new track: ?uN

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Tue Jun 20 14:22:41 UTC 2000


On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> Bob, As you  know, I don't know the comparative material as well as I hope
> I will in a couple of months, but I'm somewhat dismayed to see you
> treating ?uN 'do' and ?uN 'be' in the same breath, since they are
> conjugated totally differently in Lakhota.  'do' looks related to 'use':
>
> 	mu 'I use'	ec^hamu 'I do' 		wa?uN 'I am'
> 	nu 'you use'	ec^hanu 'you do'	ya?uN 'you are'
> 	?uN '3 uses'	ec^huN '3 does'		?uN '3 is'
> 	uNkuN 'we'	ec^huNkuN 'we...'	ec^unk?uN 'we are'

There isn't any contrast like this in Omaha.  In notice the 'be' form here
compounds with e=c^ha in the inclusive.  Of course, there really isn't any
'be' usage of an aN in Omaha-Ponca, either, just those various auxiliary
uses.

> In other words, 'do;use' seems to have pure vowel initial, while 'be' has
> an organic (underlying) initial glottal stop.  Surely glottal stops don't
> pop up out of nowhere, especially after consonants????

Here's where Dick Carter or Mauricio Mixco might be able to say something,
though I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to touch this with a ten foot
pole - wouldn't ki(N)-uN be likely to be kuN? ?< k?uN ?< ki(N)?uN in
typical Mandan developments?



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