Lexicography and Ojibwa Vowel Deletion

Because I have done most of my field work in Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwa, I will, for the most part, restrict my comments to the Ottawa forms. Nonetheless there are Algonquin forms which, on a comparative basis, appear to have the same sorts of problems that appear in the Ottawa forms, so my relative silence about Algonquin forms should not be taken as assent. Cf. no:nkom above. In all fairness, the casual speech form of no:nko has a short centralized vowel in the first syllable, but since the lexicographic norm is to represent citation forms, casual forms should only be provided with the appropriate annotation. Moreover, both the loss of length and the centralization of o after apicals are general properties of Ottawa casual speech; no form should be listed displaying these characteristics as though they were unique to that form. In Ottawa, but not in all dialects, the word nissitam is a negative polarity item, heard only in a few limited expressions like: 'Ka: ko nissitam ki:-i§i-iya:ssi:.' 'He was crushed.' CJL/RCL 30(4), 1985 461 dele ted u n d e r ce r t a in c i r c u m s t a n c e s . I will t a k e u p these t w o issues in a b s t r a c t n e s s separa te ly . C e r t a i n p a t t e r n s of a l l omorphy in n o u n s a n d o t h e r n o n verbs a re r e p r e s e n t e d by P i g g o t t a n d Grafs te in w i t h a b s t r a c t final ys a n d ws. Whi l e t h e r e is some m o t i v a t i o n for some of t h e ws, t h e ys a re comple te ly a b s t r a c t . U n d e r P i g g o t t ' s a p proach t o Oj ibwa phono logy (P iggo t t 1980) , t hese glides gene ra t e t h e p r o p e r surface inflectional forms. For e x a m p l e , consider s t e m s like assapy, ' n e t ' a n d mittikw, ' t r e e ' . T h e surface forms a re / s a p / a n d / m t i k / , respect ively, in O t t a w a . T h e i r p lura ls a re / s a b i : k / a n d / m t i g o : k / , t he i r obvia t ives / s a b i : n / a n d / m t i g o : n / , a n d the i r locat ives / sabhr j / a n d / m t i g o n / . Unfor tuna te ly , P i g g o t t a n d Grafs te in ' s ind ica t ion t h a t t h e s e glides are a b s t r a c t does n o t reflect t h e var ie ty of a l l omorphs t h a t t he se glides r ep re sen t . W h i l e t h e a r g u m e n t s a b o u t a b s t r ac tness in phono logy con t inue unreso lved a n d u n a b a t e d , t h e choice t o r ep resen t forms a b s t r a c t l y genera l ly ob l iga tes a n a u thor t o p rov ide a set of ins t ruc t ions for d e t e r m i n i n g w h a t t h e ac tua l p r o n u n c i a t i o n of any fo rm is, a n d th is ob l iga t ion is all t h e m o r e i n c u m b e n t on t h o s e a u t h o r s w h o are p resen t ing pr i m a r y d a t a in an a theo re t i ca l c o n t e x t . P i g g o t t a n d Grafs te in have p rov ided a c o m m e n t t o t h e effect t h a t the i r forms a r e a b s t r a c t , b u t have failed t o p rov ide a d e q u a t e ins t ruc t ions for i n t e rp re t ing t he se a b s t r a c t forms . T h e y c a n n o t b e excused for this failure b y a n a p p e a l t o c o m m o n sense or genera l a cqua in t a n c e w i t h t h e pr inc ip les of t r a n s c r i p t i o n of l inguist ic forms; t h e pr inciples involved a re ne i t he r s t r a igh t fo rward nor widely known ou t s ide t h e circle of A l g o n q u i a n l inguis ts . In o rde r t o i n t e rp re t t h e m e a n i n g of w h a t P i g g o t t a n d Grafs te in w r i t e as a final gl ide, o n e m u s t know a b o u t such t h i n g s as t h e i m p o r t a n t d i s t inc t ion in A lgonqu ian phono logy be tween long a n d sho r t words 1 3 t o know t h a t a post -vocal ic glide is r e t a ined in sho r t words b u t n o t in long words . A t t h e s a m e t ime , p o s t c o n s o n a n t a l y is vocal ized in words (not s t ems) of one syl lable in P i g g o t t a n d Gra f s t e in ' s r e p r e s e n t a t i o n , whi le all o the r word final glides a re lost . In add i t i on , P i g g o t t a n d Grafs te in ' s p o s t c o n s o n a n t a l w, wh ich is i n t ended t o give info rmat ion a b o u t inflectional a l lomorphy , does no t d i s t inguish be tween t h e two classes of a n i m a t e n o u n s , one of which h a s alShort words are those which contain one or two short vowels. All other words are long.