031 kát’é -go
ʔiⁿdaa -í ⁿdé
-í bił
4________________________________________________________________________________ Ssh 3.be.so
-
SUB
enemy -
REL
people -
REL
3.with |
| |
baaʔshdóóʔįį -
náʔa. |
| 3____________ O2b WHITE.MEN
3:
INDEF
:4.give.to -
NARR
| |
| In that way he gave things to the white men and the
| 3________
COORD
________ Psbi INDIANS Indians.
| |
| WITH
The fourth person coding of Child of the Water in this passage is more than ‘frequently occurring’, and, apart from clause 020, only occurs when there is NP-coding of Child of the Water.
Indians and white men are also fourth-person-coded in this narrative. This coding runs like a counterpoint to the fourth person coding of Child of the Water and it is suspended in certain clauses for the same reason—for disambiguation, between Indians and white men or men and
women in earlier clauses. There can be two fourth person pronominals in the same clause referring the one to Child of the Water, and the other to people—Indians and white men together.
Concurrent fourth person tracking of two entities is also found in some of Kenoi’s narratives see section 3.7.
3.3.2 By reason of redefinition
In Kenoi’s “Coyote Marries His Own Daughter”, the daughter is fourth-person-coded for several clauses when she has become his wife. But when she is about to make her discovery that Coyote is in fact her father, there is one clause in which the fourth person coding is suspended:
nágo ʔá-ń jeekęʔ-ń ʔáyinzį́-náʔa ‘then that girl thinks that girl has a thought’, and, as Coyote is sleeping, she looks for the wart on the side of his head
which would betray him. Now that she is beginning to realise her anomalous situation, the narrator seems to wish to redefine her status, not daughter or wife, but ‘that girl’.
22
3.3.3 Exceptional suspensions
NP-coding then of a fourth-person-tracked participant occurs most commonly when an NP is used to remove ambiguity section 3.3.1. There are only about four exceptions,
23
in addition to that described in section 3.3.2, in which a fourth-person-tracked participant is third-person-coded in the next clause but is not coindexed with an NP. These are all like suspensions of fourth person tracking in that the fourth person tracking is
taken up again, usually in the immediately following clause.
22
This clause containing an NP occurs at the beginning of a new paragraph.
23
There would be another exception in “The Killing of the Eagles” if Hoijer is right that the eagle children reach out towards Child of the Water after their father throws him to them 29, and not vice versa. But the reaching-out verb denotes movement of hands, not heads. Also, if it is the children who reach out, then
fourth person subject pronominals ji- change in reference from the children back to Child of the Water in the next sentence. It seems more likely that fourth person tracking of Child of the Water continues from the beginning of the narrative right through to this point apart from when he is thrown to the children.
For example, in Mithlo’s narrative “The Killing of the Eagles”, Child of the Water, feigning dead, is thrown to the eagle children. Child of the Water has been fourth-person-tracked in the preceding clauses. The verb of throwing refers to a stiff slender object and fourth person coding of
Child of the Water is replaced by third person coding in this clause, without an object NP coindexed with the pronominal: 29
ʔákoo bizhaa -í
naaheestá ̨ -
zhį hich’įįʔiyóółt’e -
náʔa then
3.offspring -
REL
3.pl.be.sitting.about -to
3:3:3.throw.toward -
NARR
he threw him y- yi- to them hi- bi- ‘then he eagle threw him over to his children where they are sitting about’
Evidently, a fourth person object pronominal having reference to humans or personified entities could not collocate with the verb stem -t’e used of throwing board-like objects so that the third person pronominal is substituted for the fourth. A Navajo example of the cognate verb stem used
in a similar situation occurs in Speas 1990:211: a live kitten is dropped from a tree.
24
No reason has been identified for the other exceptions.
3.4 Identifying fourth-person-coded referents
