Cree (Algic)

Mismatch 1: morphosyntax: missing object

Mismatch 2: morphosyntax: pseudo-object

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Cree has four verb classes, correlated with transitivity and with the gender of the arguments. Cree has a two-gender system, animate versus inanimate. (In spite of the names, gender is not wholly semantic, but may be lexically specified; Wolfart (1973: 22) writes '...only a list can account for the gender of Cree nouns.)

II	inanimate intransitive:	subject is an inanimate noun (necessarily 3rd person)
AI	animate intransitive:	subject is an animate noun
TI	transitive inanimate:	object is an inanimate noun
TA	transitive animate:	object is an animate noun

The first three classes mark person (including obviation) and number of the subject, while the TA paradigm marks these values for both subject and object. In general, verb roots are transitive or intransitive, and have paired forms that alternating according to animacy:

	inanimate	animate
intransitive	mihkwa:w (II) 'it is red'	mihkosiw (AI) 'he is red'
transitive	pakamaham (TI) 'he strikes it'	pakamahwe:w (TA) 'he strikes him'

(Wolfart 1996: 402)

The relationship between the inanimate and animate members of each verbal pair is derivational, the two typically having different suffixes.

Mismatch 1
There is a class of verbs which is syntactically transtive, in as much as they can take overt third person objects, but morphologically pattern with the animate intransitives (AI); Bloomfield (1946) calls these 'pseudo-transitive'. For example, the verb 'give out' occurs both with inanimate and animate objects. However, this does not correlate with the expected alternation between TI (transitive inanimate) and TA (transitive animate). Rather, the verb remains in the AI class regardless:

inanmate object				animate object
mi:na	pa:kisikan	me:ki-w		ta:pwe:	me:ki-w	pe:yak	misatimwa:
also	gun(INAN)	give.out-3SG.PROX		truly	give.out-3SG.PROX	one	horse(AN)
'he also gave out a gun…'				'Truly he gave out one horse;'

(Wolfart 1996: 403)

Note that some varieties of Ojibwa have a corresponding class of verbs which bear additional suffixes that distinguish between inanimate and animate objects (Anderson 1991: 11); as with Cree, these verbs take only 3rd person objects:

inanmate object		animate object
w-miigwe-n		w-miigwe-nan
3-give.away-INAN		3-give.away-AN
's/he gives it/them away'		's/he gives him away'

(Valentine 2001: 244)

This indicates that, at least from a larger Algoniquian perspective, these verbs are indeed syntactically transitive.

Mismatch 2
Conversely, there is a class of verbs which morphologically belong to the transitive inanimate class (TI), but syntactically are intransitive, in as much as they cannot take an overt object, e.g.:

e:kosi	ma:h-amwak
thus	canoe.downriver-3PL.PROX
'he also gave out a gun…'

(Wolfart 1996: 403)

Bloomfield (1958) calls this type in Algonquian 'pseudo-intransitive'.

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References

Anderson, Stephen R. 1991. Syntactically arbitrary inflectional morphology. In Geerd Booij and Jaap van Marle (eds) Yearbook of Morphology 1991.5-19.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1946. Algonquian. In: Harry Hoijer et al. (eds) Linguistic structures of Native America (Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology 6). New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation. 85-129.

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1958. Eastern Ojibwa: grammatical sketch, texts, and word list. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Valentine, J. Randolph. 2001. Nishnaabemwin reference grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Wolfart, H. Christoph. 1996. Sketch of Cree, an Algonquian language. In: Ives Goddard (ed.) Handbook of North American Indians (vol. 17: Languages). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.