Lakota demonstratives

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote:
> > whither hither thither
> > whence  hence  thence
> > what    *this* that
> > which   ?      ~this~
> > when    ?      then
> > where   here   there
>
> I think this English system is not of demonstratives (which have only
> two positions in English, this and that), but of locatives -- the
> contrast you show in the others is of interrogative/assertive, not of
> distance (and I'm curious about the equasion of which and this -- is
> that historically accurate???).  Germanic languages have always been
> hung up on the difference between location in and motion toward; note
> that we've replaced "whence" with "where from", "whither" with "where
> (to)" and "where"  with "where at" colloquially, maintaining the
> semantic differences of the older system with new forms.

'This' is the proximal demonstrative.  "Which' is, I think, derived from
the 'of two' series of demonstratives in PIE, and doesn't associate with
'this' properly speaking.

So it's this : that : yon (quite obsolete), and hither : thither : yonder
or maybe here : there : yonder or both?  Yonder is also obsolete, but
more often used for effect.

Locatives are often, not always, based on or paired with demonstrative
stems.  Many languages have considerably more elaborate schemes, but of
deixis and of adverbial/adjectival derivation from deictic stems.  Siouan
strikes me as being about on a part with older IE languages, like Latin.
The patterns involved are often spoken of a "tables of correlatives."

> 	I'm told that both Japanese and Spanish have a 3-way distinction
> in demonstratives like the Lakhota one -- is the "furthest" form in those
> languages distributed equally with the other two?

Spanish (I think):

Demonstratives:    este   ese   aquel
Locative:          aqui   alli  ahi
                   aca    alla  aya

JEK