Fourth person as ‘other’

7.2.1 Fourth person as ‘other’

There is evidence to show that the fourth person is neutral with respect to the topicality scale defined by the third person pronominal yi-bi- alternation: fourth lies in a different dimension from third and therefore it cannot be said that, by virtue of being fourth-person-coded, a participant is less or more topical than a third-person-coded participant. The fourth person is non-third or first or second. 44 In Aissen’s terms, yi- and bi- belong to the obviation system in which yi- is obviative and bi- is proximate, whereas go- ‘fourth’ lies outside this system Aissen 2000:146f. One indication of the neutrality of fourth person with respect to the third person yi-bi- scale of topicality yi- obviative and bi- proximate is the fact that go-Ø-V post-quotatives may occur with either pre-quotative sNP oNP yi-Ø-V or sNP bi-Ø-V sections 4.1–4, 5. go- in the post- quotative does not make any statement about the topicality of the current addressee: the local topicality of the addressee is registered in the pre- quotative. Another indication of the otherness of fourth person with respect to the third person yi-bi- scale of topicality is the fact that a fourth-person- tracked participant may or may not be the main character of a narrative the character who takes most of the initiative or the character the narrative is about—the globally topical character. So in Mithlo’s narratives it is almost always the main character who is fourth-person-tracked at some point in the narrative in five of them, this is Child of the Water. It is only in Mithlo’s “Coyote Obtains Fire” that a secondary character is fourth-person-tracked—the flies from whom Coyote steals the fire are fourth-person-tracked when they oppose Coyote and again when they curse him for his theft. When their curse takes effect, they receive no further mention and Coyote, the main character, is fourth-person-tracked. But though Kenoi’s eight Coyote stories are similar in genre to Mithlo’s narratives which are ‘in-the-beginning’ narratives, the main character, Coyote, is never fourth-person-tracked; nor, in Kenoi’s mountain spirit narratives, are the mountain spirits whether the supernatural ones or the Indian dancers. In his seven Foolish People narratives, the Foolish People are fourth-person-tracked in only one episode when a Mescalero demonstrates to the Foolish People how coffee should be roasted and ground in “The Foolish People Acquire Coffee”. 44 In seeking to generalise the uses of the fourth person and for different reasons from those presented here, Jelinek has called the fourth person the ‘non-first- second-third person’: “In Navajo, it always seems to work to translate a fourth person form as ‘that person’. The idea is that the fourth person is NOT any of the other pronouns. Perhaps we might call the fourth person the ‘non-first-second-third-person’…” Jelinek 1995:3. The use of fourth person to avoid the use of first and second person is found among the ‘polite’ usages; polite usages of Navajo fourth person illustrating the avoidance of first, second, and third person are: ajoołháásh laanaa 4.sleep. OPT wishfully ‘I want to sleep’ lit. ‘that person wants to sleep’ Willie 1991:120 ajoołháásh laanaa nínízin-ísh 4.sleep. OPT wishfully 2.think-Q ‘do you wish to go to sleep?’ Willie 1991:121 ajoołháásh lágo 4.sleep. OPT NEG ‘don’t let him go to sleep’ Willie 1991:120 In Mithlo and Kenoi’s narratives polite usages of the fourth person have only been found in quotes. In two of Kenoi’s three ‘at-night’ narratives, it is the main character who is fourth-person-tracked. The man and the woman, who play the shaman’s part in “The False Shaman” and “The Woman Shaman” respectively, are the main characters in these and are fourth-person-tracked throughout. In both these narratives, the Indians also as a group are fourth-person-tracked at certain points in “The Woman Shaman”, throughout. In “The Woman Shaman” there is a third-person-coded participant only in the last third of the narrative the enemy soldiers who creep up on the windbreak inside which the Indians are sitting. The third narrative “The Apache and the Comanche” is told from the Apache’s point of view and the Apache must be considered the main characters, third-person-coded initially until one of their number is singled out and is fourth-person-tracked. In the last third of the narrative, the Apache group are fourth-person-tracked. The conclusion is that a referential fourth-person-coded participant is not intrinsically more or less topical than a third-person-coded participant, whether it be the fourth person coding of a participant in fourth person tracking section 3 or in post-quotatives sections 4 and 5. Non-referential usages of the fourth person are to some degree ‘impersonal’ section 6.

7.2.2 Avoidance of the obviation system