Consonants

The consonants are four resonants and thirteen obstruents. The resonant nasals are labial /m/ and alveolar /n/. The resonant glides are labio-velar /w/ and palatal /y/. Western Ojibwa has the glottal stop /ʔ/, not /h/.^[15]

According to Logan (2001), lenis consonants are voiced between vowels (i.e., V_V) and between nasals and vowels (i.e., N_V). Fortis consonants are sometimes either preaspirated, preglottalized, or extended.^[17]

Vowels

The vowels are divided into three short vowels and four long vowels.^[18]

Western Ojibwa is non-syncopating which means that weak vowels are not deleted according to metrical position.^[20]

Short vowels are treated different in the Ojibwa dialects. In Saulteaux, tensing does not occur with initial short vowels. They also do not shift to /a/.^[20]

Nasal vowels are becoming denasalized; however, vowels may be nasalized before a nasal followed by a sibilant, i.e. in the phonotactically permissible sequences /ns/, /nz/, and /nzh/.^[20]

After a long vowel and before s or ʃ, /n/ is not pronounced the same as elsewhere, instead the preceding vowel is given a nasalized sound.^[20]

Other phonological properties of Western Ojibwa

Valentine (1994) found the following phonological properties of Western Ojibwa:^[7]

• t-Epenthesis: a /t/ is inserted between the personal prefix and the vowel when a stem is vowel-initial. This is marked by (t) in texts. For example, ni(t)-anohkî 'I work'.
• y-Epenthesis: a /y/ can be inserted between two long vowels to maintain the phonotactic constraint that vowels do not occur next to each other in Saulteaux. When reduplication occurs on a vowel-initial root a /y/ is inserted. This is marked by (y) in texts. Preroots ending in vowels that come before vowel-initial roots also receive this epenthesis. For example, ni-kî(y)-ayâmin 'we had it, we were there' and a(y)-api '(s)he sits for a long time'.
• Glide elision: If a word that ends with a /w/ has no suffixation, then the /w/ will be elided. The glides (w,y) are optionally elided in many cases, especially in casual speech. The negative particle kâwin usually occurs without the /w/ in casual speech.
• Nasal assimilation: The nasals will assimilate to the following consonant of a cluster. So:
  • /n/ → [m] / __p : /n/ is realized as labial nasal [m] when it occurs before a labial stop /p/
  • /n/ → [ŋ] / __k : /n/ is realized as velar nasal [ŋ] when it occurs before a velar stop /k/.
  • (nk, ng) → [ŋ] / __# : /n/ is realized as [ŋ] when it occurs at the end of the word.
• /ng/ simplified to the velar nasal [ŋ]: this is scattered among the Saulteaux communities – in general it is a southern phenomenon and most prevalent in the southeast.
• ʃ > s: limited to Saulteaux, where the palatal and dental fricatives are common in some communities. This is not just a process of one sound assimilating to the other but both are heard. The occurrence of sibilants on the prairies is possibly coming from Plains Cree, which has only /s/.
• s > ʃ: this feature is restricted to Saulteaux, probably under the influence of Plains Cree which has no /ʃ/.
• /wa/ may be /o/ initially: this occurs in many Saulteaux communities; for example, the word for 'muskrat' may be variably represented as wazhashk or ozhashk.
• Quality of /aa/ is not realized with rounding like in some dialects.
• iwa-stems do not restructure to [ii].
• In some dialects, wiiwi > oo which is [u:] where /ii/ assimilates with the roundness of the w, and the resulting string is simplified to [u:]. This does not happen in Western Ojibwa.
• The quality of /oo/ in waabooz, 'rabbit' is [o].
• Nasal cluster simplification does not happen in this dialect.

Gender and animacy

There is no distinction between masculine and feminine – instead there is a distinction between items that are animate and those that are inanimate. The animate category includes all human beings and animals. Some items that are neither human nor animal are still considered animate—e.g., rock, pipe, raspberries, pants. Even across different Saulteaux dialects, 'strawberry' fluctuates in its animacy. This may be related to the practice of a "Strawberry Dance" by certain communities. The gender of an entity is important because for many morphemes, the language uses gender-specific morphology that distinguishes the animate from the inanimate.^[21]

Obviation

This is a topic strategy for showing prominence between third persons within a discourse environment. Within a predication one animate third person will be the proximate and any other animate third persons will be obligatorily designated as the obviative.^[23]

The suffix –an is the obviative marker:

Ojibwa verbs also mark whether the action is direct or inverse. In the first two examples the action takes place directly, where the proximate is acting upon the obviative. This direction can be inverted meaning that the verb marks when the obviative is acting on the proximate by using the inverse morpheme –ikô-:

So the –an morpheme is something entirely different from an accusative marker.^[25]

Person hierarchy

There is also a person hierarchy, as a result, showing the "preferred" person to use in Saulteaux discourse is the second person, followed by the first person, and finally the third person. The third person can show the proximate (the unmarked category), the obviative, the highly marked further obviative that is reserved for non-prominent third persons acting or being acted upon by the obviative.^[20]

Other morphological properties of Western Ojibwa

Valentine (1994) found the following morphological properties for Western Ojibwa:^[7]

• The suffix –ing is used as a locative
• -(n)s: most Ojibwa dialects form the diminutive by adding the suffix –Vns where V, the vowel, is realized as /e/ unless attached to a noun stem ending with a glide. When there is a glide, like j or w, the suffix takes on the backness and rounding features of the glide. For example, jiimaanens, 'small boat' (stem jiimaan), mitigoons, 'small tree' (mitigw), asabiins 'small net' (stem asaby).
• Saulteaux Ojibwa does not have a suffix for inanimate obviative
• Inanimate plural suffix is realized as –an
• There are a number of Saulteaux communities that use the suffix –an while others use the suffix –anini for obviative possessor of animate
• For animate obviative plural, many communities do not distinguish between singular and plural in the animate obviative.
• There is no final –ii in nouns with a Cy stem
• The demonstrative for animate singular proximal waha(we) is used. The reduced form awe is much more common.
• First person plural exclusive 'we' is niinawi(n)d
• Indefinite animate singular 'someone' is awi(i)ya. However, the Saulteaux speakers may say it in a plural context: either awiiyag (which is the plural form) or awiya.
• Gegoo is indefinite inanimate singular 'something'.
• Awenen is the animate singular interrogative pronoun 'who' used by the Manitoba Saulteaux speakers while awanen is used by the extreme west of Saulteaux.
• Aanapii is the interrogative particle 'when'.
• Aa(n)di is the interrogative particle 'where'.
• Aaniin is the interrogative particle 'how'.
• Ninoonde- seems to be outstripping niwii- as the voluntative preverb within the Saulteaux communities, especially speakers surveyed west of central Manitoba.
• A number of western Saulteaux communities use onji- as a negative past preverb. This is found common in areas adjacent to or bilingual with Cree, which uses the cognate ohci-.
• Northern Manitoba Saulteaux have e-gii- as a complementizer preverb while communities in the south have gii-.