Lesson6

Gekinawaabid 6A

Verbs Animate Intransitive (VAI1)

A. INTRODUCTORY NOTES:

We will first work with VAI Verbs. There are basically three variants of the this kind of Verb. The first variant we will call VAI - 1 Verbs, or VAI1. All of these end in a vowel in the Third Person-Singular Conjugation. What does that mean?

If you recall in your English classes (or not), you learned that Verbs can change (Inflect or Conjugate) depending on who is speaking. For example, I say, "I sleep." If I am speaking about my brother, I say, "He sleeps." So in English here, we see a very subtle change in the Verb - an "s" is added to it to reflect the different speaker. Well, in Ojibwemowin Verbs are "conjugated" as well. Boy, are they! Let's take a look at this using the Ojibwe Verb "to sleep" = nibaa.

Nibaa - "to sleep" Conjugation
Speaker	Verb + Ending	English
I	ninibaa	I sleep.
you	ginibaa	You sleep.
s/he	nibaa	S/he sleeps.
we(exclu)	ninibaamin	We sleep.
we (incl)	ginibaamin	We sleep.
you all	ginibaam	You all sleep.
they	nibaawag	They sleep.

First, you are asking yourself, "Why are there two we's?" The Anishinaabeg are very atuned to others, therefore, the language embraces that by recognizing the other people around them. In the case of "we," we must make a distinction between "we Exclusive" meaning "all of us without you," and "we Inclusive," meaning "all of us and you."

Next, you are probably asking yourself also about the Prefixes that are added to the front of some of the Verbs and the Suffixes added to the ending of some of the Verbs. First, the Prefixes:

Personal Pronouns
Speaker	Pronoun Used	Words Begin With...	Example
I	ni-	ch, k, m, n, p, w	ninibaa
I	(n)in-	d, j, g, z, zh	nindagoshin
I	(n)im-	b	nimbakade
I	(n)ind-	all vowels	nindanokii
you	gi-	all consonants	gidagoshin
you	gid-	all vowels	gidanokii
s/he	o-	all consonants	owaabamaan
s/he	od-	all vowels	odamwaan
we (exclusive)	ni-	letters same as shown above	nimbakademin
we (inclusive)	gi-	letters same as shown above	gidoonjibaamin
you all	gi-	letters same as shown above	gidanokiim
they	o-	letters same as shown above	owaabamaawaan

Explanatory Notes:

All Personal Pronouns are attached to the Verb.
The Pronoun "o-" , or "od" is not ordinarily used with VAI Verbs. The Verb itself says "s/he does something," or "they do something."
Some of the "I" prefixes above have the initial "n" in ( ). In some regions the "n" is so subtle as to not be heard.

Verb Endings:

Now, you are probably asking yourself "Why do some of the Verbs have endings and some do not?" Well, just like in English, some Verbs only change in certain places. Look at the next chart: mawi = s/he cries; anokii = s/he works

Verbs that end in...	Person	Action taken...	Example...
Short vowels (a, i, o)	I, you	Drop ending vowel (a,i,o)	mawi: nimaw(i); gimaw(i)
Long vowels (aa, e, ii, oo)	I, you	Ending vowels remain	anokii: nindanokii; gidanokii
All vowel endings	s/he	All vowels remain	mawi; anokii
All vowel endings	we (ex & inc)	Add *-min* to the end	nimawimin; gidanokiimin
All vowel endings	you all	Add -m to the end	gimawim; gidanokiim
All vowel endings	they	*Add -wag* to the end**	mawiwag; anokiiwag

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