Adverbial and Argument-Doubling Clauses in Cree - MSpace

(27)- niwâpamhak1!
1 -sec. TA-inv-3 p
'They see me.'
Examples (26) and (27) dem onstrate that a& p osition is not related t O subject or
object roles. The first person marker ni- precedes the verb stem in both instances, and the
third person plural marker -wuk always occurs at the end of the verb. These prefixes and
suffixes, shown in boldface type, simply indicate the participants invoived in the event.
The direction marker, which has been underlined in the above examples, is either direct 4-
as in (26), or inverse -ik(*-
as in (27), and serves to link these participants to the
argument roles. based upon the person hierarchy. Thus, in (26), because the verb is direct,
we know that a participant higher on the animacy hierarchy aas upon a participant who is
lower on the hierarchy. In this example, the first person participant acts upon the third
person. Conversely, in (27), the verb is in the inverse form, which tells us that a lower
participant acts upon a higher one. Thus, in this sentence, the third person is the subject,
and the first person is the object.
In examples (28) and (29) below, we can see the direct and inverse forms of a verb
when both participants are third person. Here, we see how obviation roles play out in the
animacy hierarchy. Obviation is obligatory when more than one third person occurs in a
clause, and tiinctions to disambiguate the two third persons. One participant is proximate,
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The full form of the inverse marker is -ihw-. The morpheme-by-morpheme gloss of the ver&
niwipamiAwak would be:
ni-wdjmn-i&-wn-k
1 -(TA)-inv-3-pl
'1 see them'.