Rankin Vindicated: Suddenly and Repeatedly

[Koontz John E]

Bob Rankin suggested:
> Not to muddy the waters, but Muskogean languages have an infix "grade"
> for what has often been described as "sudden action," "punctual,"
> "momentaneous" etc.  It turns out it can combine with a continuative
> aspectual infix and when it does, it generally forms an iterative.

> So, can the Omaha-Ponca (OP) affixes be used with either reduplication
> or the positional (i.e., continuative) auxiliaries, and if so, does the
> resultant form clarify for us what, exactly, John's affixes/categories
> "really" are, i.e., is this a possible "test"?

First, most of the suddenly auxiliaries contain a positional component,
anyway, e.g., thi=he consists of thi 'to arrive here' and he 'to be supine
or otherwise horizontally extended'.  This has a vertitive variant
gdhi=he.  And, at least potentially the thi can be replaced by any other
simple or vertitive motion verb, and the he can be replaced by dhaN 'be
round' or the 'be upright or otherwise vertically extended'.  The is also
used for moments in time - a series of the-times makes a he-time, or at
least so I suspect from the behavior of the and khe as articles.  In
keeping with the tendency of Dhegiha to treat motion as a position, the
positional can also be dhe, which seems to mean 'to be moving' in this
context (it is also the verb 'to go there').  There are some suddenly
verbs that don't fit this pattern.  

Second, I had forgotten, but the positional components can be
reduplicated.  In this case the auxiliaries are translated by Dorsey as
'suddenly' or 'repeatedly' or 'suddenly and repeatedly'.  I hadn't really
noticed this until Bob started prodding, though I had noticed the
reduplications.  By the way, when dhe reduplicates it becomes dhadha, not
*dhedhe.  This is pretty much normal, cf. gase 'to cut with a blow', but
sasa 'cut'.  That is reduplicated e-final stems, at least monosyllabic
ones, change e to a.  One of the ablaut rules in Dhegiha.  

Anyway, some examples:  

1) thi=he' 'to arrive here + be horizontal'

op    aN'ba saN'  thi=he'=       kki
eng   day whitish comes suddenly when
loc   Dorsey 1890:100.19

free  when it suddenly is whitish dawn
      when suddenly whitish day comes

2) gdhi=he' 'to arrive back here + be horizontal'
 
op    tti'= khe bdhu'ga aN'dha          gdhi=he'=dha=bi=   ama
eng   lodge the all     they threw down their own suddenly QUOTE
loc   Dorsey 1890:84.5

free  they suddenly struck camp
      they suddenly took down all their lodges


Notice that he is applied to a period of time (as opposed to an instant),
e.g., day/dawn or the time during which the lodges were struck. 


3) khi=dhaN' 'to arrive back there + to be round' 

op    gatta'xi                         khi=dhaN'=   the
eng   it fell and made a tapping sound suddenly back when
loc   Dorsey 1890:579.5

free  (at the moment) when it fell back and made a tapping sound


Note:  The thing that made the noise was a tent flap (door cover).

Now the iteratives:


4) thi=dhadha 'to arrive there + to go there repeatedly'

op    s^aN'ge=ama gis^kaN'               thi=dha'dha, 
eng   horse   the he was quick in moving beginning suddenly and
                                         repeatedly, 
loc   Dorsey 1890:348.8

free  the horse got skittish
      the horse became suddenly and repeatedly active

5) dhe=dhadha 'to go there + to go there repeatedly'

op    aNdha's^naha=                  dhaN'dhaN    
eng   you hit and it slips off of me each time 
op    dhe'=dhadha=i=          kki
eng   you make it go suddenly if
loc   Dorsey 1890:264.12

free  if you make repeated blows that glance off me

Note:  The speaker is Snapping Turtle and he is referring to blows that
glance off his carapace.



So the category in question does combine inceptives (notice the
'beginning' in number 4), punctuals (1-3), and iteratives (5-6).
However, I'm not sure that any of these examples exclude a requirement of
an element of surprise.  Even dawn might be a surprise when it comes,
though in the context of 100.19 (number 1) this seems not to be intended.
I'm not able at this point to exclude unexpectedness from the sense of the
suddenly verbs, though I'm waffling back towards that.