On the Use of Fourth Person in Navajo, or Navajo Made Harder

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by  Akmajian Adrian, Anderson Stephen.

On the Use of Fourth Person in Navajo, or Navajo Made Harder
Author(s): Adrian Akmajian and Stephen Anderson
Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), pp. 1-8
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1264475
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InternationalJ ournal of American Linguistics
VOLUMEX XXVI January 1970 Number 1
ON THE USE OF FOURTH PERSON IN NAVAJO, OR NAVAJO MADE HARDER*
ADRIAN AKMAJIAN AND STEPHEN ANDERSON
MASSACHUSETTISN STITUTEO F TECHNOLOGY HARVARDU NIVERSITYA ND LANGUAGE
AND LANGUAGER ESEARCHF OUNDATION RESEARCHF OUNDATION
1. Introduction both contain fourth person subject markers
2. Historical survey (bold face), but sentence 2 is ungrammatical
3. The fourth person in pronominalization because the marker refers to /fi'/ horse, a
4. Person shift non-human:
5. The 'accusative-infinitive' (1) Jaan m0'ii dzistat
John kicked the coyote
1. In this paper,1 we will survey some of (2) *1l' mq'ii dziztal
the interactions among processes of pro- The horse kicked the coyote
nominalization in Navajo. In particular, we One immediate consequence of this is the
will discuss the inter-relations between the
observation that the fourth person prefixes
usual third person pronoun forms and the always refer to the FIRSTo f two preceding
so-called fourth person forms.2 We will not NPs, specifying its function as subject or
attempt to formulate rules precisely, but object depending on whether /ji/ (= /dzi/
will merely present the facts which must be in (1)) or /ho/ appears. In sentences like (3)
taken into account in any adequate formula- it is not clear whether 3rd person /yi/
tion.
specifies the second NP as object or the first
The fourth person has been largely ne- as subject; the reverse is true of the prefix
glected in the literature on Navajo, usually /bi/ in the sentences in (4):
being referred to as an impersonal form or (3) a. 166chl'i ma'ii yiztal
something of the sort. One fact which has The dog kicked the coyote
been mentioned is that the Noun Phrase
b. m c'ii t66ch4e'iy iztal
referred to by a fourth person pronoun must The coyote kicked the dog
be human.3 Thus, sentences (1) and (2) (4) a. 166ch44'im 4'ii biztal
* Irvy W. Goosen, Navaho made Easier, North- The coyote was kicked by the dog
land Press, Flagstaff (1967). b. mq'ii t66chq4'i biztat
1 We wish to express our gratitude to Kenneth The dog was kicked by the coyote
kHnaolew oaf bMouItT ,d owinhgo tfaieuldgh wt oursk ,w fhoart ehvies r gwueid amnacye Neither of these prefixes is specially re-
and encouragement as well as many valuable sug- stricted with regard to the NPs it can refer
gestions which have gone into this paper. We are to, and at present it is not possible to say
especially grateful to Mr. James Parrish, who anything more than that they specify the
shared his knowledge of Navajo with us, for his relationship of the two. The fourth person
mlemansy phroeuserns toefd inhseirgeh,t faunl dd itshcuuss sifoonr omna tkhien gp rtohbis- forms must refer to humans however, and
paper possible. The responsibility for errors lies since it is precisely when a human appears
entirely with the authors; however, each author in the first position of the two that they can
blames the other for any that may be found. be used, they clearly specify the syntactic
2 In Robert W. Young and William Morgan, function of this first NP.
TSahlet NLaakvae jCo itLya, nfgouuartghe , pDeressoerne fto rBmoos ka rCe ormefpearrneyd, Another use of the fourth person forms
to as 3a forms. (1967). which has been noted before is the possi-
8 In the context of myths, of course, this as well bility of referring either to an NP outside the
as most other bets are off. sentence, or to an unspecified NP. Thus, we
1
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2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS VOL. XXXVI
have sentences such as (5): tirely out of consideration. Parrish et al.4
(5) tin doo ji'aal da, hayi' 'iilwo' have discussed the conditions for pronom-
One doesn't eat ice because it runs down inalization in coordinate sentences, and pro-
one's throat posed some formal constraints on the struc-
Another use of the fourth person has been tures within which pronominalization can
pointed out by Hale (personal communica- occur. One such constraint is the following:
tion), and rests on the fact that the referent If two NPs appear in both of the conjoined
of the fourth person pronoun must be dif- clauses, they must appear in the same order
ferent from the referent of the third person. in both in order for pronominalization to
Due to the nature of Navajo relative clauses, apply.
the following sentence is ambiguous, since the The only cases considered by Parrish et al.
subject of the topmost S ('NP was sick') in the paper referred to above have exactly
is only identified as third person, and either 2 NPs in each conjunct. When additional
NP in the embedded S ('the girl' or 'the NPs are added, however, the situation be-
boy') can be third person: comes slightly more complex; in sentence
(6) 'ashkii 'at'66d yiyiiltsanQq bitah doo (9), for example, the first NP in the first
hats'iid da conjunct pronominalizes the first NP in the
The boy who saw the girl was sick second conjunct, but the second NP in the
or: second conjunct is pronominalized by the
The girl who the boy saw was sick LAST (in this case the third) NP in the first
In sentence (7), however, the subject of the clause:
topmost S is a third person, while the sub- (9) 'ashkii naaltsoos bikaa' adani yikai'
ject of the embedded S is a fourth person; dah yiz'4 aad66 yizhdl66zh
since these cannot be the same, it must be The boy put the book on the table and
the girl who is subject of 'is sick', and only the painted it (the table)
one reading is possible: Indeed, in most of the sentences elicited
(7) 'ashkii 'at'66d dziiltsanQ bitah doo from our informant, the second NP of three
hats'iid da in the first conjunct can only pronominalize
The girl who the boy saw was sick another NP in similar position. Thus, if the
To see that this is indeed true, we note the object painted in sentence (9) above were
ungrammaticality of sentence (8), in which the book, rather than the table, the sentence
the subject of the embedded S, 'the girl', would be restructured as in (10):
is marked as being fourth person. Since the (10) 'ashkii naaltsoos yizhdl66zh d66 bikaa'
subject of the highest S is third person, the adani yikaa' dah yiz'4
only possibility is 'the boy', but since this The boy painted the book and put it on
cannot be the subject of a verb such as 'to the table
give birth', the sentence is anomalous: The second condition proposed in Parrish
(8) *'at'66d 'ashkii dziiltsanc 'awe6' et al. was that the two NPs must be in
yishchi structurally isomorphic positions in the two
The boy who the girl saw gave birth to a conjuncts. The thrust of this point was that
baby if the two NPs are conjoined in the first
clause, but subject and object in the second
2. The facts concerning third-person pro- clause, pronominalization is impossible. How-
nominal forms have been more extensively ever, if the opposite is the case, and the NPs
discussed, particularly with regard to the
4James E. Parrish, Stephen R. Anderson,
distinction between obviative and proximate
Adrian Akmajian and Kenneth Hale, Remarks on
forms in simple sentences. Complex sen- Pronominalization and the Passive in Navajo,
tences, however, have been left almost en- mimeographed, M.I.T. (1968).
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NO. 1 USE OF FOURTH PERSON IN NAVAJO 3
are conjoined in the SECONDcl ause but sub- already been seen above in sentence (10);
ject and object in the first, the condition is here the actions are to be taken as truly co-
violated but pronominalization is possible ordinate, despite the fact that in English
anyway, as in (11): a temporal ordering would be imposed
(11) Jaan Bill yiztal fit'66 'ahoog44' (which in this case would be contrary to the
John kicked Bill and then they fought sense of the sentence).
Indeed, this is true even if there exists an-
other NP in the second clause in addition 3. Thus far we have attempted to briefly
to the conjoined ones. Thus, we have: review both what has been said about the
(12) Jaan Bill yiztat fit'6' Harry yil da fourth person in Navajo, as well as certain
ahoog44' recent ideas concerning pronominalization.
John kicked Bill and they both fought At this point we would like to focus our at-
with Harry tention specifically on a special role of the
The situation is in fact much worse, how- fourth person in pronominalization, a role
ever: further investigation of the sentences which has not been noticed before.
considered in Parrish et al. reveals that even As we have seen, in Parrish et al. pro-
conjoined NPs in the first clause do not nominalization is discussed in relation to
BLOCK the pronominalization of non-iso- coordinate structures, such as the follow-
morphic NPs in the second clause. They ing:
simply do not specify the pronominaliza-
tion relationships uniquely. Thus, in (13), (15) So
it is ambiguous whether John kicked Bill
S +- S2
or Bill kicked John:
(13) J6an d66 Bill 'ahig44 nft'6' yiztal
John and Bill were fighting
In cases such as these pronominalization is
kicked Bill
n(John operating on isomorphic structures at the
anBill kicked John
same level of embedding. What happens, we
One does not get such a sentence from a na- may ask, in complex sentences involving
tive speaker when one provides one or the structures which are at different levels of
other gloss; rather, sentences like (14) are embedding, such as the following:
provided, leading to the impression that
pronominalization is impossible as suggested
(16) So
in Parrish et al.:
(14) J&and 66 Bill 'ahoog44' ft'66' Jan Bill Si + S2
yiztal //\\ S3
John and Bill were fighting and John
kicked Bill
However, when a sentence like (13) is given Do structures such as (16) differ from ones
to the native speaker, his response is that the such as (15) with respect to pronominaliza-
sentence is grammatical, but that it is not tion processes? Specifically, if Si and S3 are
possible to determine which NP is the sub- structurally isomorphic in (16), will pro-
ject and which the object. If further in- nominalization operate just as it does in
vestigation should bear out this conclusion, (15) where S1 and S2 are structurally iso-
it would establish the fact that Navajo morphic?
conjoined elements are intrinsically un- To answer this question, let us first ex-
ordered, for the purposes of some syntactic amine a sentence with a structure such as
processes as well as semantic interpretation. that represented by (16):
Some hint of this semantic unorderedness has (17) Baa' Chii yizts'Qs it'66' Kii Baa' Chii
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v
4 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS VOL.X XXVI
nayidifits'in nizin we have the following case:
Bah kissed Chee but Kee thinks that she (19) Baa' Chii yizts's nit'e6'
hit him (Baa' Chii nayidiits'in nizin
We can represent the structure of this sen- Kii Baa' o nahodiilts'in nizin
tence as follows: KutBaa' nahodiilts'in nizin
Bah kissed Chee but Kee thinks that she
(18) So hit him
S1 nt'e' S2 Thus when both NPs are repeated the third
NP VP NP VP person marking on the verb is retained,
while when either NP is deleted we have the
Baa' / \ Kii S3 V appearance of the fourth person. A similar
NP I
I| / \ inizin example is found in (20):
Chii yizts'os NP VP (20) Bill Mary bighan g6ne' sidaa nit'66'
Baa' np V Jaan Bill Mary yizts'Qs ni\
Chii n6yidiilts'in \Bill 4 hazts'Qs ni
Bill was in Mary's house and John
Notice that in (17) the main verb of S3 is said that he (Bill) kissed her
marked for the third person (obviative) and When MARYh as been deleted the verb takes
pronominalization has not operated-in S3 the fourth person object marker (bold face).
we have the full repetitions of the NPs of A more complicated example is the follow-
S1. Since S1 and S3 are structurally iso- ing:
morphic and since their respective NPs are (21) Baa' Mary Bill yizts'Qs ni int'6e' Jaan
in the same relative order, we would expect nahodiiits'in ni nisin
that the occurrences of BAH and CHEE in S3 Bah said that Mary kissed Bill and I
could be deleted as part of normal pronomin- think that John said that she (Mary)
alization. And indeed such deletion can occur, hit him (Bill)
however, we notice that when the deletion So far we have seen the regular appearance of
does occur the third person marking in the fourth person object markers in the verb
verb becomes fourth person.5 For example, when deletion has occurred. We might now
ask about fourth person subject markers.
5 Notice that in sentence (19) it is an object We would expect a fourth person subject
marker rather than a subject marker which ap-
pears. This corresponds to the fact that it is the marker to appear if, in a structure such as
object rather than the subject which has been de- (18), the subjects of Si and S3 were identical
leted, but is inconsistent with our earlier state- while the objects of SI and S3 were not iden-
ment that it is the NP TWOc onstituents away from tical: the subject of S3 should delete under
the verb which is referred to by a fourth person identity and the verb should take the fourth
marker. This latter fact is demonstrated conclu-
sively by the nonambiguity of the fourth person person subject marker. That this is the case
reference in simple sentences: the informant does is shown by the following:
not find these particularly felicitous, but has no (22) Jaan Mary yizts'Qs fit'66' Bill '6i Baa'
trouble telling which NP is the subject and which dzizts'Qs haini
the object. In order to account for the facts of John kissed Mary but Bill said that he
sentences like (19), we must assume that the NPs
(John) kissed Bah
are permuted before pronominalization takes
place. If this is the case, however, the third form The second occurrence of JOHN has been
of sentence (19) (with both NPs deleted) will vio- deleted, and the subject marker appears as
late dramatically the condition of pronominaliza- expected.
tion in Parrish et al. that the NPs must appear in
Now that we have shown that the fourth
the same order. We have no explanation for this
phenomenon, which appears to be a characteristic person marking shows up in certain struc-
of the fourth person forms. tures, we should try to explain why it does
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NO. 1 USE OF FOURTH PERSON IN NAVAJO 5
in fact show up. What property do structures Mary saw Bill and I think that she
like that of (16) have which is lacking in spoke to him
structures such as (15)? To answer that, let We see that third person has been retained
us examine the following case: (bold face), and here we notice that the
(23) Mary Bill yiyiilts44 d66 Jaan hach'j' first person pronoun has been deleted (that is,
haadzii' nizin the first person subject of /nisin/). However,
Mary saw Bill and John thinks that she the first person pronoun is in fact optional in
spoke to him (Bill) this case, but even if it is present the third
person marking is retained. Since there would
(24) So be no possibility of ambiguity of antecedent
Si d66 S2 -a FIRSTp erson subject of /nisin/ interced-
ing between the antecedents and third per-
NPi VP NP3 VP son verb-the fourth person does not show
Mary / V Jaan up. A similar example is the following:
NP2 V /3 V
Bl (26) Jaan Mary bichidi yaa nayiisnii' nt'e6'
Bill yiyiilts44 (NP/ )4 %V P niziin t'66 lq'i bich'i' nazhnila nisin
John bought Mary's car and I think he
(Mary) (NP)5 paid her too much
(Bill) hach'i' haadzii' (27) Jaan Mary bichidi yaa nayiisnii' fit'6'
Bill 'ei t'V661' i hach'i' nazhnila nizin
In this structure, NP4 and NP5 have been John bought Mary's car and Bill thinks
deleted, and the fourth person again shows that he paid her too much
up (bold face). Notice that as opposed to The contrast here is completely analogous to
structures such as (15), the above structure that between (23) and (25). In (26) the
has a noun phrase which intercedes between third person has been retained, while in
the antecedent NPs and the pronominalized (27) we have the usual shift to fourth per-
(deleted) NPs. That is, NP3 occurs as an son.
'extra' noun phrase between Si and S3. Notice that even if we have structures at
Clearly with NP4 and NP5 deleted there is different levels of embedding, the third per-
nothing to prevent the interpretation of NP3 son will be retained as long as there is no
as subject of the verb of S3, if that verb is ambiguity in determining antecedents. Thus,
marked with third person. It is precisely in take the following sentence:
such cases that the verb marking changes to (28) Jaan Bill Mary yizts'Qs nizin nit'66'
fourth person, and we claim that the fourth t'66 nayidiits'in
person marking functions to refer back to John thought Bill kissed Mary but in-
NP1 and NP2 when there is the possibility stead he (Bill) hit her
of ambiguity due to a noun phrase which This has a structure which is roughly as
intercedes, such as NP3. In other words, follows:
the fourth person in Navajo functions to
KEEP TRACK of the antecedents in a pro- (29) So
nominalization relation in case of possible
S1 + S3
ambiguity in determining those antecedents.
If no ambiguity arises, i.e., if no NP inter- S2
cedes, we would expect the third person to
be retained. This is just what we find in the Since S2 and 83 are adjacent and no NP in-
following sentence: tervenes, the third person marking is re-
(25) Mary Bill yiyiilts44 d66 yich'i' haadzii' tained.
nisin In sentences (30) and (31) below, we see
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6 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS VOL. XXXVI
another minimal contrast: in sentence (30), humanness in this form of pronominaliza-
the complement is in the third person (/yi/) tion, the sentences are perfectly acceptable:
and thus indicates that the preceding NP (35) Jaan mq'ii dib6 yishxash nizin fit'66'
(/Baah/) is part of the complement. Sentence t'66 baa diilwod la
(31), however, differs only in that the com- John thinks that the coyote bit the sheep,
plement is in the fourth person, thus the but it only chased it
preceding NP is not part of the complement Similarly, if only one of the NPs is non-
and is read as the subject of the verb 'thinks': human, the human NP will be obligatorily
(30) Bill Jaan Mary yizts'Qs nizin d66 Baa' preposed by the passive rule at which point
nayidiilts'in nizin fourth person pronominalization can apply
Bill thinks that John kissed Mary and as freely as in the cases with two human
that he hit Baah. NPs:
(31) Bill Jaan Mary yizts'Qs nizin d66 Baa' (36) a. Jaan 1.' yizta fit'66' Bill '6i Jaan
nahodifits'in nizin 1i' biztal halni
Bill thinks that John kissed Mary and b. Jaan 1I' yizta fit'66' Bill '6i (if')
Baah thinks that he hit her (Mary) haztal ni
In sentences (32) and (33) below, we see that John kicked the horse, but Bill said
if the passive has applied (converting /yi/ to that it kicked him (John)
/bi/ in the complement of the second clause), (37) Jaan 166ch4'i yiztal ft'66' Bill '6i
it is possible to pronominalize both NPs ma'ii dziztal ni
without causing a shift to fourth person. We John kicked the dog but Bill said that he
have no explanation for this phenomenon: (John) kicked a coyote
(32) Jaan Mary n&yidffits'inf it'66'
Bill haztall hani 4. Another process which interacts with
\biztal J the rules for pronominalization is the phe-
John hit Mary and Bill said that she nomenon of systematic shift of person in the
kicked him (John) complements of certain verbs. As Akmajian6
(33) Jaan Mary nayidiilts'in fit'66' points out, the person references in comple-
Bill fdziztat halni ments of verbs like know, think, say, believe,
*yiztalJ etc. are shifted to first or second if they are
John hit Mary and Bill said that he (J) identical with the subject or the person ad-
kicked her too dressed, respectively, and into third person
It was noted above that the fourth person if they do not equal one of these two. Thus,
forms must normally apply to humans; in in a sentence like (38), the complement is in
sentence (34) below we see that in the kind the first person because the person who likes
of structure discussed here pronominaliza- John is the subject of the verb of saying:
tion is impossible if both of the NPs are non- (38) Mary Jaan 'ay6i 'Aniinish'niy ihli
human: Mary told John that she likes him (lit.:
(34) a. 166cha'i dib6 yishxash d66 Jaan Mary told John, "I like you")
166ch~'i dib6 baa diilwod ni This process takes place in more complex
b. *166ch6f'i dib6 yishxash d66 JAan sentences as well, of course:
baa jidiilwod ni (39) Mary Jaan nayidilfts'in d66 Baa' Bill
The dog bit the sheep and John said nis6tal yilni
that it chased it too Mary hit John and Baah told Bill that
If no other NP intervenes between the she (Baah) kicked him
two clauses, however, the conditions for the (40) Mary Jaan yiztat d66 Baa' Bill ni
shift to fourth person are not met, and nor- 'aid6' nidziztal yilni
mal third person pronominalization is pos- 6 Adrian Akmajian, A Note on Person Shift in
sible. Since there are no restrictions on Navajo, unpublished paper, M.I.T. (1968).
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NO. 1 USE OF FOURTH PERSON IN NAVAJO 7
Mary kicked John and Baah told Bill because of the intervening NPa. The PRO
that she (Mary) kicked him (Bill) too object of /ni/ also becomes fourth person,
Similarly, if a noun phrase is first or second which would appear to lead to ambiguity,
person in its first appearance, it may become since it seems to identify this object with the
third person from the point of view of the other fourth person forms in S4. No such
second clause, and thus subject to shift into reading is possible, however, since as we have
fourth person, as in sentence (41): just seen, if that were the case they would
(41) Jaan '6i shima nineez ni fit'66' shi have become second person as in sentence
'6i doo dzineez da nisin (43). The resultant sentence (42) is thus un-
John says that his mother is tall but I ambiguous.
think she isn't
5. The above sentences illustrate the use
As a final example of this construction let
us consider sentences (42) and (43) below: of the fourth person pronominal forms as a
(42) Jaan be'esdz44 'ay6i y6'ni it'W6' Bill device to disambiguate complex sentence
hatsi' 'ay6i 'aj6'ni ha}ni constructions. Some such device is necessary
John loves his wife but Bill told someone in any language where pronominalization
that he (John) loves his (John's) consists in the deletion of the repeated NP,
as in Navajo, rather than in the substitution
daughter
(43) Jaan be'esdz44 'ayoi y6'ni fit'66' Bill of a special pro-form, as in English. Another
'6i nitsi' 'ayi 'iini' hani circumstance in which Navajo uses the
John loves his wife but Bill told him that fourth person forms is not entirely explicable
he (John) loves his (John's) daughter on such a basis, however; it corresponds ap-
These sentences differ not in the indirect proximately to the accusative-infinitive con-
object of SAY, as in English, but rather in struction in Latin, etc. and to certain cases
the person of the NPs in the complement. of It-replacement7 in English. Consider the
Both sentences come from approximately two sentences in (45):
this structure: (45) a. Jaan Bill Baa' yizts'Qsgo yiyiilts4
b. Jaan Bill Baa' yizts'Qsgo hwiilts4
(44) Si John saw Bill kiss Baah
S2 iit'66 S3 Notice that while the object of to see is
marked as third person in sentence (45a),
NPi VP NP3 VP
sentence (45b) has the same meaning and
Jaan N2 V Bill NP marks the object as fourth person. Let us
Be'esdz44 S4 JtRfSOia n bihli assume that the structure of this sentence is
'ay6f y6'ni approximately as in (46):
NPs VP
Jaan NP6 V (46) S1
bitsi' 'ayoi y6'ni NP1 VP
The object of /ni/ is either JOHN or PRO. If
Jaan NP2 V
it is JOHN (as in sentence (43)), this causes
SYSTEMATIC PERSON SHIFT to convert NP5 S2 yiyiilts4
and the possessive marker on NP6 to second I /
person. Now JOHNc an be pronominalized by NP3 VP2
NP1, but because of the intervention of NP3
becomes fourth person. If the object of Bill NP4 V
/ni/ in (44) is PRO however, as in sentence I I
(42), PERSON SHIFT does not apply and both Baa' yizts'gsgo
NP5 and the possessive in NP6 are pro- 7 J. R. Ross, Universal Constraints in Syntax,
nominalized by NP1, becoming fourth person unpublished doctoral thesis, M.I.T. (1967).
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8 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS VOL. XXXVI
The object of 'to see' in this construction is This does not, of course, change the form of
a sentence, which is certainly not a human, the fourth person marker in the sentence.
and hence cannot be fourth person. Thus That the analysis above is at least approxi-
sentence (45a) is what one would expect. In mately correct is demonstrated by the fact
order to get sentence (45b), however, it is that the accusative-infinitive construction is
necessary to provide 'see' with a human ob- not possible if the NPs in the complement are
ject. We propose that in structures like (46) not human. Thus, consider sentence (49):
there is a rule which simplifies the structure (49) Jaan t6 tsin dah yidii'6ei1goy iyiilts4
(optionally in at least some cases) by con- John saw the water wash away the tree
necting NP3 and VP2 directly to VPi, delet- Note that in this case, where there are no
ing the nodes NP2 and S2 and yielding (47): human NP to function as object, the third
person form is used only. The fourth person
(4: 7) S1 is impossible here. In the same sentence, if
there is a possible human object, however,
NP1 VP1
the fourth person is marked on 'see':
(50) Jaan Bill t6 hool'olgo hwiiits4
Jaan NP3 V1
I Il John saw the water wash away Bill
Bill VP2 hwiilts An object which is raised by accusative-
infinitive need not be separated from the
NP4 V2 verb by another NP to cause that verb to
- 1 l l1- be marked for a fourth person object; con-
Baa' yizts'gsgo sider sentence (51):
Now NP3 is in position to become the fourth (51) Baa' Jfan yilwolgo hwiiltsa
person object of V1 as in sentence (45b). We Baah saw John running
will refer to the rule which converts (46) In this case the constituent intervening is
to (47) as the ACCUSATIVE-INFINITIVE rule. the VP RUNNINGr ather than another NP.
After the application of ACCUSATIVE- We have no explanation for this fact.
INFINITIVE it is still possible to apply the We have surveyed here some of the uses
rule which interchanges subject and object of the fourth person forms in Navajo, es-
NPs in fourth person sentences (which may pecially in connection with their interaction
or may not be identical) with the regular with normal third person processes of pro-
passive. Thus, consider sentence (48) below: nominalization. Much work remains to be
(48) a. Jaan Bill bighandi niya fit'66' Bill done before a definitive formulation of the
Baa' yizts'Qsgo yiyiilts4 rules for pronominalization in Navajo (or in
b. Jaan Bill bighandi nlya nit'66' Bill any other language, for that matter) can be
Baa' yizts'Qsgo (Jaan) hwiilts4 attempted, but the facts presented here will
John went to Bill's house and saw form, we feel, a central part of any such ac-
him kiss Baah
count.
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