that one Big One they small ones had killed.
048 oNP
The snake also they attacked
a
pNP = possessor NP, coindexed with both possessive bi- in the clause; sx denotes that ‘x’ is the subject.
b
The direct object pronominal yi- in clause 045 probably refers to the Big One’s heart; if it referred to the Big One himself, the pronominal would be coreferential with the fourth person possessor pronominal go- in the same clause and
should also be fourth person. It seems that the ‘file’ of the earlier mention of the Big One is not properly re-activated in clauses 044–046—though re-activated in the following
clause 047 which summarises the situation. To posit fourth person tracking say of the Big One for those three clauses seems unsatisfactory. The current fourth person tracking is of the small ones, manifested in clauses 036–043 and 047.
In at least half the cases of fourth person coding analysed as ‘lapsed-active’, the fourth-person-coded participant is never fourth-person- tracked earlier in the narrative, often not at all and not fourth-person-coded for any other reason for example, the participants Puma in 90 and
the Big One in 95. Therefore in most cases it is not possible that the fourth person coding could be an example of ‘frequently occurring’, and certainly not of ‘continuous’, fourth person coding.
6.4 Deactivating fourth person
