From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Jul 16 05:49:00 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:49:00 -0600 Subject: American Indian Studies Research Institute Site Message-ID: I apologize to those of you who saw this link in the SSILA Newsletter Online Edition recently. I thought it was an important link to point out to Siouanists, and I know not all members of this list are members of SSILA. The American Indian studies Research Institute at Indian University (DeMallie & Parks and company) has a site at: http://php.indiana.edu/~aisri/ Under their projects heading they have some samples of the Yanktonai Lexicon they are working on. It's easy to find, but the specific link is currently: http://php.indiana.edu/~aisri/lab/yanktonai/yanktonai.html This page is heavy on graphics and takes a while to load on my home system. It contains spoken samples that can be invoked by clocking speaker icons. Listening to c^huwi'gnaNka 'dress' is enough to make me wonder if Dakotan isn't a pitch accent language. From jggoodtracks at juno.com Fri Jul 16 19:20:53 1999 From: jggoodtracks at juno.com (Jimm G GoodTracks) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 14:20:53 -0500 Subject: American Indian Studies Research Institute Site Message-ID: Thanks John, for this web site. I just got finished reviewing it, and placing it in the "favorites". Till little later, Jimm From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sat Jul 17 16:46:22 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 11:46:22 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: I've ordered Matthews' _Ethnography & Philology of the Hidatsa Indians_ through interlibrary loan in the hope that it will shed some light on the etymology of this name of a subdivision of the Hidatsa. In the mean time, I wonder if someone on the List can help. The name occurs in many variants-- Lewis & Clark (Moulton's edition) 1804-5: Arwerharmay, Arwarharmay, Ah-wâh-hâ-way, Ahwahharway, Ah-nah-hâ-way Bradbury _Travels_ c.1811: Ahwahhaway Brackenridge _Views of Louisiana_ 1814: A-wa-ha-way Brown _Western Gazetteer_ 1817: Ahwahawa Riggs _Dakota Grammar_ 1893: Amahami (h with dot below) Bowers _Hidatsa Organization_ 1965: Awaxawi The following are cited by Hodge 1907; I haven't seen them-- Matthews op. cit: Amahami, Amatihami (h with dot above) McKenney & Hall _Indian Tribes_ 1854: Anhawa Gallatin 1836: Annahawa Maximilian _Travels_ 1843: Awachawi (German transcription of the aspirate, I assume) (There are also several variants, like Mahaha, of the Mandan name for the group.) Moulton (III. 205, note) says types Amahami and Awahawi may both be from Hidatsa awaxáawi 'mountain'. Hodge (I. 47) derives Amahami 'mountainous country' from ama 'land' + khami 'broken' I've been assuming that Amahami & Awahawi are etymologically related and that there is a synchronic or diachronic relationship between -m- and -w-, or that the -m- and the -w- represent variant spellings of one Hidatsa consonant. (The -n- in some forms is difficult; maybe it's a copyist's or printer's error.) Thanks for any help, Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Jul 17 21:04:22 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 15:04:22 -0600 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: <3790B35E.E24C54D0@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: Alan Hartley asks: > I've been assuming that Amahami & Awahawi are etymologically related and > that there is a synchronic or diachronic relationship between -m- and > -w-, or that the -m- and the -w- represent variant spellings of one > Hidatsa consonant. (The -n- in some forms is difficult; maybe it's a > copyist's or printer's error.) A number of the Siouan languages have alternations of w with m and r/l/d with n conditioned by the nasality of the following vowel, or come close to a situation like this. Crow and Hidatsa are unique in Siouan in having (in the modern languages at any rate) no constrastive nasals, either as vowels or resonants. However, both languages have conditioned contexts in which their resonants normally assume nasal values, and informal transcriptions of both often have nasal resonants in other contexts. I believe the conditioned environment for nasalization in Hidatsa is initial position. In Crow it is when two resonants occur adjacent to each other. I believe that the explanation for nasals being transcribed in other contexts arises from the non-contrastive status of nasality in these languages. Speakers can produce a degree of nasality in all resonants without perceiving it as a mispronunciation as there is no need to keep r or l and n, for example, apart. The degree of nasalization in a resonant might well vary with the speaker or even with instances of a particular word from a particular speaker. John Koontz From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Sat Jul 17 22:36:42 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 17:36:42 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hidatsa m/w are indeed one phoneme. In addition to John's advice/comments, (which also correspond to my recollection of resonant distribution) you might want to check with Doug Parks and/or Wes Jones. Doug is doing the synonymy for the Handbook and Wes has field experience with Hidatsa and can inform you on how much free variation there is in the names. You might also want to check for long vs. short vowels, since NONE of the early sources bothered with it. Doug Parks , A. Wesley Jones Bob Rankin From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Jul 18 17:03:12 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 12:03:12 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: Thanks to John Koontz for his explanation of nazalization of w in Hidatsa, and to Bob Rankin for seconding John on resonants, for suggesting Doug Parks and Wes Jones as resources, and for the suggestion that I check vowel-length. In Moulton's vol. 3, the Hidatsa name is transcribed as awaxáawi, so it appears that vowel-length has been taken into account. (I see from the preface that Moulton consulted Jones on Hidatsa.) Thanks again, Alan Hartley From VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA Wed Jul 21 00:52:03 1999 From: VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA (VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 19:52:03 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: John Koontz wrote: > A number of the Siouan languages have alternations of w with m and r/l/d > with n conditioned by the nasality of the following vowel, or come close > to a situation like this. > Crow and Hidatsa are unique in Siouan in having > (in the modern languages at any rate) no constrastive nasals, either as > vowels or resonants. However, both languages have conditioned contexts in > which their resonants normally assume nasal values, and informal > transcriptions of both often have nasal resonants in other contexts. I > believe the conditioned environment for nasalization in Hidatsa is initial > position. In Crow it is when two resonants occur adjacent to each other. > I believe that the explanation for nasals being transcribed in other > contexts arises from the non-contrastive status of nasality in these > languages. Speakers can produce a degree of nasality in all resonants > without perceiving it as a mispronunciation as there is no need to keep r > or l and n, for example, apart. The degree of nasalization in a resonant > might well vary with the speaker or even with instances of a particular > word from a particular speaker. > > John Koontz This situation, where nasal consonants appear as allophones of phonemes which also have oral allophones, is a bit uncommon but not unique. In at least some varieties of Fukienese Chinese I believe [b] and [m] belong to one phoneme, as do [l] and [n], with the nasal consonants preceding nasal vowels and the oral consonants preceding oral vowels. Oral and nasal vowels contrast in Fukienese after other consonants. Furthermore, in some varieties of Cantonese, [l] occurs only at the beginning of syllables and [n] only at the end -- no reference to nasalisation elsewhere here, but just to position as in Crow and Hidatsa. According to Gregores and Suarez, Guarani has [m], [n], and [ng] before nasal vowels and [mb], [nd] and [ngg] before oral vowels. Closer to home geographically, Rood reports that Wichita has [n] and [r] as allophones of one phoneme distributed by position again like Cantonese and Crow and Hidatsa. And closer to home genetically, Catawba, just before it ran out of speakers altogether, seems to have been in the process of merging [m] with [b] and [n] with [d] into one phoneme for each pair, with nasal allophones before nasal vowels and oral ones before oral vowels. Surely [d] was already present from other sources, and [b] may have been too; in any case [d] and [b] appeared before oral vowels only, whereas [m] and [n] must have originally preceded vowels of either sort. Whether the pre-oral allophones of [m] and [n] ever got beyond [mb] and [nd] in the mouths of Catawba speakers or just in the ears of transcribers is unclear to me at this point. (Thanks to Blair Rudes for confirming my thinking about Catawba on this and providing additional details. I trust he will filter out any errors here if I have mucked up the explanation.) Going back to the Chinese for a moment, in Cantonese dialects with no initial [n], it has been lost through merger with [l] from other sources, a process involving denasalization. And the [b]~[m] phoneme in Fukienese goes back to [m] in Ancient Chinese -- denasalization again to produce the [b] allophone. On the other hand, I think the [l]~[n] phoneme derives from both [l] and [n] which contrast in Ancient Chinese, so here we have both denasalization of original [n] before oral vowels and nasalization of original [l] before nasal vowels. The phonetics of Guarani suggest a denasalization to me, inasmuch as there is a nasal element in both allophones, but an oral element only in the pre-oral. Reading Chafe on Caddoan, we find that the Wichita [n]~[r] phoneme derives from a merger of contrastive Proto-Caddoan *n and *r, hence there is both nasalization and denasalization again, though note that in Pawnee a similar merger yields only [r] with no nasal allophone according to Parks, so there is only denasalization in this case. The Catawba case is clearly a matter of a denasalization of originally wholly nasalized segments before oral consonants. In each of these admittedly rather few examples of nasal~oral consonantal allophones, the recoverable history suggests denasalization of original nasal segments always plays a role, while the opposite also happens in only some of the cases. Furthermore, all these unusual phonologies derive from more conventional ones with nasal consonants that have only nasal allophones. In history at least, nasal allophones seem to be prior, and in that sense more basic. Should the phonemes then be written as /m/ and /n/ rather than /w/ or /b/ and /l/, /r/ or /d/? Should this be considered in the transcription of Proto-Siouan? More complete references on request if anyone needs them. Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Jul 21 15:02:45 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 09:02:45 -0600 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: <01JDSSEFWK5U9D4BCE@BrandonU.CA> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jul 1999 VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA wrote: > This situation, where nasal consonants appear as allophones of phonemes > which also have oral allophones, is a bit uncommon but not unique. In > at least some varieties of Fukienese Chinese I believe [b] and [m] > belong to one phoneme, as do [l] and [n], with the nasal consonants > preceding nasal vowels and the oral consonants preceding oral vowels. I think have run into this dialect of Chinese, in the form of a Chinese second language speaker of English who substituted n for l initially in English. > According to Gregores and Suarez, Guarani has [m], [n], and [ng] before nasal > vowels and [mb], [nd] and [ngg] before oral vowels. I've seen some comments that make me wonder if some Stoney dialects don't have an nd / __ V(oral) ~ n / __ V(nasal). However, I don't believe I've ever seen this in so many words. > produce the [b] allophone. On the other hand, I think the [l]~[n] phoneme > derives from both [l] and [n] which contrast in Ancient Chinese, so here we > have both denasalization of original [n] before oral vowels and nasalization of > original [l] before nasal vowels. > The phonetics of Guarani suggest a denasalization to me, inasmuch as there is a > nasal element in both allophones, but an oral element only in the pre-oral. This sort of logic could be applied to Proto-Dakotan, too. One could argue that the Stoney/Assiniboine pattern of n and mn and (S)n for *R and *pR < *pr and *SR < *Sr plus md for *pR < *pr in some Santee dialects suggests that PreDakotan had *n and *mn and *Sn for Proto-Siouan *R and *pR < *pr and *SR < *Sr. This would be even without any possible n ~ nd alternation. However, it doesn't - at this point - look like *R/*pR/*SR had *n for *R in other Siouan languages. Thus, it seems that oral resonants can probably spontaneously nasalize, too, even in languages in which there are (a) nasal vowels and (b) (apparently) some nasal resonants. In regard to the latter, there seem to be some Proto-Siouan sets cf. Omaha-Ponca nie 'be pained/have pain' that look like they have always had n, albeit before a nasal(izable) vowel, and it appears that *r ~ [*n] may be an oldor at least repeated pattern in Siouan, as most *r / __ V(nasal) sets seem to have n (but Dhegiha has dh and other oral reflexes of *r in verb initials). On the other hand, returning to the issue of whether *R was [n], consider that Omaha-Ponca has n < *R and *pR < *pr in nouns and m < *W, i.e., perhaps *W was [m]. Examples would be negi < *Rek- 'mother's brother', nu < *pro(-ka) 'male', mu- < *Wo 'by shooting'. The u in these forms is not a nasal vowel, so all these forms involve n or m before oral vowels. There are also a few cases where *W > m unexpected even where *W > p or w normally, as in mi 'sun' (I forget which languages at the moment!). However, *R and *W are pretty consistently oral in Dhegiha, Chiwere, and Winnebago otherwise. I believe Bob Rankin inclines toward the theory that all *R < *Xr, usually *wr, and all *W from *ww. Of course, it occurs to me that these are similar to the contexts where Crow has *r and *w as nn and mm, i.e., in "geminations." > In each of these admittedly rather few examples of nasal~oral consonantal > allophones, the recoverable history suggests denasalization of original nasal > segments always plays a role, while the opposite also happens in only some of > the cases. Furthermore, all these unusual phonologies derive from more > conventional ones with nasal consonants that have only nasal allophones. As this last contention is in line with the statistics of distribution of the behavior of nasals, it seems reasonable. However, it also seems a little too convenient for me to be entirely comfortable with it. It makes me wonder what I'm overlooking. Other Siouan languages in which nasality of consonants seems fairly conditioned: Mandan, Winnebago, and Tutelo. Note that in most Siouan languages it is pretty close to being conditioned, as there are relatively few examples of oral sonorants before nasal vowels or nasal sonorants before oral vowels. From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Wed Jul 21 18:28:34 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 11:28:34 -0700 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: > I think have run into this dialect of Chinese, in the form of a Chinese second language speaker of English who substituted n for l initially in English. The n, l, r alternations, whether allophonic or morphophonemic, are pretty common. As a humorous aside, we had a student who spoke a Thai dialect (I don't know how literary) with a distribution of these sounds that consistently made the words "phonological rules" come out [fonorajikan lunz]. I think all three sounds are phonemes contextually in Thai, but the contrast is obviously neutralized in some environments. > I believe Bob Rankin inclines toward the theory that all *R < *Xr, usually *wr, and all *W from *ww. Pretty much. Where X, above, is a certain kind of consonant. Where the conditioning C is retained, it is usually [b], s or sh as I recall. Where it isn't retained, it was probably a laryngeal (h or ?), but this last is just an educated guess. Certainly *w-w gives W, but it is possible that an h or ? in contact with *w might also. I seem to recall having to posit one or two such cases. Another interesting (and undiscussed) alternation of b/m and d/l/n is found in Dakotan where underlying (and reconstructed) p, t, k end up syllable final due to compounding or reduplication. Dakotan does not license such obstruents syllable finally, so they become their corresponding resonants, which may be either oral or nasal depending on the preceding vowel. So you get sapa 'be black' but sab-sapa 'black redup.' Then: nu~pa 'be two' but num-nu~pa 'two redup.' with an [m]. As you know, there are parallel examples with t giving l/n syllable and k giving g/ng (where ng is the velar nasal) syllable finally. These [b, d, g] have (I think mistakenly) been analyzed by a whole string of linguists as variants of p, t, k syllable finally, but what happens to the dental series in Lakota (a clear resonant, [l]) and what happens after a nasal V (m, n, ng) make it clear to me that the [b, d, g] are what Keren Rice has called obstruent sonorants. And since sonorants are voiced in their unmarked state, this explains why we get voiced stops syllable-finally, and we resolve what many linguists considered a paradox. I'm experiencing some trouble with my hands typing too much, so I'm going to stop here. If this is unclear, I have a long handout on it I can share Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Jul 21 21:02:41 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 15:02:41 -0600 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: <37961152.CA2D0668@lark.cc.ukans.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Robert L. Rankin wrote: > Another interesting (and undiscussed) alternation of b/m and d/l/n is > found in Dakotan where underlying (and reconstructed) p, t, k end up > syllable final due to compounding or reduplication. Dakotan does not > license such obstruents syllable finally, so they become their > corresponding resonants, which may be either oral or nasal depending on > the preceding vowel. > > So you get sapa 'be black' but sab-sapa 'black redup.' Then: > nu~pa 'be two' but num-nu~pa 'two redup.' with an [m]. Something like this happens in Ioway-Otoe, where at least some dialects have haNma < *haNpa 'corn' and s^uNe < *s^uNke 'dog', if I recall the forms correctly. This is without truncation. And, of course, the alternation between regular *wa and syncopating *p [b] ~ *m in the first person is also comparable. The second person alternation of *ya with *s^ ~ *z^ is similar in a general way, but is clearly not an *r ~ *t [d] alternation. > These [b, d, g] have (I think mistakenly) been analyzed by a whole > string of linguists as variants of p, t, k syllable finally, but what > happens to the dental series in Lakota (a clear resonant, [l]) and what > happens after a nasal V (m, n, ng) make it clear to me that the [b, d, > g] are what Keren Rice has called obstruent sonorants. And since > sonorants are voiced in their unmarked state, this explains why we get > voiced stops syllable-finally, and we resolve what many linguists > considered a paradox. This might be a reasonable place to point out that the simple stops are very rare in initial position in Siouan languages, being virtually nonexistent there in nouns (but, e.g., Da pa'ha, but Dh ppahe' 'hill' - not a regular correspondence). They are also fairly rare in verbs, though some of the morphemes involved (inner instrumentals in *p or *k) are fairly common. Most of the examples in verbs participate in either the syncopating conjugation or the g-lenition conjugation where these exist. These examples are, of course, post-inflectional. In pre-inflectional position (in preverbs) simple stops are again virtually nonexistent and *R and *W rule the roost in the outer instrumentals. Simple stops do occur in numerals, and are common in medial/final position. Since the (unclustered) *R and *W sets are close to being restricted to precisely the environments where *t and *p (also *k) don't occur, I've suggested in the past that *R and *t (and *p and *W) might once have been allophones, though I've pretty much had to abandon this in the face of evidence from Rankin that these reflect clusters. I think Kaufman's view when he was looking at Siouan data was somewhat similar (to that of Rankin et al.). Of course, it's also possible that the "missing" initial simple stops are represented by some *w and *r. Initial *p (verb post-inflectional slot) certainly becomes w in Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. However, initial *t and *k are more conservative, manifesting as stops or affricates. It's also possible that the simple stops in initial position are in alternation with the preaspirate stops there, under accentual conditioning. Preaspirates are about as rare in medial position as simple stops in initial position. This approach has been considered by Dick Carter and Bob Rankin, I think. I believe it proved not to quite work, but hasn't been totally rejected either. It appears that simple stops behave somewhat unusually throughout Siouan. From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Thu Jul 22 16:21:34 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 11:21:34 -0500 Subject: Siouan initials. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > This might be a reasonable place to point out that the simple stops are > very rare in initial position in Siouan languages, being virtually > nonexistent there in nouns (but, e.g., Da pa'ha, but Dh ppahe' 'hill' - > not a regular correspondence). Kansa bahe' is regular. I'd guess Omaha ppahe' is a reflex of the absolutive form *wa-pahe. I think the reason simple stops are rare with Mississippi Valley Siouan nouns is because Proto-Siouan nouns (often? always?) had prefixes that have been lost. Reflexes of these prefixes are preserved in other subgroups. Animate unpossessed nouns had *wi-, inanimates had *wa-, and kin terms and most body parts had possessive prefixes. The Dakotan words that begin with ps-, psh, pt-, bl- mn- (md- etc.) clusters show reflexes of *wi-/wa- prefixes (the p-, b-, m- in each of the above clusters) after the usual initial syllable syncope (found in agent pronominals also). This pretty consistently left the initial C of nouns as the initial C of a SECOND syllable, where it automatically got aspiration according to Dick Carter's observation. Results of the aspiration rule have been lexicalized in all Mississ. Val. languages, but Ofo retained aspirated/unaspirated alternations (see Wim DeReuse's "Grassmann's Law in Ofo" paper). It's the unaspirated initial stops in these languages that need to be explained in nouns. Aspiration is expected. > They are also fairly rare in verbs,... Verbs would almost all have prefixes also, but the syllabification problem there is much harder to decipher because there were so many different possible prefixes. Lexicalization of aspiration, once it was generated in any allomorph, seems to be quite general though. Instrumentals are an interesting set of exceptions that need to be accounted for systematically. None has aspiration. Siebert (1945) showed that the instrumentals are cognate with Catawba verb roots, so at some point we're dealing with compound or serial verbs. > and *R and *W rule the roost in the outer instrumentals. Absolutely right. Thanks for reminding me. THAT's where I had a "funny" *W from earlier *w+? (glottal stop) like we were discussing yesterday. I am hazarding a guess that *Wo 'by shooting' is earlier *wa-?o, i.e., {?o}, the verb 'shoot and hit' with an absolutive prefix (plus the usual initial-syllable syncope rule, i.e., *wa-?o > *w-?o > *Wo). > Simple stops do occur in numerals, and are common in medial/final > position. Right. The initial consonants there weren't at the beginning of second syllables so didn't get aspiration. > It's also possible that the simple stops in initial position [were] in > alternation with the preaspirate stops there, under accentual > conditioning. Preaspirates are about as rare in medial position as > simple stops in initial position. This approach has been considered > by Dick Carter and Bob Rankin, I think. I think that pretty well summarizes my belief. Dick made a good case for aspiration having been allophonic in accented syllables at one time. This would have created massive numbers of allomorphs. Since such allomorphs no longer are present in Mississippi Val. Siouan, massive lexicalization (i.e., analogic leveling) has to have occurred, and this leaves us with some interesting and peculiar cases (the 'hill' word, above for instance). Then of course we also always have to contend with dialect borrowing (i.e., what Labov used to call "sound change" until he returned to essentially the Neogrammarian model in his '94, or was it '95, book). Much explanatory work is yet to be done. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Jul 22 19:08:23 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 13:08:23 -0600 Subject: Siouan initials. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Robert L. Rankin wrote: > Verbs would almost all have prefixes also, but the syllabification problem > there is much harder to decipher because there were so many different > possible prefixes. Lexicalization of aspiration, once it was generated in > any allomorph, seems to be quite general though. > > Instrumentals are an interesting set of exceptions that need to be > accounted for systematically. None has aspiration. Siebert (1945) showed > that the instrumentals are cognate with Catawba verb roots, so at some > point we're dealing with compound or serial verbs. Stop initial verbs (in simple *p/t/k) tend to arise from instrumentals if they are in *p (*pa 'push' and *pi 'press') or *k (*ka 'strike' or 'wind/current'). There are also a few simple stems in *p/t/k. Most of the *t-stems are forms meaning 'see', though Dakotan has some stems of other meanings that always occur with *k-. Leaving aside the special case of *ka, these forms are interesting in the context of conditioned preaspiration in that they don't do it. Instead they get shortened (or non-lengthened) pronominals. Among these the first person in *p then gets *hC from *p 'first person' plus *C (the initial), but otherwise no preaspiration. So instead of 1 *w(a)-CV'... => *wa-hCV'... 2 *y(a)-CV'... *ya-hCV'... 3 *CV... *CV...' => *hCV... (by analogical leveling) you get 1 *w(a)-CV'... => *p-CV'... 2 *y(a)-CV'... *s^-CV'... 3 *CV...' *CV...' Of the two developments, the second (above) is normal if the syllable after the pronominal is a prefix (or first coverb), but sometimes occurs with simple verb roots, too. The first pattern of development is normal if the syllable after the verb is a root (or second coverb), though sometimes simple roots prefer the second treatment instead. Simple roots following a prefix (second coverbs) tend strongly to prefer the first pattern: Prefixation: *PRO-CV'-CV... => PRO(short)-CV'-(h)CV... CV-CV'... => CV-hCV'... Here we'd presumably want to argue that the first line was originally ?PRO(short)-CV'-CV... with the latter C being preaspirated later by analogy with the treatment when no PRO is involved. (Hence I parenthesize the h.) All of this amounts to saying that there are two different environments, perhaps accentually conditioned at one time, and now attested only in the two different patterns of development. In that case, of course, I probably shouldn't show the accentual pattern as the same in both cases, but it isn't clear what the two alternatives would have been. It is in fact striking that both patterns of development are usually explained as conditioned by second syllable accent. Perhaps we need to fall back on something about the boundary or lack of one between the two components - e.g., the mutilated remnants of the second coverb's pronominals sandwiched in between two coverbs, but not between a pronominal and a prefixed root. However, this line of reasoning suggests there is something additional sandwiched between the regular pronominals and those simple roots that become preaspirated. Of course, there is at least that -a-. Maybe these are forms that have doubled pronominals, the inner one of the short kind. This would mean that all regular verbs with preaspirated initials are really PRO(long)-PRO(short)-root stems. Presumably PRO(long)-root(initial cluster) where cluster isn't a preaspirate is another context conditioning PRO(long). This would suggest PRO(long) arise epenthetically. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Jul 23 19:02:30 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 13:02:30 -0600 Subject: "Hooka hey" Message-ID: It's summer and the Internet seems to be a comparatively quiet place. I'll venture to forward this query from Linguist, as a basis for discussion by anyone interested. I've run into this question a number of times. Usually the the first word of the phrase is spelled hoka, I think. I believe it's part of a longer phrase, usually rendered bilingually as "Hoka he(y)! Today is a good day to die!" In English literature this is associated with Crazy Horse, and I suspect questions about it are motivated by the widespread fascination with Crazy Horse as a personality and historical figure. I assume that the first part is an exclamation of enthusiasm, a sort of hurrah. I don't know the accentuation. I have not seen a Dakotan version of the English phrase and my Dakotan is no where near good enough to essay a translation. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:37:19 -0400 From: LINGUIST Network To: LINGUIST at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU Subject: 10.1118, Qs: "Hooka hey", Glides, Feature Acquisition/L2 I am looking for the exact meaning of "Hooka hey!". Is it Lakota or Sioux based? Any help much appreciated. Peter Boyd yangna at aol.com From STRECHTER at csuchico.edu Fri Jul 23 19:23:28 1999 From: STRECHTER at csuchico.edu (Trechter, Sara) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 12:23:28 -0700 Subject: "Hooka hey" Message-ID: Boas and Deloria (1941: 151) give hokahE or hukahE as 'ready! exclamation for the start of a race or a joint effort' under their section on exclamations. sara Dr. Sara Trechter Asst. Professor Linguistics/English CSU, Chico Chico, CA 95929-0830 (530) 898-5447 (office) (530) 898-4450 (fax) > -----Original Message----- > From: Koontz John E [SMTP:John.Koontz at colorado.edu] > Sent: Friday, July 23, 1999 12:03 PM > To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU > Subject: "Hooka hey" > > It's summer and the Internet seems to be a comparatively quiet place. > I'll venture to forward this query from Linguist, as a basis for > discussion by anyone interested. I've run into this question a number of > times. Usually the the first word of the phrase is spelled hoka, I think. > > I believe it's part of a longer phrase, usually rendered bilingually as > "Hoka he(y)! Today is a good day to die!" In English literature this is > associated with Crazy Horse, and I suspect questions about it are > motivated by the widespread fascination with Crazy Horse as a personality > and historical figure. I assume that the first part is an exclamation of > enthusiasm, a sort of hurrah. I don't know the accentuation. I have not > seen a Dakotan version of the English phrase and my Dakotan is no where > near good enough to essay a translation. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:37:19 -0400 > From: LINGUIST Network > To: LINGUIST at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU > Subject: 10.1118, Qs: "Hooka hey", Glides, Feature Acquisition/L2 > > I am looking for the exact meaning of "Hooka hey!". Is it Lakota or Sioux > based? Any help much appreciated. > > Peter Boyd > yangna at aol.com From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sat Jul 31 16:57:14 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 11:57:14 -0500 Subject: etymology of MANDAN Message-ID: Can the name be analyzed in a Siouan language? The Mandans were contacted by Europeans first from Hudson Bay through Assiniboine territory, and later through Sioux and Arikara lands, so there are several geographically possible sources for the French and English names. (The Eng. name Mai-tain-ai-thi-nish occurs in the York Factory journal for 1721, and its form suggests Cree influence, probably on an Assiniboine form.) Ethnonyms were often transmitted into Eng. through more than one language during the early contact period, so MANDAN may have several native etyma. The search for a single etymon in these cases is often misguided and misleading. Almost all Eng. variants have -n- closing the first syllable, representing, I assume, nazalization of the preceding -a-. The Dakota (Mawa'tadaN/Mawa'taNna) & Lakota (Miwa'taNni) names (Riggs 1890) have -w- after the initial vowel, with no nasalization indicated: are the -n- and -w- etymologically equivalent, analogously to the alternation Amahami/Awahawi? I've found 3 instances in Eng. texts (1795-1805) of forms in final -l (Mandal, Mandel): what is the relationship of the -l with the usual final -n? (I note that the Dakota & Lakota names both end in -nV.) Thanks for any help, Alan From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Sat Jul 31 20:53:06 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 15:53:06 -0500 Subject: etymology of MANDAN In-Reply-To: <37A32AEA.3370B291@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: > Can the name be analyzed in a Siouan language? The short answer is "no." The longer answer has to do with the fact that, unless it is transparent in the native language of that tribe itself (and sometimes even then), any analysis is suspect. Ethnonyms are simply notorious for being folk-etymologized, often as pejoratives, of course. I asked the Kaw-speaking woman I had recorded over the course of several years about the Potowatomi's at one point. She answered "Oh yeah, [bado'wadombe]; it means 'they're lookin' at the hills'." As indeed it does. But not in Potawatomi. In Siouan, for example, /[maN] is a root for 'flint, chert', for 'earth', and for 'gamebird' -- take your pick. [daN] in Dakotan is a popular diminutive suffix. An amateur might try to make something of that, e.g., 'little turkeys', 'little arrowheads/blades', etc. But it wouldn't be something a person would want to commit to print. > The Mandans were contacted by Europeans first from Hudson Bay through > Assiniboine territory, and later through Sioux and Arikara lands, so > there are several geographically possible sources for the French and > English names. > (The Eng. name Mai-tain-ai-thi-nish occurs in the York Factory journal > for 1721, and its form suggests Cree influence, probably on an > Assiniboine form.) Ethnonyms were often transmitted into Eng. through > more than one language during the early contact period, so MANDAN may > have several native etyma. The search for a single etymon in these > cases is often misguided and misleading. Exactly. The citations are certainly worth pointing out. > Almost all Eng. variants have -n- closing the first syllable, > representing, I assume, nazalization of the preceding -a-. I agree. > The Dakota (Mawa'tadaN/Mawa'taNna) & Lakota (Miwa'taNni) names (Riggs > 1890) have -w- after the initial vowel, with no nasalization > indicated: are the -n- and -w- etymologically equivalent, analogously > to the alternation Amahami/Awahawi? What little I know of Dakotan dialects tells me that these three terms cannot all have come from one proto-form. So either analogy (folk etymology) or borrowing from multiple sources has already been at work just within this language. The 1st two could be dialectal variants. -n- and -w- probably are not ever etymologically equivalent. However, sometimes speakers of the several languages insert a glide in between dissimilar vowels. It would be epenthetic rather than etymological, and in that case -r-/-n-, on the one hand, and -w- on the other, might be alternatives. Normally -w- is ONLY inserted when one of the two surrounding vowels is rounded, either [o] or [u]. So here I'd guess there's no n/w relationship. > I've found 3 instances in Eng. texts (1795-1805) of forms in final -l > (Mandal, Mandel): what is the relationship of the -l with the usual > final -n? (I note that the Dakota & Lakota names both end in -nV.) I hope a Dakotanist will answer that part. Word-final -l/-n is a characteristic of Dakotan dialects though. Lakota (Teton) has -l where several of the other dialects have -n. Perhaps someone can do better for you with this conundrum than I have been able to do. Best, Bob From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sat Jul 31 22:07:54 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 17:07:54 -0500 Subject: etymology of MANDAN Message-ID: "Robert L. Rankin" wrote: > unless it is transparent in the native language of that tribe itself (and > sometimes even then), any analysis is suspect. Perhaps too broad a generalization... ASSINIBOINE, for example, has a solid Algonquian etymology, and CHINOOK is Salishan. Ethnonym origins certainly are subject to folk etymology and careless scholarship (just pick a likely word from the dictionary), but place-names have suffered even more! > So here I'd guess there's no n/w relationship. Thanks for that. It makes a Dakotan etymology difficult. And thanks for the prompt reply. Regards, Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Jul 16 05:49:00 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:49:00 -0600 Subject: American Indian Studies Research Institute Site Message-ID: I apologize to those of you who saw this link in the SSILA Newsletter Online Edition recently. I thought it was an important link to point out to Siouanists, and I know not all members of this list are members of SSILA. The American Indian studies Research Institute at Indian University (DeMallie & Parks and company) has a site at: http://php.indiana.edu/~aisri/ Under their projects heading they have some samples of the Yanktonai Lexicon they are working on. It's easy to find, but the specific link is currently: http://php.indiana.edu/~aisri/lab/yanktonai/yanktonai.html This page is heavy on graphics and takes a while to load on my home system. It contains spoken samples that can be invoked by clocking speaker icons. Listening to c^huwi'gnaNka 'dress' is enough to make me wonder if Dakotan isn't a pitch accent language. From jggoodtracks at juno.com Fri Jul 16 19:20:53 1999 From: jggoodtracks at juno.com (Jimm G GoodTracks) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 14:20:53 -0500 Subject: American Indian Studies Research Institute Site Message-ID: Thanks John, for this web site. I just got finished reviewing it, and placing it in the "favorites". Till little later, Jimm From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sat Jul 17 16:46:22 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 11:46:22 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: I've ordered Matthews' _Ethnography & Philology of the Hidatsa Indians_ through interlibrary loan in the hope that it will shed some light on the etymology of this name of a subdivision of the Hidatsa. In the mean time, I wonder if someone on the List can help. The name occurs in many variants-- Lewis & Clark (Moulton's edition) 1804-5: Arwerharmay, Arwarharmay, Ah-w?h-h?-way, Ahwahharway, Ah-nah-h?-way Bradbury _Travels_ c.1811: Ahwahhaway Brackenridge _Views of Louisiana_ 1814: A-wa-ha-way Brown _Western Gazetteer_ 1817: Ahwahawa Riggs _Dakota Grammar_ 1893: Amahami (h with dot below) Bowers _Hidatsa Organization_ 1965: Awaxawi The following are cited by Hodge 1907; I haven't seen them-- Matthews op. cit: Amahami, Amatihami (h with dot above) McKenney & Hall _Indian Tribes_ 1854: Anhawa Gallatin 1836: Annahawa Maximilian _Travels_ 1843: Awachawi (German transcription of the aspirate, I assume) (There are also several variants, like Mahaha, of the Mandan name for the group.) Moulton (III. 205, note) says types Amahami and Awahawi may both be from Hidatsa awax?awi 'mountain'. Hodge (I. 47) derives Amahami 'mountainous country' from ama 'land' + khami 'broken' I've been assuming that Amahami & Awahawi are etymologically related and that there is a synchronic or diachronic relationship between -m- and -w-, or that the -m- and the -w- represent variant spellings of one Hidatsa consonant. (The -n- in some forms is difficult; maybe it's a copyist's or printer's error.) Thanks for any help, Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Jul 17 21:04:22 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 15:04:22 -0600 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: <3790B35E.E24C54D0@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: Alan Hartley asks: > I've been assuming that Amahami & Awahawi are etymologically related and > that there is a synchronic or diachronic relationship between -m- and > -w-, or that the -m- and the -w- represent variant spellings of one > Hidatsa consonant. (The -n- in some forms is difficult; maybe it's a > copyist's or printer's error.) A number of the Siouan languages have alternations of w with m and r/l/d with n conditioned by the nasality of the following vowel, or come close to a situation like this. Crow and Hidatsa are unique in Siouan in having (in the modern languages at any rate) no constrastive nasals, either as vowels or resonants. However, both languages have conditioned contexts in which their resonants normally assume nasal values, and informal transcriptions of both often have nasal resonants in other contexts. I believe the conditioned environment for nasalization in Hidatsa is initial position. In Crow it is when two resonants occur adjacent to each other. I believe that the explanation for nasals being transcribed in other contexts arises from the non-contrastive status of nasality in these languages. Speakers can produce a degree of nasality in all resonants without perceiving it as a mispronunciation as there is no need to keep r or l and n, for example, apart. The degree of nasalization in a resonant might well vary with the speaker or even with instances of a particular word from a particular speaker. John Koontz From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Sat Jul 17 22:36:42 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 17:36:42 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hidatsa m/w are indeed one phoneme. In addition to John's advice/comments, (which also correspond to my recollection of resonant distribution) you might want to check with Doug Parks and/or Wes Jones. Doug is doing the synonymy for the Handbook and Wes has field experience with Hidatsa and can inform you on how much free variation there is in the names. You might also want to check for long vs. short vowels, since NONE of the early sources bothered with it. Doug Parks , A. Wesley Jones Bob Rankin From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Jul 18 17:03:12 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 12:03:12 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: Thanks to John Koontz for his explanation of nazalization of w in Hidatsa, and to Bob Rankin for seconding John on resonants, for suggesting Doug Parks and Wes Jones as resources, and for the suggestion that I check vowel-length. In Moulton's vol. 3, the Hidatsa name is transcribed as awax?awi, so it appears that vowel-length has been taken into account. (I see from the preface that Moulton consulted Jones on Hidatsa.) Thanks again, Alan Hartley From VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA Wed Jul 21 00:52:03 1999 From: VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA (VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 19:52:03 -0500 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: John Koontz wrote: > A number of the Siouan languages have alternations of w with m and r/l/d > with n conditioned by the nasality of the following vowel, or come close > to a situation like this. > Crow and Hidatsa are unique in Siouan in having > (in the modern languages at any rate) no constrastive nasals, either as > vowels or resonants. However, both languages have conditioned contexts in > which their resonants normally assume nasal values, and informal > transcriptions of both often have nasal resonants in other contexts. I > believe the conditioned environment for nasalization in Hidatsa is initial > position. In Crow it is when two resonants occur adjacent to each other. > I believe that the explanation for nasals being transcribed in other > contexts arises from the non-contrastive status of nasality in these > languages. Speakers can produce a degree of nasality in all resonants > without perceiving it as a mispronunciation as there is no need to keep r > or l and n, for example, apart. The degree of nasalization in a resonant > might well vary with the speaker or even with instances of a particular > word from a particular speaker. > > John Koontz This situation, where nasal consonants appear as allophones of phonemes which also have oral allophones, is a bit uncommon but not unique. In at least some varieties of Fukienese Chinese I believe [b] and [m] belong to one phoneme, as do [l] and [n], with the nasal consonants preceding nasal vowels and the oral consonants preceding oral vowels. Oral and nasal vowels contrast in Fukienese after other consonants. Furthermore, in some varieties of Cantonese, [l] occurs only at the beginning of syllables and [n] only at the end -- no reference to nasalisation elsewhere here, but just to position as in Crow and Hidatsa. According to Gregores and Suarez, Guarani has [m], [n], and [ng] before nasal vowels and [mb], [nd] and [ngg] before oral vowels. Closer to home geographically, Rood reports that Wichita has [n] and [r] as allophones of one phoneme distributed by position again like Cantonese and Crow and Hidatsa. And closer to home genetically, Catawba, just before it ran out of speakers altogether, seems to have been in the process of merging [m] with [b] and [n] with [d] into one phoneme for each pair, with nasal allophones before nasal vowels and oral ones before oral vowels. Surely [d] was already present from other sources, and [b] may have been too; in any case [d] and [b] appeared before oral vowels only, whereas [m] and [n] must have originally preceded vowels of either sort. Whether the pre-oral allophones of [m] and [n] ever got beyond [mb] and [nd] in the mouths of Catawba speakers or just in the ears of transcribers is unclear to me at this point. (Thanks to Blair Rudes for confirming my thinking about Catawba on this and providing additional details. I trust he will filter out any errors here if I have mucked up the explanation.) Going back to the Chinese for a moment, in Cantonese dialects with no initial [n], it has been lost through merger with [l] from other sources, a process involving denasalization. And the [b]~[m] phoneme in Fukienese goes back to [m] in Ancient Chinese -- denasalization again to produce the [b] allophone. On the other hand, I think the [l]~[n] phoneme derives from both [l] and [n] which contrast in Ancient Chinese, so here we have both denasalization of original [n] before oral vowels and nasalization of original [l] before nasal vowels. The phonetics of Guarani suggest a denasalization to me, inasmuch as there is a nasal element in both allophones, but an oral element only in the pre-oral. Reading Chafe on Caddoan, we find that the Wichita [n]~[r] phoneme derives from a merger of contrastive Proto-Caddoan *n and *r, hence there is both nasalization and denasalization again, though note that in Pawnee a similar merger yields only [r] with no nasal allophone according to Parks, so there is only denasalization in this case. The Catawba case is clearly a matter of a denasalization of originally wholly nasalized segments before oral consonants. In each of these admittedly rather few examples of nasal~oral consonantal allophones, the recoverable history suggests denasalization of original nasal segments always plays a role, while the opposite also happens in only some of the cases. Furthermore, all these unusual phonologies derive from more conventional ones with nasal consonants that have only nasal allophones. In history at least, nasal allophones seem to be prior, and in that sense more basic. Should the phonemes then be written as /m/ and /n/ rather than /w/ or /b/ and /l/, /r/ or /d/? Should this be considered in the transcription of Proto-Siouan? More complete references on request if anyone needs them. Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Jul 21 15:02:45 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 09:02:45 -0600 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: <01JDSSEFWK5U9D4BCE@BrandonU.CA> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jul 1999 VOORHIS at BrandonU.CA wrote: > This situation, where nasal consonants appear as allophones of phonemes > which also have oral allophones, is a bit uncommon but not unique. In > at least some varieties of Fukienese Chinese I believe [b] and [m] > belong to one phoneme, as do [l] and [n], with the nasal consonants > preceding nasal vowels and the oral consonants preceding oral vowels. I think have run into this dialect of Chinese, in the form of a Chinese second language speaker of English who substituted n for l initially in English. > According to Gregores and Suarez, Guarani has [m], [n], and [ng] before nasal > vowels and [mb], [nd] and [ngg] before oral vowels. I've seen some comments that make me wonder if some Stoney dialects don't have an nd / __ V(oral) ~ n / __ V(nasal). However, I don't believe I've ever seen this in so many words. > produce the [b] allophone. On the other hand, I think the [l]~[n] phoneme > derives from both [l] and [n] which contrast in Ancient Chinese, so here we > have both denasalization of original [n] before oral vowels and nasalization of > original [l] before nasal vowels. > The phonetics of Guarani suggest a denasalization to me, inasmuch as there is a > nasal element in both allophones, but an oral element only in the pre-oral. This sort of logic could be applied to Proto-Dakotan, too. One could argue that the Stoney/Assiniboine pattern of n and mn and (S)n for *R and *pR < *pr and *SR < *Sr plus md for *pR < *pr in some Santee dialects suggests that PreDakotan had *n and *mn and *Sn for Proto-Siouan *R and *pR < *pr and *SR < *Sr. This would be even without any possible n ~ nd alternation. However, it doesn't - at this point - look like *R/*pR/*SR had *n for *R in other Siouan languages. Thus, it seems that oral resonants can probably spontaneously nasalize, too, even in languages in which there are (a) nasal vowels and (b) (apparently) some nasal resonants. In regard to the latter, there seem to be some Proto-Siouan sets cf. Omaha-Ponca nie 'be pained/have pain' that look like they have always had n, albeit before a nasal(izable) vowel, and it appears that *r ~ [*n] may be an oldor at least repeated pattern in Siouan, as most *r / __ V(nasal) sets seem to have n (but Dhegiha has dh and other oral reflexes of *r in verb initials). On the other hand, returning to the issue of whether *R was [n], consider that Omaha-Ponca has n < *R and *pR < *pr in nouns and m < *W, i.e., perhaps *W was [m]. Examples would be negi < *Rek- 'mother's brother', nu < *pro(-ka) 'male', mu- < *Wo 'by shooting'. The u in these forms is not a nasal vowel, so all these forms involve n or m before oral vowels. There are also a few cases where *W > m unexpected even where *W > p or w normally, as in mi 'sun' (I forget which languages at the moment!). However, *R and *W are pretty consistently oral in Dhegiha, Chiwere, and Winnebago otherwise. I believe Bob Rankin inclines toward the theory that all *R < *Xr, usually *wr, and all *W from *ww. Of course, it occurs to me that these are similar to the contexts where Crow has *r and *w as nn and mm, i.e., in "geminations." > In each of these admittedly rather few examples of nasal~oral consonantal > allophones, the recoverable history suggests denasalization of original nasal > segments always plays a role, while the opposite also happens in only some of > the cases. Furthermore, all these unusual phonologies derive from more > conventional ones with nasal consonants that have only nasal allophones. As this last contention is in line with the statistics of distribution of the behavior of nasals, it seems reasonable. However, it also seems a little too convenient for me to be entirely comfortable with it. It makes me wonder what I'm overlooking. Other Siouan languages in which nasality of consonants seems fairly conditioned: Mandan, Winnebago, and Tutelo. Note that in most Siouan languages it is pretty close to being conditioned, as there are relatively few examples of oral sonorants before nasal vowels or nasal sonorants before oral vowels. From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Wed Jul 21 18:28:34 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 11:28:34 -0700 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami Message-ID: > I think have run into this dialect of Chinese, in the form of a Chinese second language speaker of English who substituted n for l initially in English. The n, l, r alternations, whether allophonic or morphophonemic, are pretty common. As a humorous aside, we had a student who spoke a Thai dialect (I don't know how literary) with a distribution of these sounds that consistently made the words "phonological rules" come out [fonorajikan lunz]. I think all three sounds are phonemes contextually in Thai, but the contrast is obviously neutralized in some environments. > I believe Bob Rankin inclines toward the theory that all *R < *Xr, usually *wr, and all *W from *ww. Pretty much. Where X, above, is a certain kind of consonant. Where the conditioning C is retained, it is usually [b], s or sh as I recall. Where it isn't retained, it was probably a laryngeal (h or ?), but this last is just an educated guess. Certainly *w-w gives W, but it is possible that an h or ? in contact with *w might also. I seem to recall having to posit one or two such cases. Another interesting (and undiscussed) alternation of b/m and d/l/n is found in Dakotan where underlying (and reconstructed) p, t, k end up syllable final due to compounding or reduplication. Dakotan does not license such obstruents syllable finally, so they become their corresponding resonants, which may be either oral or nasal depending on the preceding vowel. So you get sapa 'be black' but sab-sapa 'black redup.' Then: nu~pa 'be two' but num-nu~pa 'two redup.' with an [m]. As you know, there are parallel examples with t giving l/n syllable and k giving g/ng (where ng is the velar nasal) syllable finally. These [b, d, g] have (I think mistakenly) been analyzed by a whole string of linguists as variants of p, t, k syllable finally, but what happens to the dental series in Lakota (a clear resonant, [l]) and what happens after a nasal V (m, n, ng) make it clear to me that the [b, d, g] are what Keren Rice has called obstruent sonorants. And since sonorants are voiced in their unmarked state, this explains why we get voiced stops syllable-finally, and we resolve what many linguists considered a paradox. I'm experiencing some trouble with my hands typing too much, so I'm going to stop here. If this is unclear, I have a long handout on it I can share Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Jul 21 21:02:41 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 15:02:41 -0600 Subject: Awahawi / Amahami In-Reply-To: <37961152.CA2D0668@lark.cc.ukans.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Jul 1999, Robert L. Rankin wrote: > Another interesting (and undiscussed) alternation of b/m and d/l/n is > found in Dakotan where underlying (and reconstructed) p, t, k end up > syllable final due to compounding or reduplication. Dakotan does not > license such obstruents syllable finally, so they become their > corresponding resonants, which may be either oral or nasal depending on > the preceding vowel. > > So you get sapa 'be black' but sab-sapa 'black redup.' Then: > nu~pa 'be two' but num-nu~pa 'two redup.' with an [m]. Something like this happens in Ioway-Otoe, where at least some dialects have haNma < *haNpa 'corn' and s^uNe < *s^uNke 'dog', if I recall the forms correctly. This is without truncation. And, of course, the alternation between regular *wa and syncopating *p [b] ~ *m in the first person is also comparable. The second person alternation of *ya with *s^ ~ *z^ is similar in a general way, but is clearly not an *r ~ *t [d] alternation. > These [b, d, g] have (I think mistakenly) been analyzed by a whole > string of linguists as variants of p, t, k syllable finally, but what > happens to the dental series in Lakota (a clear resonant, [l]) and what > happens after a nasal V (m, n, ng) make it clear to me that the [b, d, > g] are what Keren Rice has called obstruent sonorants. And since > sonorants are voiced in their unmarked state, this explains why we get > voiced stops syllable-finally, and we resolve what many linguists > considered a paradox. This might be a reasonable place to point out that the simple stops are very rare in initial position in Siouan languages, being virtually nonexistent there in nouns (but, e.g., Da pa'ha, but Dh ppahe' 'hill' - not a regular correspondence). They are also fairly rare in verbs, though some of the morphemes involved (inner instrumentals in *p or *k) are fairly common. Most of the examples in verbs participate in either the syncopating conjugation or the g-lenition conjugation where these exist. These examples are, of course, post-inflectional. In pre-inflectional position (in preverbs) simple stops are again virtually nonexistent and *R and *W rule the roost in the outer instrumentals. Simple stops do occur in numerals, and are common in medial/final position. Since the (unclustered) *R and *W sets are close to being restricted to precisely the environments where *t and *p (also *k) don't occur, I've suggested in the past that *R and *t (and *p and *W) might once have been allophones, though I've pretty much had to abandon this in the face of evidence from Rankin that these reflect clusters. I think Kaufman's view when he was looking at Siouan data was somewhat similar (to that of Rankin et al.). Of course, it's also possible that the "missing" initial simple stops are represented by some *w and *r. Initial *p (verb post-inflectional slot) certainly becomes w in Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. However, initial *t and *k are more conservative, manifesting as stops or affricates. It's also possible that the simple stops in initial position are in alternation with the preaspirate stops there, under accentual conditioning. Preaspirates are about as rare in medial position as simple stops in initial position. This approach has been considered by Dick Carter and Bob Rankin, I think. I believe it proved not to quite work, but hasn't been totally rejected either. It appears that simple stops behave somewhat unusually throughout Siouan. From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Thu Jul 22 16:21:34 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 11:21:34 -0500 Subject: Siouan initials. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > This might be a reasonable place to point out that the simple stops are > very rare in initial position in Siouan languages, being virtually > nonexistent there in nouns (but, e.g., Da pa'ha, but Dh ppahe' 'hill' - > not a regular correspondence). Kansa bahe' is regular. I'd guess Omaha ppahe' is a reflex of the absolutive form *wa-pahe. I think the reason simple stops are rare with Mississippi Valley Siouan nouns is because Proto-Siouan nouns (often? always?) had prefixes that have been lost. Reflexes of these prefixes are preserved in other subgroups. Animate unpossessed nouns had *wi-, inanimates had *wa-, and kin terms and most body parts had possessive prefixes. The Dakotan words that begin with ps-, psh, pt-, bl- mn- (md- etc.) clusters show reflexes of *wi-/wa- prefixes (the p-, b-, m- in each of the above clusters) after the usual initial syllable syncope (found in agent pronominals also). This pretty consistently left the initial C of nouns as the initial C of a SECOND syllable, where it automatically got aspiration according to Dick Carter's observation. Results of the aspiration rule have been lexicalized in all Mississ. Val. languages, but Ofo retained aspirated/unaspirated alternations (see Wim DeReuse's "Grassmann's Law in Ofo" paper). It's the unaspirated initial stops in these languages that need to be explained in nouns. Aspiration is expected. > They are also fairly rare in verbs,... Verbs would almost all have prefixes also, but the syllabification problem there is much harder to decipher because there were so many different possible prefixes. Lexicalization of aspiration, once it was generated in any allomorph, seems to be quite general though. Instrumentals are an interesting set of exceptions that need to be accounted for systematically. None has aspiration. Siebert (1945) showed that the instrumentals are cognate with Catawba verb roots, so at some point we're dealing with compound or serial verbs. > and *R and *W rule the roost in the outer instrumentals. Absolutely right. Thanks for reminding me. THAT's where I had a "funny" *W from earlier *w+? (glottal stop) like we were discussing yesterday. I am hazarding a guess that *Wo 'by shooting' is earlier *wa-?o, i.e., {?o}, the verb 'shoot and hit' with an absolutive prefix (plus the usual initial-syllable syncope rule, i.e., *wa-?o > *w-?o > *Wo). > Simple stops do occur in numerals, and are common in medial/final > position. Right. The initial consonants there weren't at the beginning of second syllables so didn't get aspiration. > It's also possible that the simple stops in initial position [were] in > alternation with the preaspirate stops there, under accentual > conditioning. Preaspirates are about as rare in medial position as > simple stops in initial position. This approach has been considered > by Dick Carter and Bob Rankin, I think. I think that pretty well summarizes my belief. Dick made a good case for aspiration having been allophonic in accented syllables at one time. This would have created massive numbers of allomorphs. Since such allomorphs no longer are present in Mississippi Val. Siouan, massive lexicalization (i.e., analogic leveling) has to have occurred, and this leaves us with some interesting and peculiar cases (the 'hill' word, above for instance). Then of course we also always have to contend with dialect borrowing (i.e., what Labov used to call "sound change" until he returned to essentially the Neogrammarian model in his '94, or was it '95, book). Much explanatory work is yet to be done. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Jul 22 19:08:23 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 13:08:23 -0600 Subject: Siouan initials. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jul 1999, Robert L. Rankin wrote: > Verbs would almost all have prefixes also, but the syllabification problem > there is much harder to decipher because there were so many different > possible prefixes. Lexicalization of aspiration, once it was generated in > any allomorph, seems to be quite general though. > > Instrumentals are an interesting set of exceptions that need to be > accounted for systematically. None has aspiration. Siebert (1945) showed > that the instrumentals are cognate with Catawba verb roots, so at some > point we're dealing with compound or serial verbs. Stop initial verbs (in simple *p/t/k) tend to arise from instrumentals if they are in *p (*pa 'push' and *pi 'press') or *k (*ka 'strike' or 'wind/current'). There are also a few simple stems in *p/t/k. Most of the *t-stems are forms meaning 'see', though Dakotan has some stems of other meanings that always occur with *k-. Leaving aside the special case of *ka, these forms are interesting in the context of conditioned preaspiration in that they don't do it. Instead they get shortened (or non-lengthened) pronominals. Among these the first person in *p then gets *hC from *p 'first person' plus *C (the initial), but otherwise no preaspiration. So instead of 1 *w(a)-CV'... => *wa-hCV'... 2 *y(a)-CV'... *ya-hCV'... 3 *CV... *CV...' => *hCV... (by analogical leveling) you get 1 *w(a)-CV'... => *p-CV'... 2 *y(a)-CV'... *s^-CV'... 3 *CV...' *CV...' Of the two developments, the second (above) is normal if the syllable after the pronominal is a prefix (or first coverb), but sometimes occurs with simple verb roots, too. The first pattern of development is normal if the syllable after the verb is a root (or second coverb), though sometimes simple roots prefer the second treatment instead. Simple roots following a prefix (second coverbs) tend strongly to prefer the first pattern: Prefixation: *PRO-CV'-CV... => PRO(short)-CV'-(h)CV... CV-CV'... => CV-hCV'... Here we'd presumably want to argue that the first line was originally ?PRO(short)-CV'-CV... with the latter C being preaspirated later by analogy with the treatment when no PRO is involved. (Hence I parenthesize the h.) All of this amounts to saying that there are two different environments, perhaps accentually conditioned at one time, and now attested only in the two different patterns of development. In that case, of course, I probably shouldn't show the accentual pattern as the same in both cases, but it isn't clear what the two alternatives would have been. It is in fact striking that both patterns of development are usually explained as conditioned by second syllable accent. Perhaps we need to fall back on something about the boundary or lack of one between the two components - e.g., the mutilated remnants of the second coverb's pronominals sandwiched in between two coverbs, but not between a pronominal and a prefixed root. However, this line of reasoning suggests there is something additional sandwiched between the regular pronominals and those simple roots that become preaspirated. Of course, there is at least that -a-. Maybe these are forms that have doubled pronominals, the inner one of the short kind. This would mean that all regular verbs with preaspirated initials are really PRO(long)-PRO(short)-root stems. Presumably PRO(long)-root(initial cluster) where cluster isn't a preaspirate is another context conditioning PRO(long). This would suggest PRO(long) arise epenthetically. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Jul 23 19:02:30 1999 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 13:02:30 -0600 Subject: "Hooka hey" Message-ID: It's summer and the Internet seems to be a comparatively quiet place. I'll venture to forward this query from Linguist, as a basis for discussion by anyone interested. I've run into this question a number of times. Usually the the first word of the phrase is spelled hoka, I think. I believe it's part of a longer phrase, usually rendered bilingually as "Hoka he(y)! Today is a good day to die!" In English literature this is associated with Crazy Horse, and I suspect questions about it are motivated by the widespread fascination with Crazy Horse as a personality and historical figure. I assume that the first part is an exclamation of enthusiasm, a sort of hurrah. I don't know the accentuation. I have not seen a Dakotan version of the English phrase and my Dakotan is no where near good enough to essay a translation. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:37:19 -0400 From: LINGUIST Network To: LINGUIST at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU Subject: 10.1118, Qs: "Hooka hey", Glides, Feature Acquisition/L2 I am looking for the exact meaning of "Hooka hey!". Is it Lakota or Sioux based? Any help much appreciated. Peter Boyd yangna at aol.com From STRECHTER at csuchico.edu Fri Jul 23 19:23:28 1999 From: STRECHTER at csuchico.edu (Trechter, Sara) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 12:23:28 -0700 Subject: "Hooka hey" Message-ID: Boas and Deloria (1941: 151) give hokahE or hukahE as 'ready! exclamation for the start of a race or a joint effort' under their section on exclamations. sara Dr. Sara Trechter Asst. Professor Linguistics/English CSU, Chico Chico, CA 95929-0830 (530) 898-5447 (office) (530) 898-4450 (fax) > -----Original Message----- > From: Koontz John E [SMTP:John.Koontz at colorado.edu] > Sent: Friday, July 23, 1999 12:03 PM > To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU > Subject: "Hooka hey" > > It's summer and the Internet seems to be a comparatively quiet place. > I'll venture to forward this query from Linguist, as a basis for > discussion by anyone interested. I've run into this question a number of > times. Usually the the first word of the phrase is spelled hoka, I think. > > I believe it's part of a longer phrase, usually rendered bilingually as > "Hoka he(y)! Today is a good day to die!" In English literature this is > associated with Crazy Horse, and I suspect questions about it are > motivated by the widespread fascination with Crazy Horse as a personality > and historical figure. I assume that the first part is an exclamation of > enthusiasm, a sort of hurrah. I don't know the accentuation. I have not > seen a Dakotan version of the English phrase and my Dakotan is no where > near good enough to essay a translation. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:37:19 -0400 > From: LINGUIST Network > To: LINGUIST at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU > Subject: 10.1118, Qs: "Hooka hey", Glides, Feature Acquisition/L2 > > I am looking for the exact meaning of "Hooka hey!". Is it Lakota or Sioux > based? Any help much appreciated. > > Peter Boyd > yangna at aol.com From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sat Jul 31 16:57:14 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 11:57:14 -0500 Subject: etymology of MANDAN Message-ID: Can the name be analyzed in a Siouan language? The Mandans were contacted by Europeans first from Hudson Bay through Assiniboine territory, and later through Sioux and Arikara lands, so there are several geographically possible sources for the French and English names. (The Eng. name Mai-tain-ai-thi-nish occurs in the York Factory journal for 1721, and its form suggests Cree influence, probably on an Assiniboine form.) Ethnonyms were often transmitted into Eng. through more than one language during the early contact period, so MANDAN may have several native etyma. The search for a single etymon in these cases is often misguided and misleading. Almost all Eng. variants have -n- closing the first syllable, representing, I assume, nazalization of the preceding -a-. The Dakota (Mawa'tadaN/Mawa'taNna) & Lakota (Miwa'taNni) names (Riggs 1890) have -w- after the initial vowel, with no nasalization indicated: are the -n- and -w- etymologically equivalent, analogously to the alternation Amahami/Awahawi? I've found 3 instances in Eng. texts (1795-1805) of forms in final -l (Mandal, Mandel): what is the relationship of the -l with the usual final -n? (I note that the Dakota & Lakota names both end in -nV.) Thanks for any help, Alan From rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu Sat Jul 31 20:53:06 1999 From: rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu (Robert L. Rankin) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 15:53:06 -0500 Subject: etymology of MANDAN In-Reply-To: <37A32AEA.3370B291@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: > Can the name be analyzed in a Siouan language? The short answer is "no." The longer answer has to do with the fact that, unless it is transparent in the native language of that tribe itself (and sometimes even then), any analysis is suspect. Ethnonyms are simply notorious for being folk-etymologized, often as pejoratives, of course. I asked the Kaw-speaking woman I had recorded over the course of several years about the Potowatomi's at one point. She answered "Oh yeah, [bado'wadombe]; it means 'they're lookin' at the hills'." As indeed it does. But not in Potawatomi. In Siouan, for example, /[maN] is a root for 'flint, chert', for 'earth', and for 'gamebird' -- take your pick. [daN] in Dakotan is a popular diminutive suffix. An amateur might try to make something of that, e.g., 'little turkeys', 'little arrowheads/blades', etc. But it wouldn't be something a person would want to commit to print. > The Mandans were contacted by Europeans first from Hudson Bay through > Assiniboine territory, and later through Sioux and Arikara lands, so > there are several geographically possible sources for the French and > English names. > (The Eng. name Mai-tain-ai-thi-nish occurs in the York Factory journal > for 1721, and its form suggests Cree influence, probably on an > Assiniboine form.) Ethnonyms were often transmitted into Eng. through > more than one language during the early contact period, so MANDAN may > have several native etyma. The search for a single etymon in these > cases is often misguided and misleading. Exactly. The citations are certainly worth pointing out. > Almost all Eng. variants have -n- closing the first syllable, > representing, I assume, nazalization of the preceding -a-. I agree. > The Dakota (Mawa'tadaN/Mawa'taNna) & Lakota (Miwa'taNni) names (Riggs > 1890) have -w- after the initial vowel, with no nasalization > indicated: are the -n- and -w- etymologically equivalent, analogously > to the alternation Amahami/Awahawi? What little I know of Dakotan dialects tells me that these three terms cannot all have come from one proto-form. So either analogy (folk etymology) or borrowing from multiple sources has already been at work just within this language. The 1st two could be dialectal variants. -n- and -w- probably are not ever etymologically equivalent. However, sometimes speakers of the several languages insert a glide in between dissimilar vowels. It would be epenthetic rather than etymological, and in that case -r-/-n-, on the one hand, and -w- on the other, might be alternatives. Normally -w- is ONLY inserted when one of the two surrounding vowels is rounded, either [o] or [u]. So here I'd guess there's no n/w relationship. > I've found 3 instances in Eng. texts (1795-1805) of forms in final -l > (Mandal, Mandel): what is the relationship of the -l with the usual > final -n? (I note that the Dakota & Lakota names both end in -nV.) I hope a Dakotanist will answer that part. Word-final -l/-n is a characteristic of Dakotan dialects though. Lakota (Teton) has -l where several of the other dialects have -n. Perhaps someone can do better for you with this conundrum than I have been able to do. Best, Bob From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sat Jul 31 22:07:54 1999 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 17:07:54 -0500 Subject: etymology of MANDAN Message-ID: "Robert L. Rankin" wrote: > unless it is transparent in the native language of that tribe itself (and > sometimes even then), any analysis is suspect. Perhaps too broad a generalization... ASSINIBOINE, for example, has a solid Algonquian etymology, and CHINOOK is Salishan. Ethnonym origins certainly are subject to folk etymology and careless scholarship (just pick a likely word from the dictionary), but place-names have suffered even more! > So here I'd guess there's no n/w relationship. Thanks for that. It makes a Dakotan etymology difficult. And thanks for the prompt reply. Regards, Alan