"No Ojibwe owns a skunk"

[stoutfellow]

Courtesy of English, Jack, an amusing anecdote about Edward Sapir. I'm inclined to wonder whether Ojibwe distinguishes alienable from inalienable possession, and if so which of the two Sapir was trying to use?

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell (e.g. see here (http://www.first-ojibwe.net/translations/weshki-ayaad/gram_notes.html#possessive)), it does not, but the possessive is apparently mandatory with certain inalienables, such as kinship terms. This is similar to Osage, where (again, AFAIK) kinship terms can never appear without possessive prefixes.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I figured you'd either know or be able to come up with the answer, and provide interesting details as well. ("Never do for yourself what you can get an expert to do for you.")

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It's a sorry state of affairs when an amateur like me is your "expert"!

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Well, seeing as I haven't seen Marc Okrand in thirty years... ('Sides, he was IIRC more involved with California Indian languages.)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

That was a singularly stupid comment I just made. What I meant was more along the lines of, "You're at hand, and you're good enough." Sorry.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Aargh. Just ignore me, OK?

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Sorry you're still sick!

I'm still trying to get my head around why this particular example was used...it reminds me of some of the useless phrases in some older, lower-level grammar books, a la "Where are the black cats?"

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

At a guess, it had to do with the phonetic shape of the word for "skunk"; it sounds like Sapir had a conjecture concerning the way Ojibwe phonemes change in particular contexts, and that word seemed like a good test case.

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Ah. Makes sense. Not as absurd, however.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Whorf! Whorf!