From Zylogy at aol.com Wed Aug 1 16:10:48 2001 From: Zylogy at aol.com (Jess Tauber) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:10:48 EDT Subject: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) Message-ID: Hi- Salishan terms for "bow" might be similar- will send data when I can Jess Tauber From Zylogy at aol.com Thu Aug 2 19:58:28 2001 From: Zylogy at aol.com (Jess Tauber) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 15:58:28 EDT Subject: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) Message-ID: Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: Coast Tsimshian: hakwda:kh "back" : hak?>: Koasati: ittobihi "back" : atabi Tarahumara ata-ka Lushootseed: ts'a?such note also qch=ic < -ich "back Squamish: tEXwa?ch Cowichan tEXwats -ch suff. "back" Colville/Okanagon (s)-tskw=in?k Spokane tskw=in?ch note also =in?ch just as "bow" as lexical suffix These as well as a number of terms for "sinew", "knee", "walking stick", etc. which seem to have similar phonosemantics indicate that in many cases one has a combination of some root meaning tight (though elastic) flexibility combined with a term which might be construed as "back", possibly from recognition of the bow-like flexure of the back in life and especially in death. It is of course possible that this is a folk etymology from a borrowed form- I believe I've also seen similar terms in other parts of the New World.\ Other terms of interest? Cahuilla -tacha- lie on back tavish projectile point Tuscsrora also has a root -nachr- for "bow". Jess Tauber zylogy at aol.com From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Aug 4 01:33:48 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 20:33:48 -0500 Subject: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: I wonder if I could get an expansion on the discussion below from John or anyone else doing Dhegihan grammar. I'm a student in Mark's Omaha class, and I've been studying the Dorsey texts for much of this past year trying to make sense of the language. Much of it seems clear, but the rules and meanings of suffixed -bi or -i, and a- prefixed to verbs of motion, are still thwarting me. John's explanation of -bi / -i is tantalizing, but I'd like something a little fuller, plus some more examples set in a larger context. Before reading the contribution below, I was working with the following scheme. The pluralizing particle equivalent to Dakotan -pi had shifted regularly to -bi in Dhegihan. In recent Omaha, probably in the 19th century, the initial stop had been slurred away so that it became -i. In archaic quoted speech, as in songs, it might still be preserved as -bi; a good example of both forms in equivalent usage is found in "The Lament of the Fawn Over its Mother", Dorsey page 358, with -i in the text and -bi in the song. However, another particle -bi also existed in Omaha, which was perhaps an entirely different word, although it fell in a similar position. Dorsey has an extensive note describing this, in the story of Ishtinike being dropped down a hollow tree, and feigning to be a fat raccoon to get some women to let him out (I can't locate the reference at the moment.). This -bi was a dubitive particle which meant: "This is my understanding or presumption about the situation I am describing, but I am not a witness and hence do not take full responsibility for the correctness of what I just said". The dubitive -bi remained -bi, while the rival pluralizing -bi shifted to -i partly to maintain its functional distinction from the dubitive. Being much reduced, the -i would often just be dropped in sloppy speech, so that the plurality information would just not be conveyed. A problem with this is that the -i sometimes shows up for a singular subject. The situation may be saved by postulating another -i particle as well, since the -i for a singular subject often seems to be used in cases of accomplished actions that preceded the current flow of narrative events, or else for actions that are understood as passive events. These postulates are dubious; I'm still sniffing down this trail. Now as I understand John's explanation, there is no such thing as dubitive -bi, despite Dorsey's note and his consistent glossing of singleton -bi as "they say". The initial stop is consistently retained in bi-ama because of the quotative ama. Why should this make a difference? Looking back at Dorsey, it appears that most of the cases of singleton -bi either preceed egaN (accented on the second syllable), or come at the end of a clause. It would seem that egaN and ama have a parallel, mutually exclusive relationship to -bi, however we interpret -bi. They are phonologically similar in being two-syllable words accented on the second, with an initial vowel. Is the conservatory function of ama phonological in basis? I understand that third person singular and plural have merged. This may be, though my prejudices are against them having merge in favor of the plural form. My model would predict that one could have pluralizing -i followed by dubitive -bi. I have not been able to find a case of this yet, which favors the model John presents of only one -bi / -i particle. Now we have the obviate/proximate distinction. As I understand the explanation, a third person verb with -bi / -i is proximate, while without one it is obviate. "Obviate" means something like "off-stage" or "out of sight". How does this work in practical speech? In describing events and situations that are not present to the listener, just what does it mean for one actor to be "out of sight" or "off-stage" and the other one not to be? This has been long. Thanks for any thoughts, expansions or clarifications anyone can offer! Rory Koontz John E @lists.colorado.edu on 07/23/2001 06:04:24 PM Please respond to siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent by: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu To: "'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'" cc: Subject: RE: Odds & Ends of Ioway-Otoe in Omaha Sources On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Trechter, Sara wrote: > Hey John, I've missed something...what do you mean by "a simple declaration > (in obviative form)". It's obviously "the obviative form" that I'm > curious about. I'm sorry I was obscure. I was afraid I was droning on about something that might not be generally interesting, so I hurried. > kkettaNga wa'the agi'=bi=ama > big turtle he struck them he came back QUOTE This is embedded under (or tagged with) a quotative (=ama), but the verb is agi=bi 'he comes back', which is the third singular proximate form (in Omaha-Ponca), homophonous with, or better, identical with, the third plural. The form should be pretty recognizable as being like a plural to a Dakotanist, as =bi compares nicely with =pi. The quotative conditions the conservative form =bi of the proximate/plural here. Otherwise it would be agi=i. > es^a=i=dhaN > you said EVID? Here's the second person quotation form I mentioned. > e' the agi ha > him he struck he came back DECL This is in obviative form, having no =i ~ =bi with the third singular. And then the ha (=ha?) is the declarative. So this means something like 'he-obviative struck him' or 'he-offstage struck him' or 'he-(not seen) struck him', whereas the first clause would mean 'he-proximate ...', etc. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Aug 4 08:36:11 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 02:36:11 -0600 Subject: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I actually got started loking at Omaha-Ponca trying to figure out what shu= was and what that =bi= in =bi=ama was. It would be really embarassing to have been wrong about either one, but it always pays to question one's deductions from time to time. This is all kind of tricky and maybe I did make a wrong turn somewhere. On Fri, 3 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > I wonder if I could get an expansion on the discussion below from John > or anyone else doing Dhegihan grammar. I'm a student in Mark's Omaha > class, and I've been studying the Dorsey texts for much of this past > year trying to make sense of the language. Much of it seems clear, > but the rules and meanings of suffixed -bi or -i, and a- prefixed to > verbs of motion, are still thwarting me. Speaking of thwarting, there's nothing in Dorsey's grammar to suggest that he had a clue what =bi was or what was going on in the third person singular in general. The notes in the texts and his files suggest he had begun to get somewhere on on the two kinds of third person singular by 1890 or so, after 20 years of working with Omaha-Ponca, but was still not really thinking of bi as an allomorph of i. He didn't live many more years after 1890. For that matter, if I recall correctly, at several points in Boas's letters to Hahn he encourages her to see if she can't figure out what that bi is. I paid less attention to her letters than his, as they were in German, but I have the impression that an answer was not forthcoming then, either. But, to summarize my views, as far as I know, all the Dhegiha languages distinguish plural from singular using some reflex of the Mississippi Valley Siouan *=pi plural suffix or enclitic. It's an enclitic under the usual MVS rules of repelling stress even when it constitutes the second syllable of a word. In most of the Dhegiha languages =pi appears primarily as =pi (or =bi, if there is voicing of unaspirated stops) merged with the male/female declarative pair a/e as =pa/pe (or =ba/be), with =pi (or =bi) as an occasional variant when the declarative is missing. I don't think there are any dubitative =pi or =bi attested in the other Dhegiha languages. In Omaha-Ponca, however, the alternant =bi is found only (a) in personal names (Ishkada=bi), in songs (as noted by Rory), and before certain other enclitics in regular text that can follow it, e.g., especially =ama QUOTATIVE. As far as other conditioning enclitics, though I haven't worked out the details, it seems also to occur often before =egaN (I think in the sense 'having', i.e., the conjunct mode marker), sometimes before the 'evidently' evidentials =the/=khe, and sometimes (environment d!) in quoted material, especially under verbs of thinking. Otherwise it is reduced to =i, and this, in turn, is usually omitted by most modern Omaha speakers, except when followed by =the EVIDENTLY, =ga IMPERATIVEm, and other enclitics. I gather some folks do keep it finally, however, and I gather that it is usually retained there by modern Ponca speakers, since Kathy seems to hear it. Another context in which =bi is retained is in the negative plural, somewhat concealed, since =bi=azhi is reduced to =b=azhi regularly. Here I mean regularly in the sense of invariably. I don't see an actual generalization! But as to reduction, the -i of =bi was lowered to e in =bi=ama in the instance I elicited in text, and I suspect this probably happened in =bi=egaN [=b(e)=egaN'?], too. I think that Dorsey (and maybe the speakers he worked with, too) associated the =bi with the =ama as a single morpheme =bi=ama, and that he took many cases of =bi alone to be reduced versions of =bi=ama, which explains why he often glosses them 'they said', too. He doesn't seem to have associated this bi with the bi in names or songs, though he knew the one in songs alternated with =i in regular spoken material. Apart from the use of =bi ~ =i (~ 0) ~ =b... as a plural marker, there is a pattern in OP of using these markers (all of them, according to the context) to mark some (in fact, most, but not all) third person singulars. This parallels a pattern of usage of the animate definite articles as well. The animate definite articles come in two sets, the usual subject set akha and ama (the single, non-moving, and the multiple or moving - though we're not sure of this), and the usual non-subject (object, oblique) set dhiNkhe (plural stem dhaNkha), thaN, dhiN, and ma (the sitting, the standing, the moving, and the whole of). If the noun third person singular subject of a verb takes the articles akha or ama, then the verb will take =bi ~ =i, and vice versa. If it takes one of the non-subject articles, then the verb doesn't take =bi ~ =i, and vice versa. Of course, often enough a third person singular subject won't be a definite noun, but if it is, this pattern holds. In short, in just those cases where the verb is marked unexpectedly plural, the usual subject articles will be used with the subject, and in just those cases where it is not marked plural, the usual non-subject articles will be used. One kind of surprise or another. I have been calling "proximate" those cases where the third person singular subject is marked plural (in the verb) and (if definite) takes a "subject" animate article. The others I call "obviatives." This is because Dorsey or rather his sources describe the latter as situations where the speaker did not see the event occur, or where the subject did something at the behest of others. Rory mentions this, but I believe he has it backward. It is the non=bi, non=i cases that are this way. As it happens, a very similar characterization is given for so-called obviative sentences of Kickapoo by native speakers of Kickapoo, making me conclude that the Omaha-Ponca non=bi/i cases were like these Kickapoo obviatives. And if the non=bi/i cases were obviatives, then the =bi/i cases were, ipso facto, proximates. I hope the Algonquianists aren't too shocked at this. In fact, subsequently examining cases of non=bi/i subjects in context I came to the conclusion that I could see a sort of "not in focus, secondary character" quality to them in general. Ardis Eschenberg has looked at these more extensively since, and concluded that the non=bi/i cases are associated with subjects that are "off-stage" or not "center-stage" in narratives, while the =bi/i cases are "center-stage". The theatrical metaphor is common in analysis of text these days, and I think it does a better job of the situation here than my use of proximate/obviative. Maybe central and peripheral or something like that would work better than proximate/obviative? Of course, historically, proximate and obviative mean something like this - "nearby" and "off the path," but they've come to be used in a rather specialized way because of their first use in connection with Algonquian morphology. Ardis points out that in OP several individuals can be center stage at once, so this is not very much like a standard Algonquian proximate/obviative system at all, and it was never really being compared to the standard "first" obviative, anyway, but only to the special case semantics of the second obviative in Fox, Kickapoo, and other closely related languages. If use of non-subject articles (dhiNKhe, thaN, dhiN, ma) marks "obviative" of "non-center-stage" references in subjects, then we'd have to say that all objects are inherently obviative in OP, which is also rather different from the Algonquian scheme. There is one oddity here, and that is that while no object ever seems to take the akha or ama article, there are some cases of oblique noun phrases that have akha or ama followed by a postposition. The category of proximate, or whatever it is, is not restricted to cases =bi/i as a plural-and/or-proximate marker. The definite articles mentioned above happen also to be used as progressive auxiliaries. In this capacity they follow the verb, and in this case the verb never takes a plural or proximate use of =bi ~ =i. Any plurality is marked by the article or auxiliary itself. And proximate/obviative is also marked this way. That is, there are some sentences that use non-subject (let's say proximate) articles with their subjects and these must use proximate articles as their progressive auxiliary, while other sentences use non-subject (let's say obviative) articles with their subject, and these must use the same non-subject article as their progressive auxiliary. Of course, if a subject of a progressive sentences is not a noun or isn't definite, the article occurs as an auxiliary only. Incidentally, except for certain special cases, the OP future is marked progressive, i.e., a definite article follows it. Dorsey, or rather the people helping him edit the texts he had collected, noticed some cases of exceptions to the above rules of sentence formation and characterized them as errors. They suggested that they could be corrected by making both the verb and the subject fit either the obviative or proximate pattern, whichever he wished, not some mixture like he had in the texts at these points. He footnotes this situation several tims in the 1890 and 1891 text collections without attempting to correct the texts. I've always been very grateful to him and his consultants for those notes, as they were the main hint I had that the alternations mentioned above had something to do with proximate.obviative (or central/periperhal). Interestingly, as far as I know, all the exceptions that occur work out to have obviative marking followed by proximate marking. Whether the exception is a verb or a noun depends on which follows which. I suspdect that these sentences were initially intended to be obviative, but somehow, perhaps by dint of repetition as Dorsey wrote them down, changed to proximate as they went along. Or maybe it's a kind of speech error that just tends to occur in OP. I notice in English that I often end a sentence somewhat inconsistently with the start. Sometimes I repeat things in a corrected form, sometimes I don't. Examples (made up - I just know I'm going to regret this!): UmaNhaN=akha PpaNdhiN=dhiNkhe daNba=i 'The Omaha saw the Pawnee' UmaNhaN=thaN PpaNdhin=dhiNkhe daNbe 'The Omaha (obv) saw the Pawnee' UmaNhaN=akha PpaNdhiN=dhiNkhe daNbe=akha 'The Omaha is watching the Pawnee' UmaNhaN=thaN PpaNdhiN=dhiNkhe daNbe=thaN 'The Omaha (obv) is watching the Pawnee' (Somewhere I have some pat examples put together by or for Dorsey, and, of course, real examples are in the texts.) So, to sum things up, I see no evidence of two bi markers, only of what seems to me as a linguist (not a speaker) to be two uses of one bi marker. One of those uses - marking proximates or centrals - is also done independently with the proximate (or central) animate articles ama and akha, and the existence of this separate scheme for marking proximateness clearly shows that the proximate or central category of nouns is not associated solely with =bi. > However, another particle -bi also existed in Omaha, which was perhaps > an entirely different word, although it fell in a similar position. > Dorsey has an extensive note describing this, in the story of > Ishtinike being dropped down a hollow tree, and feigning to be a fat > raccoon to get some women to let him out (I can't locate the reference > at the moment.). This -bi was a dubitive particle which meant: "This > is my understanding or presumption about the situation I am > describing, but I am not a witness and hence do not take full > responsibility for the correctness of what I just said". I wonder if this was a case with =the (~ =khe ~ dhaN ~ =ge) as an 'evidently' evidential to describe something that must be concluded from the context, but wasn't actually witnessed? Anyway, I know the text, and I'd be interested in the comment. This story is the part of the Trickster cycle where buzzard, having been insulted by the Trickster after agreeing to fly him across a stream, drops him into a hollow tree. The Trickster gets some women out collecting wood to cut a hole and let him out by pretending to them to be a fat racoon. In the Dorsey texts, see pp. 74-78. (Note that there's a reference to an Oto version to be published in a projected collection of Chiwere texts. It is said to have been given by J[oseph] LaFle(s)che. I don't think I've ever seen this text in manuscript or otherwise.) The only note here is one that says that in wedhe t[h]i=bi=ama the bi=ama refers to the thought of IshtiniNkhe and must not be rendered "it is said." The full clause is produced as IshtinNkhe is stuck in the tree and runs "'Ni'ashiNga we'dhe thi=bi=ama,' edh=egaN=bi=ama". "'People seeking-wood they-arrive-QUOTE,' he-thought-QUOTE." This is certainly interesting in terms of the semantics of the quotative, but I'm pretty sure it's not the note Rory has in mind. From personal experiences of this sort I'd guess he has the locations of several interesting =bi=ama notes mixed! > Now as I understand John's explanation, there is no such thing as > dubitive -bi, despite Dorsey's note and his consistent glossing of > singleton -bi as "they say". I'd have to know the particular note to know what to make of it. I'm pretty sure the =bi 'they say' are due to a false association of =bi with =bi=ama 'they say'. In that context the =ama is the 'they say'. Ama just happens to condition the =bi variant of =i. There are cases of =ama without =bi (or =i) before it, because the subjects aren't plural and are obviative. > Is the conservatory function of ama phonological in basis? That is, is there somehting about the phonology of ama that cases bi to remain bi, and not become i? I'm not really sure on that one. At least two of the situations that preserve b involve following enclitics of the form (C)VCV'. > I understand that third person singular and plural have merged. This > may be, though my prejudices are against them having merge in favor of > the plural form. There are some singulars that lack "plural marking" - the obviatives. I'd have to say that my prejudices are against the plural replacing the singular, too, but I can't think of any other way to characterize it. > My model would predict that one could have pluralizing -i followed by > dubitive -bi. I have not been able to find a case of this yet, which > favors the model John presents of only one -bi / -i particle. I haven't seen any cases of adjacent double plurals or i + bi or bi + i, either, though there are various cases of more than one plural with material separating them. This is common where one of the plurals is in a negative. > Now we have the obviate/proximate distinction. As I understand the > explanation, a third person verb with -bi / -i is proximate, while > without one it is obviate. "Obviate" means something like "off-stage" > or "out of sight". How does this work in practical speech? In > describing events and situations that are not present to the listener, > just what does it mean for one actor to be "out of sight" or > "off-stage" and the other one not to be? These are all excellent questions, which Ardis might be a bit better prepared to answer than I am. It appears that the matter is something of a judgement call on the part of the speaker, and that we only know the speaker's mind by what marking pattern they use. The pattern makes sense after the fact, but we might sometimes find that we would have guessed something to be one kind of reference when it was the other. > This has been long. Thanks for any thoughts, expansions or > clarifications anyone can offer! I hope this has been some help, and I hope it will prove convincing when compared to the state of things in the texts or with speakers. If it doesn't, of course, I'd appreciate counter arguments. Examples would be good, if the non-Dhegiha folks will bear with us. === Incidentally, I may be a bit out of touch next week and, especially, the week after, due to travel. John From Rgraczyk at aol.com Mon Aug 6 19:15:24 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 15:15:24 EDT Subject: Soup Message-ID: Thanks for the help with 'soup'. So there is some evidence that it is a borrowing from Algonquian. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Aug 7 03:15:10 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 22:15:10 -0500 Subject: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: John, thanks so much for your long reply to my lengthy question. I hope that didn't cost you your whole Saturday! You've given me a lot to chew on, and I'll need a while to digest what you said in consultation with Dorsey. For now, a few thoughts from the hip: >> However, another particle -bi also existed in Omaha, which was perhaps >> an entirely different word, although it fell in a similar position. >> Dorsey has an extensive note describing this, in the story of >> Ishtinike being dropped down a hollow tree, and feigning to be a fat >> raccoon to get some women to let him out (I can't locate the reference >> at the moment.). This -bi was a dubitive particle which meant: "This >> is my understanding or presumption about the situation I am >> describing, but I am not a witness and hence do not take full >> responsibility for the correctness of what I just said". > I wonder if this was a case with =the (~ =khe ~ dhaN ~ =ge) as an > 'evidently' evidential to describe something that must be concluded from > the context, but wasn't actually witnessed? Anyway, I know the text, and > I'd be interested in the comment. > This story is the part of the Trickster cycle where buzzard, having been > insulted by the Trickster after agreeing to fly him across a stream, drops > him into a hollow tree. The Trickster gets some women out collecting wood > to cut a hole and let him out by pretending to them to be a fat racoon. > In the Dorsey texts, see pp. 74-78. (Note that there's a reference to an > Oto version to be published in a projected collection of Chiwere texts. > It is said to have been given by J[oseph] LaFle(s)che. I don't think I've > ever seen this text in manuscript or otherwise.) > The only note here is one that says that in wedhe t[h]i=bi=ama the bi=ama > refers to the thought of IshtiniNkhe and must not be rendered "it is > said." The full clause is produced as IshtinNkhe is stuck in the tree and > runs "'Ni'ashiNga we'dhe thi=bi=ama,' edh=egaN=bi=ama". "'People > seeking-wood they-arrive-QUOTE,' he-thought-QUOTE." This is certainly > interesting in terms of the semantics of the quotative, but I'm pretty > sure it's not the note Rory has in mind. From personal experiences of > this sort I'd guess he has the locations of several interesting =bi=ama > notes mixed! Actually, the note I had in mind was the one right below the one you discuss. This references page 75, line 14-15. Ishtinike has just spoken to the women from inside the tree, as follows: "Mika' taN'ga bthiN' ha" -- "I am a big raccoon. Make [the hole] big around." One woman says to the other: "HiN! shikaN', Mika' akha' taNga'-bi ai he" -- "Oh! sister-in-law, he says he is a big raccoon!" This uses -bi with respect to the information the "raccoon" has offered about himself, and -i with respect to the fact, clear to both women, that he has said the thing the woman is repeating. The note on page 77 says: 75, 14. mika akha taNga-bi ai he. She had perceived by the sense of hearing (taking _direct cognizance_) that he had said this, so she says "ai" instead of "a-biama." But she did not learn by direct cognizance that he was large, she learned it _indirectly_, so she says "taNga-bi," not "taNga." I've run into another line and note that seem to say the same thing. In the story, "How the Rabbit Killed the Black Bears," page 16, line 4-5, we have: "GaN'khi a'shi adha'-biama' Wasa'be ama', ni'kashiNga'-bi edhe'gaN-bi egaN' " -- "And so the Black Bear went outside, they say, thinking that they were people". In this case, we have -bi appended directly to the noun, and precisely to the noun of the false assumption, since these "people" were actually the Rabbit's own faeces giving the scalping cry. The note on page 18 says: 16, 5. niashiNga-bi edhegaN-bi egaN. The -bi after niashiNga shows that the Black bear, while he thought that there were men outside, had not seen them. [...] In both of these cases, -bi seems to make very good sense if understood as modifying the foregoing with the caveat of "presumably" or "supposedly" or "seemingly". Dorsey, or whoever wrote the notes, certainly seems to have believed that this was the sense. Another argument in favor of dubitive -bi is that is that it nicely explains why -bi is so rare in the dialogues, while it absolutely infests the narrative. In telling a myth, the speaker is constantly trying to distance himself from responsibility for the truth of the tale, and consequently tends to qualify every main verb of a clause with the caveat -bi, "supposedly". In dialogue, one usually knows well enough whereof one speaks, and hence feels no need to -bi everything. It would also explain the close association between -bi, "supposedly" and ama', "they say", because these are both used habitually to deny responsibility for the truth of the tale, though their exact meanings are different. >I have been calling "proximate" those cases where the third person >singular subject is marked plural (in the verb) and (if definite) takes a >"subject" animate article. The others I call "obviatives." This is >because Dorsey or rather his sources describe the latter as situations >where the speaker did not see the event occur, or where the subject did >something at the behest of others. Rory mentions this, but I believe he >has it backward. It is the non=bi, non=i cases that are this way. This is a problem. I think I have no trouble seeing all non-fossilized cases of -bi in Dorsey as being dubitive in sense, while -i acts as a different (though possibly mutually incompatible) morpheme. If "obviative" includes "that which the speaker cannot vouch for", and is signalled by the absence of -bi / -i, then our interpretations of -bi are going to be hard to reconcile. We may need to rake in a few more examples from Dorsey or native speakers. I hope that Ardis will be able to add some comments too, especially on the practical usage of obviative/proximate. >I hope this has been some help, and I hope it will prove convincing when >compared to the state of things in the texts or with speakers. If it >doesn't, of course, I'd appreciate counter arguments. Examples would be >good, if the non-Dhegiha folks will bear with us. >Incidentally, I may be a bit out of touch next week and, especially, the >week after, due to travel. >John It's been a great help, and I really appreciate your comments. I'll also be gone next week, so the non-Dhegiha folks are guaranteed a respite! Rory From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Tue Aug 7 17:42:26 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 17:42:26 GMT Subject: Soup In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Cree the apoy morph comes in a lot of words for edible liquids like 'milk', 'coffee' and 'soup', but I haven't got the other examples to hand at the moment. Bruce Date sent: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 13:52:14 -0700 Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: "Shannon West" To: Subject: RE: Soup -----Original Message----- From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Rgraczyk at aol.com Sent: July 27, 2001 12:41 PM To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Soup >I recently came across a Cheyenne form hohpe 'soup'. This is suspiciously >like Crow hu'ppii 'soup'. Does this have a Siouan etymology? What about >Algonkian? It sure looks like a borrowing to me, and I am curious about the >direction of borrowing. > >Randy Can't say, but I can give you the Nakota for 'soup' haNbi. I think there's another word for a thick soup, or stew, but I can neither rememeber nor find it right now. Hohpe reminds me of hoxpa 'cough', but that's almost certainly coincidence. The Cree word for soup (if I recall correctly) is anapapoy. Ojibwe for 'soup' is naboob. Those are the only Algonquian languages I have a sniff about. I've been not much help, I'm afraid. Shannon Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Tue Aug 7 17:48:44 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 17:48:44 GMT Subject: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On details about bows there is a Journal of the Society of Archer Antiquaries published over here somewhere which often has articles on native American bows. Bruce Date sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 08:32:13 -0500 (EST) Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: Michael Mccafferty To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > Unlurking very much appreciated. The comment on the irregularity of the > second term *ahta or *a?ta is interesting, as this is the one that > resembled PI *a?ta? that the Blair Rudes suggested was regular in > Iroquoian. This could well be a borrowing that could have diffused, according to the distribution of PA *ahta- ~ *a?ta- in Algonquian terms for 'bow' you find it along the East Coast and in the Western Great Lakes (Ojibwe and Miami-Illinois), (and it is an **old** morpheme in Miami-Illinois as attested by the Jesuit sources from around the turn of the 18th century; in other words, it's not a late borrowing from, say, Unami) it could have diffused both to the east and to the west from an (several) Iroquoian population(s) lying between the Algonquians. This notion jibes, of course, with the general Algonquian-Iroquian population distribution model for late prehistory. In addition, there is good evidence of positive Iroquian-Algonquian interaction in the area southwest of the Lake Erie, where exchange of ideas, technology, and language could/would have occurred. The archaeologist Bob McCullough has discovered this and written about it. I'll have to find the sources for those interested. It appears that present-day central, southeast and northern Indiana was, say, an "interaction zone," where peoples from various cultural backgrounds and languages lived cheek to jowl and, lacking any evidence of warfare thusfar, were pretty much getting along. Drawing back from this particular focus, it seems wise to consider the possibility that the bow was invented in more than one place. Time out of mind people have been attaching cordage to wood. One question I have, does anyone know the poundage that native bows have? Best, Michael McCafferty > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, David Costa wrote: > > > Hello all... > > > > As a Lurking Algonquianist, I felt obliged to correct some of the Algonquian > > forms given previously. I should warn people that the Proto-Algonquian > > dictionary is not the most dependable place to get Algonquian data, for > > either proto-forms or daughter language cognates. The daughter language data > > is only as good as the original source from which it was taken. > > > > I apologize if this is redundant by now, or if the interested parties > > already have all these forms. I can't recall how much of this data has > > already been given here, but since I had it at hand... (These are all > > phonemic forms.) > > > > (? = glottal stop, 'E' = front mid lax vowel, @ = schwa) > > > > P.A. *me?tekwa:pyi 'bow, bowstring' (*me?tekw- 'tree, wood' + -a:py- > > 'string, cord') > > > > Miami-Illinois mihte(h)ko:pa, mihte(h)kwa:pa 'bow', mihte(h)kwa:pinti, > > mihte(h)ko:pinti 'bowstring'; also old Illinois mihtekwi & Miami mihtehki > > 'forest, timber, wood' > > > > Shawnee mtekwa, pl. mtekwa:pali 'gun' [very likely the pre-contact word for > > 'bow', obviously], mtekwa:piti 'bowstring', and hilenahkwi 'bow'; also > > mhtekwi 'tree' > > > > Ojibwe mitigwa:b 'bow', mitig 'tree' > > > > Potawatomi mt at gwap 'bow', mt at g 'tree' > > > > Fox mehtekwa (archaic) & mehtekwanwi (modern) 'arrow', mehtekwi 'tree, > > wood'; mehtekwa:pi 'bowstring' & mehte:ha 'bow'; Kickapoo mehte:ha 'bow' > > > > Menominee nemE:?tek 'my bow' (animate; as an inanimate noun mE?tek this > > means 'wood') & mE?tekuap 'bowstring, bow' > > > > Cheyenne ma?tahke 'bow' > > > > Arapaho b�:t�? 'bow' & be:t�yo:k 'bowstring'. > > > > Another cognate set is exemplified by Ojibwe acha:b 'bowstring', Unami > > Delaware hat�:p:i 'bow ', and the Miami-Illinois alternates ne:htia:pa > > 'bow' & ne:htia:pinti 'bowstring'. As I think has been mentioned, tho, this > > etymon is mostly found in Eastern Algonquian, along the Atlantic Coast. I > > haven't give those forms since I figure Maliseet and Unquachog aren't very > > plausible candidates for Siouan loans. :-) Incidentally, the etymon doesn't > > reconstruct cleanly. The consonant clusters line up rather poorly. > > > > Thanks for your patience. Anyway, back to my lurking. :-) > > > > best, > > > > David Costa > > > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 8 06:53:03 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 00:53:03 -0600 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <12d.25950b6.289b0ae4@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you mention is just chance. > Koasati: ittobihi > "back" : atabi My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. From pankihtamwa at earthlink.net Wed Aug 8 07:27:37 2001 From: pankihtamwa at earthlink.net (David Costa) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 00:27:37 -0700 Subject: Bows Message-ID: /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was favored for making bows? Dave Costa ---------- >From: Koontz John E >To: >Subject: Re: Bows >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > mention is just chance. > >> Koasati: ittobihi >> "back" : atabi > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed Aug 8 09:59:44 2001 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 04:59:44 -0500 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <200108080728.AAA25587@hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I think I laid this all out on day one. Maybe in my dreams. :-) On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, David Costa wrote: > /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate > with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar > semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is > /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow > tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), > literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that > mulberry wood was favored for making bows? > > Dave Costa > > > ---------- > >From: Koontz John E > >To: > >Subject: Re: Bows > >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > > > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > > > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > > mention is just chance. > > > >> Koasati: ittobihi > >> "back" : atabi > > > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > > > > > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 8 18:35:35 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 12:35:35 -0600 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <200108080728.AAA25587@hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: > I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was > favored for making bows? It might be. The usual 'bow wood' in Osage is the Osage Orange, I think, though this is from memory. Sometimes such trees are called bois d'arc in English. JEK From Zylogy at aol.com Wed Aug 8 19:15:55 2001 From: Zylogy at aol.com (Jess Tauber) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 15:15:55 EDT Subject: Bows Message-ID: The connection with "back" is folk etymology, perhaps? Note the use of the term in English itself - bow (for archery) versus bow (to the nobility, for instance) (and lets not forget boughs. Baying (dogs)?). Not that I'd be averse to a deep etymological or phonosemantic connection between these and "back" in IE (anyone know offhand?). In my analysis of quite a few lexical systems there appears to be a subcomponent, organized along phonosemantic lines, which characterizes bodily postures by shape, orientation, tension, etc. and by extension emotional or health states accompanying them on the one hand, and to properties of nonhuman entities on the other. Mongolian languages, for instance, have many hundred such terms, as do Southern Bantu languages. In these language types such terms are expressives or ideophones. More lexicalized systems (such as found in western Indoeuropean) appear to have many fewer terms surviving mostly in derivations or shifted semantically. I wonder whether "bow" is such a survival here, as in the Native American languages we are looking at. There is also, here, a connection with raw onomatopoeia: the sound of an arrowshot, or a gunshot- bow/pow//back/bang vs takw (and variants). Interesting shift, no? Also the fact that in use there is always a "backish" component of action in these weapons- pushing the projectile back (in muzzleloaders) from the vertical in order to usually point it in the horizontal, or pulling (for bows), or breechloading (for modern guns), the "backish" recoil of guns (bows?). As if stiff verticality/straightness was the expected norm. The projectile is then an intrusive fulcrum, tension increasing to get rid of it. I also wonder whether kicking and cocking are part of this phonosemantic set in English. Jess Tauber zylogy at aol.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed Aug 8 19:40:44 2001 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 14:40:44 -0500 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This is true. The name of the tree is pronounced [bo'dark] in English. On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > > I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was > > favored for making bows? > > It might be. The usual 'bow wood' in Osage is the Osage Orange, I think, > though this is from memory. Sometimes such trees are called bois d'arc in > English. > > JEK > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From daynal at nsula.edu Thu Aug 9 17:05:25 2001 From: daynal at nsula.edu (Dayna Bowker Lee) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 10:05:25 -0700 Subject: Bows Message-ID: Among the Caddo, cha-wíh is the word for both bow and bois d'arc tree, the material from which Caddo bows were and still are constructed. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Costa To: Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 12:27 AM Subject: Re: Bows > /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate > with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar > semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is > /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow > tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), > literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that > mulberry wood was favored for making bows? > > Dave Costa > > > ---------- > >From: Koontz John E > >To: > >Subject: Re: Bows > >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > > > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > > > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > > mention is just chance. > > > >> Koasati: ittobihi > >> "back" : atabi > > > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > > > > From Ogalala2 at aol.com Tue Aug 14 14:38:36 2001 From: Ogalala2 at aol.com (Ogalala2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 10:38:36 EDT Subject: Stoney Phonology Message-ID: I need some help with Stoney phonology. I have been using John Laurie's "Dictionary of the Stony Language." He uses h where other Siouan linguist use x for the gutteral German ch. He also uses h for h and for the gutteral g, the sonant of x. My questions are: Does Stoney not contain the gutterals? Is h the proper phoneme to represent all three of the phonemes mentioned above? Thanks for your help. Ted Grimm From mosind at yahoo.com Wed Aug 15 10:22:39 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Constantine Xmelnitski) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 03:22:39 -0700 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Siouanists: I wonder what is the cause of irregular paradigm of Dakotan transitive verb yu'tA. L/D: 1s: wa'te, 2s: ya'te, 12: uNyu'tapi > uN'tapi, yul-/yun-/yud- According to Shannon West, Assiniboine's "yuda" behaves [at least in some dialects?] as if a regular Y-verb: mnu'da - nu'da - uNyu'dabi. Detransitivized wo'tA ( wauN'tapi;, wol-/won-/wod- ASB wo'da: 1s wo'wada. Besudes Dakotan stuff I have only Osage and Winnebago dictionaries, so I could found only these possible cognates: Osage: dha'ce (bdha'ce - sta'ce - oNdha'ca i), "to eat" (vt?) noN'bdhe (awanoN'bdhe - wadhanoN'bdhe - oNwoN'noNbdha i) to eat, to consume (vt?) wanoN'bdhe, to eat, to dine (vi?) Winnebago: ruc^- So what is the PSi form, and which paradigm (L/D vs. ASB is older)? Thank you. Connie. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Wed Aug 15 13:05:37 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 13:05:37 GMT Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <200108080728.AAA25587@hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Has anyone got an etymology for Lakota itazipa 'bow'. I may have missed it in all the flurry of activity over Dheghiha and Chikasaw. Incidentally you mention the possible original measning may have been 'blow pipe'. A parallel case is that Persian tir kamaan literally 'arrow (and) bow' passes into some arabic dialects as telkammaan 'catapult'. Bruce Date sent: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 00:27:37 -0700 Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: "David Costa" To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Bows /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was favored for making bows? Dave Costa ---------- >From: Koontz John E >To: >Subject: Re: Bows >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > mention is just chance. > >> Koasati: ittobihi >> "back" : atabi > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From mosind at yahoo.com Thu Aug 16 09:23:46 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Constantine Xmelnitski) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:23:46 -0700 Subject: Stoney Phonology In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --- Ogalala2 at aol.com wrote: .... My questions are: Does Stoney not contain > the gutterals? Is h the > proper phoneme to represent all three of the > phonemes mentioned above? In Patricia Shaw's (1980) book on phonology and morphology of Dakotan I found the following (chapter 1): "..Notably, however, the velar fricatives /x, g^/ of other dialects occur as the pharyngeals [ ] in Stoney. This seems to be a fairly recent sound shift for there is still some variability in the articulation of these segments in the speech of older and more conservative speakers". Connie. > > Thanks for your help. > > Ted Grimm > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From mosind at yahoo.com Thu Aug 16 09:26:28 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Constantine Xmelnitski) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:26:28 -0700 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <0108159979.AA997914826@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: Just two words in addition to yuta - wota stuff: yu'tA has a regular glu'tA (waglu'tA) possessive form. Another perhaps relevant verb is yata' (blata', lata', uNya'tapi), vt. "to chew, to try by tasting smth" Connie. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Fri Aug 17 12:01:42 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 12:01:42 GMT Subject: bows (and arrows) In-Reply-To: <005a01c09f32$1e2694c0$1509ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: Having fond out about bows, does anyone know the derivation of Lakota waNhiNkpe 'arrow'. The waN element (also w-, wa- )occurs as an incorporatable element in waNtaNyeyela 'good archer', waNsaka 'arrow shaft', wawakhaN 'sacred arrow'. waNhiNkpe looks as though it may be from waN 'arrow', hi 'tooth, point' and iNkpa 'end', but that sems like a very superfluous derivation. Anmy ideas Bruce Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 21 01:37:22 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:37:22 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <20010815102239.59108.qmail@web13403.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Constantine Xmelnitski wrote: I surveyed the r-stem pattern and also 'to eat' which has additional irregularities, in: Koontz, John E. 1983. Siouan Syncopating *r-Stems. pp. 11-23, Na'po [Plains Cree for 'Man'] Vol. 13, October 1983, Special Issue: Proceedings of the Second Siouan Languages Conference, 1982. Ed. by Mary C. Marino. (MM says na'po is actualy Plains Cree for 'male'.) > I wonder what is the cause of irregular paradigm of Dakotan transitive > verb yu'tA. L/D: 1s: wa'te, 2s: ya'te, 12: uNyu'tapi > uN'tapi, > yul-/yun-/yud- According to Shannon West, Assiniboine's "yuda" behaves > [at least in some dialects?] as if a regular Y-verb: mnu'da - nu'da - > uNyu'dabi. Winnebago has alternative inflectional patterns for this stem, either haa'c^/raa'c^/ruu'c^ (cf. Dakotan wa'te/ya'te/yu'tA) or duu'c^/s^uruc^/ruu'c^ (cf. Assiniboine mnu'da/nu'da/yu'da). IO has haj^i'/raj^i'/ru'j^e, which is more or less along the first pattern, though the accentuation and final vowel are not quite an exact fit. In the paper I treated this stem as being monomorphemic, i.e., with the initial *ru (> yu in Dakotan) being only coincidentally identical with the hand instrumental. Clearly, though, that coincidence would be an operative factor in the evolution of the verb. The Dhegiha cognate of this stem would be *dhute (cf. Osage dhuce, spelled thidse by LaFlesche), which has a gloss 'to scoop from a hollow place' in which the hand instrumental seems interpretation to be involved. Omaha-Ponca seems to lack the *dhute form - it would be expected to occur as dhide. There is a potential cognate of Proto-Siouan *rut(e) 'to eat' in Catawban exhibited in the Woccon utterance rendered Noccoo Eraute? 'Have you got anything to eat' in Lawson's word list (cited by Carter in a 1980 article on the Woccon data). Frankly, I'm not sure why the PS verb *rut(e) has first and second persons based on a stem allomorph *t(e) in Dakotan and Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. I'm inclined to think that this pattern is old, and that occurences of the more normal pattern in Dhegiha and elsewhere are cases of regularizations. Of course, the pattern "regularized" to is that of the *ru- instrumental, which follows the *r-stem syncopating conjugation as opposed to thre "regular" pattern used with cluster and fricative initials. If the Dakotan pattern for 'eat' is old, then one possibility is that the stem was originally *ot(e) or *ut(e). In that case the first and second persons could be explained as involving a vowel contraction (notice that they are normally accented in violation of the second syllable tendency), while the third person has an epenthetic *r. This *r would be conditioned when suitable vowel-final morpheme preceded the stem. One that would make the most sense for me formally would be a hypothetical third person pronominal *i, but there is no consistent evidence for this in the active paradigms, though third person *i is reflected in possesive paradigms. It may also be worth noticing that Osage has an opposition of dhache 'to eat' vs. idhache 'to eat one thing with another'. Allan Taylor tells me a semantic distinction of 'eat one thing' vs. 'eat two things together' occurs in some Algonquian languages (I think Atsina is one). If *i were regularly used to derive such stems in Siouan, then a frequent opposition of *ut(e) vs. i-rut(e) might lead to a revision of the root from *ute to *rute, affecting only the third person, though subsequently the first and second persons might be modified to fit the normal pattern for *r-stems. > Besudes Dakotan stuff I have only Osage and Winnebago dictionaries, so > I could found only these possible cognates: Osage: dha'ce (bdha'ce - > sta'ce - oNdha'ca i), "to eat" (vt?) noN'bdhe (awanoN'bdhe - > wadhanoN'bdhe - oNwoN'noNbdha i) to eat, to consume (vt?) wanoN'bdhe, > to eat, to dine (vi?) Rankin explained these sets to me back in '82 as: Dhegiha *dhathE 'to eat' cf. Dakotan yathA 'to chew'; Dhegiha *naNbdhE 'to eat' cf. Dakotan naNpc^ha 'to swallow'. He also pointed out the *dhute 'scoop up' set to me and argued that it did not historically involve an instrumental. The PS stems seem to be *ra-the', *raN'pye (or *naN'pye?), *(r)u't(e). From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 21 01:44:34 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:44:34 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <0108159979.AA997914826@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Sep 2001, Hu Matthews wrote: > sg pl > 3rd duush�k duus�uk > 1st buush�k buus�uk > 2nd dil�shik dil�suuk > > 'eat' is irregular also in Crow. > The final k in these forms is the declarative marker. > (In case the accents don't make it through, - in the 1st and 3rd > person, the accent goes on the first vowel of the last syllable; in > the 2nd person it is on the middle syllable. For the record, I believe that this is the regular pattern for the lu- instrumental in Crow, and reflects the Crow outcome of th *r-stem syncopating conjugation. Thus it would follow the alternate pattern of inflection for 'eat' attested in Assiniboine and Winnebago (or Dhegiha, etc.). It's particularly neat to find such a nice exhibition of this pattern in Crow, of course, and it's on the strenght of this that I think that the *r-stem pattern can be read into Proto-Siouan, not just Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan, I've wondered if the -u- vowel of plurals in Crow might not reflect the *p of =*pi as a plural in MV, though this may be stretching things! I don't know of any parallel development of *p to u in the enclitic sequences of Crow (or Hidatsa). From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 21 01:49:06 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:49:06 -0600 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <1050352612E@soas.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote: > Has anyone got an etymology for Lakota itazipa 'bow'. I may > have missed it in all the flurry of activity over Dheghiha and > Chikasaw. Incidentally you mention the possible original measning > may have been 'blow pipe'. A parallel case is that Persian tir > kamaan literally 'arrow (and) bow' passes into some arabic dialects > as telkammaan 'catapult'. I think most likely is ita + zipa, with ita representing an analogically modified borrowing mita 'bow', and zipa being something like 'thin', presumably referring to the thinned structure of the bow staff. However, this is just a guess as far as zipa. I'm pretty sure of ita < mita < some Algonquian source. From BARudes at aol.com Tue Aug 21 17:04:02 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:04:02 EDT Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan Message-ID: The root of the Catawba verb to eat is -raN-, which appears in Woccon with the regular replacement of /aN/ by /a:/ as -ra:-. The -te in Eraute is a modal suffix. -raN- itself is a mutating verb. More often than not, it cooccurs with the mutating instrumental ru:# by hand, in such forms as du:raNre: one eats. Blair From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 22 05:56:22 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 23:56:22 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > The root of the Catawba verb to eat is -raN-, which appears in Woccon with > the regular replacement of /aN/ by /a:/ as -ra:-. The -te in Eraute is a > modal suffix. -raN- itself is a mutating verb. More often than not, it > cooccurs with the mutating instrumental ru:# by hand, in such forms as > du:raNre: one eats. This means that *rut(e), maybe *ut(e), is attested only in Siouan, and might conceivably involve the *ru instrumental, if the r is organic to the stem. The Woccon and Catawba forms actually look more like the first part of *raNpyE, even though the phonotactics of that suggest an analysis of *raNp-yE. Although it would be, I think, a unique instance of this pattern of suppletion, perhaps the Siouan 'eat' stem is just *t(e) (or *tE), and the third person has the instrumental, while the first and second (and sometimes the inclusive) lack it. In this case the occurrence of instrumental forms instead of non-instrumental forms in the first and second, etc., persons would be an old alternative, rather than regularization. I'm not sure but what Blair was suggesting as much. JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Wed Aug 22 20:32:33 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:32:33 EDT Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan Message-ID: In a message dated 08/20/2001 6:45:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time, John.Koontz at colorado.edu writes: > For the record, I believe that this is the regular pattern for the lu- > instrumental in Crow, and reflects the Crow outcome of th *r-stem > syncopating conjugation. Thus it would follow the alternate pattern of > inflection for 'eat' attested in Assiniboine and Winnebago (or Dhegiha, > etc.). > > I'm not sure I'm understanding John correctly, but duushi' does not follow the regular pattern for du- 'by hand' instrumentals in Crow. It is irregular in two respects: in the first person form the initial vowel of the stem is replaced by the first person marker b-, and the accent is on the final vowel of the stem (duushi'). In all the du- instrumentals, the instrumental prefix bears the accent, e.g., du'tchi 'take'. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 22 23:54:48 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:54:48 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <13d.2b04f5.28b570e1@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > > For the record, I believe that this is the regular pattern for the lu- > > instrumental in Crow, ... > > I'm not sure I'm understanding John correctly, but duushi' does not follow > the regular pattern for du- 'by hand' instrumentals in Crow. It is irregular > in two respects: in the first person form the initial vowel of the stem is > replaced by the first person marker b-, and the accent is on the final vowel > of the stem (duushi'). In all the du- instrumentals, the instrumental prefix > bears the accent, e.g., du'tchi 'take'. Which is the polite way to say I was wrong. The first person of an l-stem in Crow would have buru'... (not sure of length). And it looks like the length would be different, too, since 'eat' is long (duushi'), while the instrumental is short. So, rapidly reversing direction on Crow, I point out that at least the first person is somewhat comparable to the Dakotan or Winnebago treatment, though the vowel that follows is the stem vowel, not the usual pronominal vowel. It looks like Crow supports a stem analysis of *u't(e) in the first person, as opposed to *ru-t(e) (stress not clear to me). And, carefully checking the paper I referred to (in lieu of the original sources) it appears that Hidatsa has the same treatment of the first person as Crow: A1 wuu'ti A2 raruu'ti A3 ruu'ti But the instrumental ru is inflected: A1 wa-ru- (where Crow has bu-lu-) A2 ra-ru- (where Crow has di-lu-) A3 ru- I'm not sure about the accent in Hidatsa in either case, or the manner of marking it, but I do know that initial w is actually pronounced (and usually written) m and initial r is actually pronounced (and usually written) n. Thanks Randy! From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Aug 23 04:20:17 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:20:17 -0600 Subject: Mixed Conjugations (Re: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In regard to the case of Crow and Hidatsa having what looks like a *V-initial 'eat' stem in the first person and an *r-initial stem in the second and third persons, this is a kind of suppletion that occurs elsewhere in Siouan. Suppletion in the more general sense is also widely found, of course. As an example of that it would be hard to beat OP 'to say', which has something like e=...he in the first and second persons, e in the third person (usually a=i or a=bi=ama), and dhaN in the inclusive. The first two are probably related historically, with the second a simplification of the first - either a contraction or just the e(=), but treated as ablauting like =he. Anyway, for the simpler type where the stems are essentially identical, but treated as if they have different initial sounds, and thus different conjugations, consider the Dakotan glottal stop stem pattern, e.g.,: A1 m-uN A2 n-uN (probably from *sh-nuN) A3 uN Compare this with the Dhegiha pattern: A1 m-aN A2 zh-aN A3 aN and with the corresponding forms in the *r-stem paradigm, cf. Dakotan A1 b-l... A2 l... (probably from *sh-l...) A3 y... and Dhegiha (this is the OP version) A1 b-dh... A2 sh-n... (becoming just n since 1870 or so) A3 dh... This suggests that maybe the Dakotan glottal stop stem second person (n, i.e., l before a nasal vowel) is from the *r-stems. Another example occurs with the inflection of Dhegiha *i...aNghe 'to ask someone (a question)'. This varies among reflexes of idhaNghe and iwaNghe for the third person, where the dh and w are plainly epenthetic. The first person is either imaNghe (like a glottal stop stem) or ibdhaNghe (like an *r-stem). The second person is usually inaNghe (earlier ishnaNghe) (like an *r-stem) (details vary for different Dhegiha languages, depending on how they treat *sh-r). Another verb like this is the sitting definite article: A1 m-iNkhe A2 (sh)-niNkhe A3 dhiNkhe How *i...aNghe 'to ask someone (a question)' gets a mixed paradigm is fairly clear, but the mechanism in Dakotan glottal stops stems or with Dhegiha *dhiNkhe (< Proto-SIouan *riNkhe) isn't as clear. Incidentally, though glottal stop does appear in some persons of some languages' glottal stop stems, this kind of stem usually looks more like a special kind of V-initial stem. JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Thu Aug 23 15:00:28 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:00:28 EDT Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan,Crow, Hidatsa, etc. Message-ID: My guess is that the second person forms in Crow and Hidatsa (dilu'shi/waru'ti) were 'regularized' along the lines of the du- 'by hand' conjugation. So we have an old inflectional pattern that is preserved only in the first person. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Mon Aug 27 20:12:50 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:12:50 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: John and I went off-list for a while with our discussion of the -bi / -i problem in OP. We decided to test the tolerance of the other members of the list by alternately posting our recent correspondence, until we caught up to where we presently are. So here's the first chunk! Rory ---------------------- Forwarded by Rory M Larson/IS/UNL/UNEBR on 08/27/2001 02:52 PM --------------------------- Rory M Larson 08/21/2001 10:51 PM To: Koontz John E cc: Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (Document link: Rory M Larson) Hi John, Thanks for the note! I've been reading/re-reading the texts some more, and I've found a few more items I'd like to add to the fire. 1) If -bi / -i are semantically equivalent alternates of each other, then the difference ought to be made by the phonological environment. We suggested that a subsequent ama' or egaN' might preserve -bi, while the morpheme would be reduced to -i in most other environments. If -bi and -i are distinct morphemes, however, then their use should depend on the semantics of the situation. I proposed that -bi was a modal marker that conveyed a dubitative value to the preceding noun or statement, while -i indicated either plurality, or factuality of the statement. I argued that -bi was used almost constantly in narrative statements, because the speaker wished to emphasize that he was not personally testifying to the truth of them, but that it hardly ever appeared in the dialogue, because here the speakers were normally claiming to know what they were talking about. We cannot easily distinguish these two models on the basis of subsequent ama', because ama' means something like "they say", and is intrinsically dubitative in meaning itself. Hence, the second theory as well as the first predicts that the ( -bi | -i ) particle preceding it will always be -bi. But egaN', "the preceding having occurred", or "because of the preceding", is not intrinsically dubitative, and can be used equally well for factual as for doubtful clauses. Therefore, our two models differ in their predictions for the ( -bi | -i ) particle preceding egaN'. If the dubitative -bi model is valid, then egaN' should normally be preceded by -bi in narrative statements, but by -i or nothing in most dialogue statements. But if the phonological environment model is correct, then the particle preceding egaN' should always be -bi, regardless of whether the statement is narrative or dialogue. Finding compound third-person dialogue statements is difficult, but I found two of them in the story, "How the Rabbit Killed a Giant", pages 22 - 25. The first is on page 23, line 10-11. When the giant demands to know which of them had had the audacity to cut up the deer they had shot, the two frightened men admit that the Rabbit made them do it: She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so that's why we cut it up". Here the accusation arises from personal experience, and the men do not precede egaN' with -bi. The second is on page 23, line 17-18. As the giant proceeds to maul him, the Rabbit declares the difference between himself and the craven men: Dhe'ama naN'dhiphai' egaN' a'dhikhi'dha-bazhi'-hnaN'-i; wi' naN'wipha ma'zhi egaN' a'wikhi'bdha ta' miNkhe. -- "These ones fear you, so they don't attack you; I fear you not, so I will attack you". Here again we have no -bi in front of egaN' in either of the two places it appears. The first one has -i, which can be construed as the plural particle. The second has only the first person negator ma'zhi, but can't be counted in this test since its subject is not third person. In these two cases of dialogue, egaN' takes no preceding -bi. I count six other cases of egaN' in narrative statements of the same story, each of which does take a preceding -bi (or -b alone, tacked to the final vowel of the preceding word). These are at lines 2, 4, 7, 15, 17 and 20, all on page 23. This story at least seems to support the dubitative -bi model. I don't claim that this is perfectly predictable, since I think I have run into a case or two in other stories where -bi fails to occur before egaN' in a narrative statement, but I believe this pattern is the rule. Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. I would claim that to be a standard exception to the rule of dubitative -bi in narrative statements. 2) I think I've found a counter-example to our rule that -i and -bi could not both occur at the same time. In "Ishtinike and the Deserted Children", page 87, line4, we have: E'gidhe shaN'ge i' khaNthaN'i-biama'. -- "It happened that the horses mouths were tied, they say". In this case, we seem to have a pluralizing, or passive voice, -i, which lets us know we are talking about more than one horse, or that the tying was done to the horses' mouths without a named actor rather than that the horses' mouths did the tying. This is simply part of the narrative, however, so the whole thing is cast in doubt with a following bi ama'. The dubitative -bi model predicts this as a possibility, but it should not be possible under the -bi / -i equivalence model. 3) I think I've also found a case of two different -i morphemes appearing at the same time. On page 88 of the same story, line 7-8, we refer to "the children who were abandoned" as shiN'gazhiN'ga waaN'dhaii ama' Here we have two -i's following the verb "abandon them". My sense is that the first one indicates plurality or passive voice, "they abandon them", or "they are abandoned", and that the second throws the action into the past with respect to the time of the narrative: "the children who had been abandoned". If this interpretation is correct, then we are dealing with at least two separate -i morphemes as well as a dubitative -bi morpheme. These are the only examples I've found of these two cases, both in the same story, which is otherwise rather difficult. Perhaps NudaN-axa spoke a somewhat different dialect than that of the La Fleches. These arguments are tenuous, but so far the dubitative -bi model seems to offer the best fit for me. I'd be interested in any counter-examples from Dorsey you could find that would support the -bi / -i equivalence model, or specifically the obviative/proximate model. I certainly agree with you that the whole issue is very tricky! Also, I'm wondering if I could ask a favor of you. I've been working up a series of lessons for teaching an Omaha class, and Mark is thinking of using them on our class this coming semester. So far, they're pretty much off the top of my head, and I'm floundering. They need to be vetted both by the native speakers and by a qualified OP linguist. Would you be willing to take on the latter role? I've got about five lessons done so far, plus an introduction to explain how I'm doing it and why. The lessons are pretty short and simple, and mainly grammar-oriented. If you would be willing to look them over and give me your feedback, I'd really appreciate it. Rory Koontz John E on 08/11/2001 02:15:50 AM To: cc: Subject: Re: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Rory: These are fair problem examples, though I think they're just additonal environments in which i comes out bi. One's I've been mentally sweeping under the rug. I'll try to deal with them when I'm at home! Thanks for pointing out the problems here, because I'm pretty sure I'll learn something from wrestling with these. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 14:25:57 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 08:25:57 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 01:14:12 -0600 (MDT) From: Koontz John E To: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Please feel free to post any substantive discussion to the list. I'll reply offline in this case. I think I started the offline thing myself, though intending it mainly as a temporizing apology for not giving you the full response your excellent points deserve. On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > 1) If -bi / -i are semantically equivalent alternates of each > other, then the difference ought to be made by the phonological > environment. It is much nicer if the conditioning is phonological, but cases of morphological conditioning aren't precluded in linguistic analysis if the data seem to bear them out. > We suggested that a subsequent ama' or egaN' might preserve -bi, while > the morpheme would be reduced to -i in most other environments. If > -bi and -i are distinct morphemes, however, then their use should > depend on the semantics of the situation. Agreed. > But egaN', "the preceding having occurred", or "because of the > preceding", is not intrinsically dubitative, and can be used equally > well for factual as for doubtful clauses. Therefore, our two models > differ in their predictions for the ( -bi | -i ) particle preceding > egaN'. If the dubitative -bi model is valid, then egaN' should > normally be preceded by -bi in narrative statements, but by -i or > nothing in most dialogue statements. But if the phonological > environment model is correct, then the particle preceding egaN' should > always be -bi, regardless of whether the statement is narrative or > dialogue. > > Finding compound third-person dialogue statements is difficult, > but I found two of them in the story, "How the Rabbit Killed a Giant", > pages 22 - 25. The first is on page 23, line 10-11. When the giant > demands to know which of them had had the audacity to cut up the > deer they had shot, the two frightened men admit that the Rabbit > made them do it: > > She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' > aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so > that's why we cut it up". > > Here the accusation arises from personal experience, and the men > do not precede egaN' with -bi. > > The second is on page 23, line 17-18. As the giant proceeds to maul > him, the Rabbit declares the difference between himself and the > craven men: > > Dhe'ama naN'dhiphai' egaN' a'dhikhi'dha-bazhi'-hnaN'-i; > wi' naN'wipha ma'zhi egaN' a'wikhi'bdha ta' miNkhe. -- > "These ones fear you, so they don't attack you; > I fear you not, so I will attack you". > > Here again we have no -bi in front of egaN' in either of the two places > it appears. The first one has -i, which can be construed as the plural > particle. The second has only the first person negator ma'zhi, but > can't be counted in this test since its subject is not third person. > > In these two cases of dialogue, egaN' takes no preceding -bi. I count > six other cases of egaN' in narrative statements of the same story, > each of which does take a preceding -bi (or -b alone, tacked to the > final vowel of the preceding word). These are at lines 2, 4, 7, 15, 17 > and 20, all on page 23. My counter argument here is that there seem to be two egaN conjunctions. This is something I'd noticed during my last active progress on my dissertation a few years ago, though I'm not sure I ever associated it with bi-conditioning and I haven't written anything up on it that I can recall. I think I may have mentioned it to Ardis later, but maybe that was just multiple kinds of ama. My recollection is that one of the forms was regularly stressed on a particular syllable (apparently the second). The other was accented in various ways depending on the accent of the preceding verb (depending on where the tendency to alternating syllables for secondary accent placed it). As far as glosses, one form was usually glossed something like 'so', or sometimes maybe 'in order that'. The other was the 'having' conjunction. It appears from your examples that the first pattern in each of these is paired, though I'd have to go look at my notes to be sure this is what I noticed. Maybe it's more complex and my initial analysis and this one don't match because I'm completely off base. Anyway, the first examples you provide have the sense 'so, in order that', while the group on p. 23 are the other - more common one, "having," what Bob Rankin recently called (I forget where, maybe just conference comments or email) the "conjunct mode" after a term used in Algonquian grammar (maybe elsewhere, too) to refer to generically subordinated clauses (as opposed to specific kinds of subordinates like conditionals, causals, temporals, etc.). These are somewhat like active present or imperfect participles in Indo-European languages (note tha "having"), but in Algonquian they take personal inflection. There may be an implication of sequencing (not always in Algonquian, I think), so they are somewhat temporal, but not in marked way like 'when' clauses. In OP they're just regular verbs, of course, followed by a kind of generic conjunction. Now what you need for a counter example would be a 'so' that had a bi or a 'having' that didn't. The easy way to find this would be to search the computer file version of the texts (which I assume you have?) for 'so' and 'having'. I should add that there are also a number of other uses of egaN. Basically, it is a verb e=...gaN 'to be thus, to be so to something', inflected e=gimaN, e=gizhaN, e=gaN. This neat pattern of gi before the first or second person pronoun or g fused with the third person stem also occurs with e=ge (alternatively suppletively e=gidhaN from dhaN 'tell' instead) 'to say to someone', inflected e=giphe (or is it egihe?), e=gis^e, e=ge. The underlying verbs (without -g(i)- 'to someone/something') are eaN 'how; to be so' and, of course, e 'to say' (which has some many alternaive stems it's difficult to describe except by listing the inflections ehe, e^e, e ~ a=i ~ a=bi). Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in the sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed part of e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. It's also part of a pattern or set of related patterns of the shape "eska(naN) ... gaN=dh=egaN" = 'would that ..., oh that ...' Sort of like Spanish ojala is how I conceptualize it, though not a loan from Arabic like that! > Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the > words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, > and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar > of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. I would claim > that to be a standard exception to the rule of dubitative -bi in > narrative statements. In these sentences, which I call progressives, though that's not entirely apt, for various reasons - maybe imperfects is closer to the mark - both i and bi are missing, I believe, and number and obviation come from the form of the article. Basically, the lack of i ~ bi is equivalent to the use of the obviative articles (dhiNkhe, etc.), while the presence of i ~ bi is equivalent to the use of the proximate articles (akha and ama). I'd be interested in your logic with the term dispositional. > 2) I think I've found a counter-example to our rule that -i and -bi could > not both occur at the same time. In "Ishtinike and the Deserted Children", > page 87, line4, we have: > > E'gidhe shaN'ge i' khaNthaN'i-biama'. -- > "It happened that the horses mouths were tied, they say". I'd take this to be a typo or mispeaking, though I'd have to reconsider if there were many examples. I've noticed a few other typos here and there, surprisingly few, though. There are also definitely some mistranscriptions and mispeakings, e.g., the errors noted with proximate and obviative marking (or dubitative) in the footnotes. > 3) I think I've also found a case of two different -i morphemes > appearing at the same time. On page 88 of the same story, > line 7-8, we refer to "the children who were abandoned" as > > shiN'gazhiN'ga waaN'dhaii ama' Same reaction. Of course, the only support I can offer to this is that Dorsey doesn't comment on these somewhat unusual cases, which is negative evidence, and weak anyway. Anyone could overlook something. And, for that matter, I think Dorsey assumed with you that bi had a dubitative sense, though he glosses it as quotative. > These are the only examples I've found of these two cases, > both in the same story, which is otherwise rather difficult. > Perhaps NudaN-axa spoke a somewhat different dialect > than that of the La Fleches. I think he was Ponca. > These arguments are tenuous, but so far the dubitative -bi > model seems to offer the best fit for me. I'd be interested > in any counter-examples from Dorsey you could find > that would support the -bi / -i equivalence model, or > specifically the obviative/proximate model. I certainly > agree with you that the whole issue is very tricky! In general, why would songs and names be dubitative? From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Aug 28 16:19:14 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 11:19:14 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: ---------------------- Forwarded by Rory M Larson/IS/UNL/UNEBR on 08/28/2001 11:05 AM --------------------------- Rory M Larson 08/24/2001 03:57 PM To: Koontz John E cc: Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (Document link: Rory M Larson) Hi John, > Please feel free to post any substantive discussion to the list. I'll > reply offline in this case. I think I started the offline thing myself, > though intending it mainly as a temporizing apology for not giving you the > full response your excellent points deserve. Why don't I post my last letter to the list, and then you can post the one you last wrote? Then I can post this one, and they will be up in sequence. I wasn't sure before which way it would be better to go. >> In these two cases of dialogue, egaN' takes no preceding -bi. I count >> six other cases of egaN' in narrative statements of the same story, >> each of which does take a preceding -bi (or -b alone, tacked to the >> final vowel of the preceding word). These are at lines 2, 4, 7, 15, 17 >> and 20, all on page 23. > My counter argument here is that there seem to be two egaN conjunctions. > This is something I'd noticed during my last active progress on my > dissertation a few years ago, though I'm not sure I ever associated it > with bi-conditioning and I haven't written anything up on it that I can > recall. I think I may have mentioned it to Ardis later, but maybe that > was just multiple kinds of ama. > My recollection is that one of the forms was regularly stressed on a > particular syllable (apparently the second). The other was accented in > various ways depending on the accent of the preceding verb (depending on > where the tendency to alternating syllables for secondary accent placed > it). > As far as glosses, one form was usually glossed something like 'so', or > sometimes maybe 'in order that'. The other was the 'having' conjunction. > It appears from your examples that the first pattern in each of these is > paired, though I'd have to go look at my notes to be sure this is what I > noticed. Maybe it's more complex and my initial analysis and this one > don't match because I'm completely off base. > Anyway, the first examples you provide have the sense 'so, in order that', > while the group on p. 23 are the other - more common one, "having," what > Bob Rankin recently called (I forget where, maybe just conference comments > or email) the "conjunct mode" after a term used in Algonquian grammar > (maybe elsewhere, too) to refer to generically subordinated clauses (as > opposed to specific kinds of subordinates like conditionals, causals, > temporals, etc.). These are somewhat like active present or imperfect > participles in Indo-European languages (note tha "having"), but in > Algonquian they take personal inflection. There may be an implication of > sequencing (not always in Algonquian, I think), so they are somewhat > temporal, but not in marked way like 'when' clauses. In OP they're just > regular verbs, of course, followed by a kind of generic conjunction. > Now what you need for a counter example would be a 'so' that had a bi or a > 'having' that didn't. The easy way to find this would be to search the > computer file version of the texts (which I assume you have?) for 'so' and > 'having'. No, I don't have the computer file version. I just have a paper copy up to page 293. Mark is gradually filling me in with the rest. I agree that there are two forms of egaN. The one I was discussing is the subordinating conjunction with the accent (almost always) on the second syllable, egaN'. This one is usually glossed "having", though in my second example it is glossed "because". The other form is not a conjunction. Its accent pattern varies as you describe, though when it is not too much bound up with other words its accent is generally on the first syllable, e'gaN. (Thanks for pointing out the varying accent pattern-- I hadn't realized this and was about to protest that it never happened, but I've just found a couple of examples of it.) This word means "like the preceding", or "like that", or "in that way". I think you can use e'gaN by itself to mean "okay", "agreed", "as you say", or "that's what happened". You can definitely use it alone in command form as "E'gaN ga!", "Do that which has just been described!", or you can give a long-winded description of an action and terminate it with "e'gaN ga!" (or "egaN' ga!") to order someone to do the sort of thing you have elucidated. In the story "How the Rabbit Killed a Giant", there are two to four cases of e'gaN as well. In the test I considered in the last letter though, I was only counting the cases of the conjunction egaN'. I think the semantic difference between "having" and "because" is a distinction made in English, but not in Omaha. EgaN' covers both of these usages at once, though Dorsey may choose different English words to gloss it depending on the context. The meaning of Clause1 egaN' Clause2 is that Clause1 took place as a precondition to Clause2, which followed either temporally or logically. Clause1 is not necessarily a complete explanation of Clause2, so we can't always gloss egaN' as "because" or "so" in English. However, I think it does always give some background explanation that elucidates how and why Clause2 came about; e.g. [The giant rushed at the Rabbit] egaN' [he pushed him down in the blood], in which Clause1 is a prerequisite to Clause2, but not a statement of the operative cause. On the other hand, [They fear you] egaN' [they do not attack you] is a statement where Clause1 is the operative cause of Clause2, so egaN' can be glossed with "because" or "so" in English. It also refers to the present, so "having" will not work as the English gloss. If we have a statement referring to the past, in which Clause1 is the operative cause of Clause2, we can gloss egaN' either as "having" or as "because". But the Omaha grammatical paradigm does not seem to distinguish past from present, or operative cause from prerequisite condition; it is all equally egaN' to them. The counter-example you ask for of egaN' glossed as "having" without -bi is already with us as the first of the two examples I offered of egaN' in dialogue without -bi: >> She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' >> aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so >> that's why we cut it up". In my own free translation, I put egaN' into English as "so that's why", but Dorsey actually glossed the word in this case as "having". > I should add that there are also a number of other uses of egaN. > Basically, it is a verb e=...gaN 'to be thus, to be so to something', > inflected e=gimaN, e=gizhaN, e=gaN. This neat pattern of gi before the > first or second person pronoun or g fused with the third person stem also > occurs with e=ge (alternatively suppletively e=gidhaN from dhaN 'tell' > instead) 'to say to someone', inflected e=giphe (or is it egihe?), > e=gis^e, e=ge. > The underlying verbs (without -g(i)- 'to someone/something') are eaN 'how; > to be so' and, of course, e 'to say' (which has some many alternaive stems > it's difficult to describe except by listing the inflections ehe, e^e, e ~ > a=i ~ a=bi). I'm not sure I follow these conjugations, and I'd be interested in seeing examples from Dorsey. I did run across a case of e'gigaN this morning, which seems to mean something like "(come to) be like itself (again)", glossed by Dorsey as "was as before". This is in "Two Faces and the Twin Brothers", page 213, line 15, in the context of a magical feat that is difficult to understand. This certainly appears to be a case of e'gaN with an infixed -gi-. > Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in the > sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed part of > e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. It's also > part of a pattern or set of related patterns of the shape "eska(naN) ... > gaN=dh=egaN" = 'would that ..., oh that ...' Sort of like Spanish ojala is > how I conceptualize it, though not a loan from Arabic like that! I think these are cases of compounds that use the non-conjunctive e'gaN form discussed above, which would mean "like the preceding" or, as you say, "sort of". >> Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the >> words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, >> and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar >> of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. I would claim >> that to be a standard exception to the rule of dubitative -bi in >> narrative statements. > In these sentences, which I call progressives, though that's not entirely > apt, for various reasons - maybe imperfects is closer to the mark - both i > and bi are missing, I believe, and number and obviation come from the form > of the article. Basically, the lack of i ~ bi is equivalent to the use of > the obviative articles (dhiNkhe, etc.), while the presence of i ~ bi is > equivalent to the use of the proximate articles (akha and ama). > I'd be interested in your logic with the term dispositional. All right. I'm starting out under the influence of a chart that Mark made up for us last year, and which I think came ultimately from you! It seems to me that these words basically indicate the disposition of the preceding noun, which may be standing, moving, sitting, lying, elongate, flat, globular, plural, scattered, in a row, in a bundle, at a point, in an area, committing the action, or being affected by the action. These are like our markings for singular or plural, or for gender, but except for the absence of gender distinction, the Omaha system is much more powerful than our own in indicating to the listener what pattern to look for or to imagine. These words can be used to close a noun phrase, in which position they may feel like the definite article to us English speakers, or they can act as the main verb of a sentence, in which case they are asserting the disposition of the noun in a timeless sort of way that may be like the progressive or imperfect for us. The closest thing I can think of in English are sentences like "A man stands tall", or "She is sitting pretty", or "The boy lay sick". The standing, sitting or lying verb is just slid into a sentence that would function just fine without them if they were replaced by a form of "to be", but they add the extra information of the subject's disposition. >> 2) I think I've found a counter-example to our rule that -i and -bi could >> not both occur at the same time. In "Ishtinike and the Deserted Children", >> page 87, line4, we have: >> >> E'gidhe shaN'ge i' khaNthaN'i-biama'. -- >> "It happened that the horses mouths were tied, they say". > I'd take this to be a typo or mispeaking, though I'd have to reconsider if > there were many examples. I've noticed a few other typos here and there, > surprisingly few, though. There are also definitely some > mistranscriptions and mispeakings, e.g., the errors noted with proximate > and obviative marking (or dubitative) in the footnotes. >> 3) I think I've also found a case of two different -i morphemes >> appearing at the same time. On page 88 of the same story, >> line 7-8, we refer to "the children who were abandoned" as >> >> shiN'gazhiN'ga waaN'dhaii ama' > Same reaction. Of course, the only support I can offer to this is that > Dorsey doesn't comment on these somewhat unusual cases, which is negative > evidence, and weak anyway. Anyone could overlook something. And, for > that matter, I think Dorsey assumed with you that bi had a dubitative > sense, though he glosses it as quotative. Should we really be using the term "quotative" here for ama', biama', etc.? Direct quotes are usually in the form of "X", a' biama', or ga: "X". The word ama' seems to mean "the foregoing is the repute", but the actual wording of the foregoing is the narrator's. Dubitative -bi with the meaning of "supposedly" is only marginally different from ama'. The ama' particle appeals to the standard tradition of the community, while -bi implies that the foregoing is open to doubt. Encountering either of these as a repetitive narrative device, "they say" is probably the best and shortest gloss we can think of to fit in a small place, but its implication is not that the foregoing is a direct quote, but rather that the speaker divorces himself from responsibility for the truth of the preceding statement. >> These are the only examples I've found of these two cases, >> both in the same story, which is otherwise rather difficult. >> Perhaps NudaN-axa spoke a somewhat different dialect >> than that of the La Fleches. > I think he was Ponca. If that's true, then I think it's much more likely that cases of -i / -bi doubling up are normal in Ponca but not in Omaha, than that these cases are random typos. I've just gone through another story by NudaN'-axa and found a third example. In "How the Rabbit Went to the Sun", page 28, line 5, in a short version of the myth of the Rabbit and the Devouring Hill, we have: Ka'shi-qti e'gaN dhasniN'i-biama'-- "After a very long while, he was swallowed, they say." Here we seem to have a passivizing -i, followed by dubitative -bi. If we accept that this is the way NudaN'-axa actually spoke, rather than that this peculiar sort of typo just happened to be made three times in two different stories that he gave, and if we suppose that the way he spoke was typical of the Ponca dialect, then it follows that the Ponca dialect at least recognizes -bi and two types of -i as three distinct morphemes. >> These arguments are tenuous, but so far the dubitative -bi >> model seems to offer the best fit for me. I'd be interested >> in any counter-examples from Dorsey you could find >> that would support the -bi / -i equivalence model, or >> specifically the obviative/proximate model. I certainly >> agree with you that the whole issue is very tricky! > In general, why would songs and names be dubitative? They wouldn't. I think we'd agree that the -bi that appears in these cases is simply a fossilization of the original MVS pluralizing -bi that was locked into these "texts" before pluralizing -bi was reduced to -i in OP. Your conception is that we have just one ( -bi / -i ) postverbal particle, which may be either -bi or -i depending on the environment of its occurrance, and which is derived from the well-known MVS pluralizing particle *pi (or whatever the original is supposed to be). My conception is that we are dealing with several, probably three or four, completely different, if not always adequately distinguished grammatical particles that come out as -bi or -i in Omaha, and which may have as many distinct etymological origins. I would speculate that our problem arises from the collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. (Caution: what about Osage, Kaw and Quapaw? Do they have -bi, or -i, as their pluralizing particle?) Suppose that proto-OP, before the [u]=>[i] collapse had, say, four distinct post-verbal particles, as follows: *bi - the foregoing is plural, or the subject is not defined. *bu - the foregoing is to be taken with a grain of salt. *u - the foregoing is a fact. *i - the foregoing took place prior to the time that the rest of our talk is concerned with. Then the [u]=>[i] collapse occurs. Now we have two different forms of *bi, and two different forms of *i, respectively indistinguishable. Trying to sort out by context whether -i signals fact or past perfect is a manageable nuisance. But the confusion of pluralizing -bi with dubitative -bi is simply not acceptable. Everything you try to say about a plurality comes out sounding insincere. You are a father in the market for a daughter-in-law. "My sons are great hunters!" you boast. The family of the prospective bride hears: "My son is supposedly a great hunter-- but don't bet on it!" In this context, it is not the dubitative -bi, the scoundrel responsible for this faux pas, but the honorable pluralizing -bi that retreats in shame. You desparately want to signal plurality, and you know that to do it you should add a particle after the verb that sounds like -bi, only it can't be -bi. You seize on -i, which is already polymorphous in meaning. Neither of its original meanings will cause you the embarrassment of dubitative -bi, so you bet that adding one more meaning to -i can't hurt as much as the current situation. So you indulge in some creative bad grammar, and soon everyone is gratefully using -i as the pluralizing particle. But this shift from -bi to -i was pragmatic, not phonological. Hence, any traditional "text", be it name or song, that was already fixed before the leap was taken, will keep its original pluralizing -bi's. But outside of these sacred reserves, dubitative -bi holds sway as the only active -bi in OP. As I say, the preceding paragraph is speculative, so please consider every statement made in it to be followed by dubitative -bi! >> Also, I'm wondering if I could ask a favor of you. I've been >> working up a series of lessons for teaching an Omaha >> class, and Mark is thinking of using them on our class >> this coming semester. So far, they're pretty much off the >> top of my head, and I'm floundering. They need to be >> vetted both by the native speakers and by a qualified >> OP linguist. Would you be willing to take on the latter >> role? I've got about five lessons done so far, plus an >> introduction to explain how I'm doing it and why. The >> lessons are pretty short and simple, and mainly >> grammar-oriented. If you would be willing to look >> them over and give me your feedback, I'd really >> appreciate it. > I'll give it a try. I'm swamped at the moment, but this is something I'd > like to support as much as possible. How about trying me with one? Alright! Here's a copy of lesson 1, and also the introduction, to explain what I'm trying to do. Thanks! Rory (See attached file: Lesson 1.doc)(See attached file: Introduction.doc) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Lesson 1.doc Type: application/msword Size: 25600 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Introduction.doc Type: application/msword Size: 32768 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Aug 28 20:52:56 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 15:52:56 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > Anyway, the first examples you provide have the sense 'so, in order that', while the group on p. 23 are the other - more common one, "having," what Bob Rankin recently called (I forget where, maybe just conference comments or email) the "conjunct mode" after a term used in Algonquian grammar (maybe elsewhere, too) to refer to generically subordinated clauses (as opposed to specific kinds of subordinates like conditionals, causals, temporals, etc.). I recall the discussion, but someone else must have used "conjunct" to describe it. My comparison was with the Dakotan article k?uN, and David pointed out that the use of (this cognate) k?uN was the same as our description of egaN. It's one of the ways tenseless languages sequence events. Historically it is/was kiN 'the' + *?uN 'do/be'. It could be called a conjuction nowadays. > Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in the sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed part of e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. In Kaw it can come after lots of things as a modifier. zhuje-ego 'pink' < 'like red'. si-ego 'meat pie' < 'like a foot'. >> Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the >> words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. Biloxi is quite different in that the positionals are a retention in the verb system there, as they are in Dakotan and other Siouan subgroups outside of Dhegiha. Positionals form something like continuatives in all Siouan languages and indeed in many other language families as well including Indo-European. (Spanish/Italian estar/stare, the progressive AUXs, are < PIE *stan, after all.) In Dhegiha languages, however, these verbs undergo several stages of grammaticalization. The post verbal positionals are all derived from the article forms of the old verb roots. The articles always combine with -he 'be in a place' (which is conjugated only in the second person): dhiNk-he 'sitting', k-he 'lying', thaN-he 'standing anim.', dhiN-he 'moving'. So the articles underly all these auxiliaries. Once a verb is grammaticalized into something like an article (or classifier if you want), it is not supposed to return to full lexical status, but we weren't there to warn the speakers that they were violating a universal. > The closest thing I can think of in English are sentences like "A man stands tall", or "She is sitting pretty", or "The boy lay sick". The standing, sitting or lying verb is just slid into a sentence that would function just fine without them if they were replaced by a form of "to be", but they add the extra information of the subject's disposition. And the -he on the end of each of the articles to derive the AUX of course IS 'be', as I mentioned above. I suppose you can think of them historically as compounds of the positional article and 'locative be'. > ...it follows that the Ponca dialect at least recognizes -bi and two types of -i as three distinct morphemes. I doubt if I can address all the arguments related to this question, and I'm 'WAY behind reading most of the Siouan list messages because of my absence, but... In Kaw and Quapaw it doesn't seem to me that there is anything but =abe/=abi and =awe/=awi respectively. The first member of each pair is female speech. The phenomenon of reduction to -i in Omaha and Ponca looks to me to be entirely phonological. Note that this does not mean that speakers could not have assigned morphemic status to earlier allomorphs though! That is, in OP there may BE more than one morpheme now. But not in Kaw/Quapaw. > My conception is that we are dealing with several, probably three or four, completely different, if not always adequately distinguished grammatical particles that come out as -bi or -i in Omaha, and which may have as many distinct etymological origins. I would speculate that our problem arises from the collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. Unfortunately, there are no post-verbal [u"] morphemes in Kaw or Osage that I can think of. Quapaw merges u and i like OP. *bi - the foregoing is plural, or the subject is not defined. *bu - the foregoing is to be taken with a grain of salt. *u - the foregoing is a fact. *i - the foregoing took place prior to the time that the rest of our talk is concerned with. These are certainly something to look for, but I don't have any "mystery particles" like these or derivable from these in Kaw or Quapaw. Carolyn should speak for Osage. >As I say, the preceding paragraph is speculative, so please consider every statement made in it to be followed by dubitative -bi! Since I have not really been searching for homophonous '-bi's', I would have to say the same. But I'm at least skeptical of the polymorphemic solution, i.e., I would plunk for polysemy, not homophony. That's not to say that there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 22:04:52 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:04:52 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 23:02:28 -0600 (MDT) From: Koontz John E To: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > Why don't I post my last letter to the list, and then you can > post the one you last wrote? Then I can post this one, and > they will be up in sequence. I wasn't sure before which way > it would be better to go. That sounds reasonable to me! > I agree that there are two forms of egaN. The one I was discussing is > the subordinating conjunction with the accent (almost always) on the second > syllable, egaN'. This one is usually glossed "having", though in my second > example it is glossed "because". The other form is not a conjunction. > Its accent pattern varies as you describe, though when it is not too > much bound up with other words its accent is generally on the first > syllable, e'gaN. (Thanks for pointing out the varying accent pattern-- > I hadn't realized this and was about to protest that it never happened, > but I've just found a couple of examples of it.) This word means > "like the preceding", or "like that", or "in that way". I think you > can use e'gaN by itself to mean "okay", "agreed", "as you say", or > "that's what happened". You can definitely use it alone in command This is the origin of Italian and Peninsular 'yes' si, from Latin sic 'like that', by the way. I don't know the story on Germanic yes/yea(h)/jah or on French oui/oc. > form as "E'gaN ga!", "Do that which has just been described!", or you > can give a long-winded description of an action and terminate it with > "e'gaN ga!" (or "egaN' ga!") to order someone to do the sort of thing > you have elucidated. I definitely missed egaN as 'yes' in my list. The imperative is the imperative of the 'be like that' verb I mentioned. 'Yes' is just one of the long list of specialized lexical uses of that verb. I'll look at the rest of this progressively. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 22:06:29 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:06:29 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 00:00:58 -0600 (MDT) From: Koontz John E To: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > The counter-example you ask for of egaN' glossed as "having" without > -bi is already with us as the first of the two examples I offered of > egaN' in dialogue without -bi: > > >> She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' > >> aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so > >> that's why we cut it up". > > In my own free translation, I put egaN' into English as "so that's > why", but Dorsey actually glossed the word in this case as "having". I'd have to wonder if Dorsey didn't maybe misgloss it. I don't recall anywhere that he discusses the difference between the two. I think, though it's not clear to me, that adaN 'therefore' and the egaN' 'in order that, so' are actually part of the following clause, though normally conjunctions are part of the preceding clause. > I'm not sure I follow these conjugations, and I'd be interested in > seeing examples from Dorsey. I did run across a case of e'gigaN > this morning, which seems to mean something like "(come to) be like > itself (again)", glossed by Dorsey as "was as before". This is in > "Two Faces and the Twin Brothers", page 213, line 15, in the context > of a magical feat that is difficult to understand. This certainly > appears to be a case of e'gaN with an infixed -gi-. The paradigms are in various of Dorsey's manuscripts, but there are examples in the texts, I think. Let's see: 90:232.11 e'giphe 'I said it (to him)' 487.16, etc., actually have 'to him' in the gloss 90:712.5 e'gishe 'you say to (him)' 90:170.3 NikkashiNga ege'=hnaN=bi=ama '(the) man usually said to him' but 90:39.7 e'gidhaN=i 'he said to him' (alternative form with stem e=gi...dhaN) 90:245.5 e'gimaN 'I do thus' 90:26.14 e'gizhaN 'you do thus' The 'he does thus' interpretation of egaN is clear from the imperative examples you mention. They are 'do thus!' > > I'd be interested in your logic with the term dispositional. > > All right. I'm starting out under the influence of a chart that Mark > made up for us last year, and which I think came ultimately from you! > > It seems to me that these words basically indicate the disposition of > the preceding noun, which may be standing, moving, sitting, lying, > elongate, flat, globular, plural, scattered, in a row, in a bundle, > at a point, in an area, committing the action, or being affected by > the action. These are like our markings for singular or plural, or > for gender, but except for the absence of gender distinction, the > Omaha system is much more powerful than our own in indicating to the > listener what pattern to look for or to imagine. OK, so you use 'disposition' in the sense of pattern. The standard Americanist term is positional. > These words can be used to close a noun phrase, in which position > they may feel like the definite article to us English speakers, I'd go further and say it was precisely a definite article, albeit encoding also the positional logic with its implications. > or they can act as the main verb of a sentence, in which case they > are asserting the disposition of the noun in a timeless sort of > way that may be like the progressive or imperfect for us. The There are a few cases where they do act as the main verb, but normally they follow what is logically the main verb and act as an auxiliary to add som additional sense to it (apart from configuration or position). This is where the term "progressive" or "imperfect" applies. Of course, the auxiliary verb is logically the main verb in most linguistic situations. So, for example, "he is searching for it" has the auxiliary "is" as the inflected main verb. In OP, the embedded verb retains personal inflection, whereas in English it is reduced to a participle. > closest thing I can think of in English are sentences like "A man > stands tall", or "She is sitting pretty", or "The boy lay sick". > The standing, sitting or lying verb is just slid into a sentence > that would function just fine without them if they were replaced > by a form of "to be", but they add the extra information of the > subject's disposition. > Should we really be using the term "quotative" here for ama', > biama', etc.? Direct quotes are usually in the form of > "X", a' biama', or ga: "X". The word ama' seems to mean > "the foregoing is the repute", but the actual wording of Quotative, again, is just the standard Americanist term for such narrative or reputative markers with meanings like 'they say; by repute' or 'I don't know, but I been told'. It doesn't really imply that this is the form used to quote something in any marked way. > > I think he was Ponca. > > If that's true, then I think it's much more likely that cases > of -i / -bi doubling up are normal in Ponca but not in Omaha, > than that these cases are random typos. > I've just gone through another story by NudaN'-axa and found a third > example. In "How the Rabbit Went to the Sun", page 28, line 5, in a > short version of the myth of the Rabbit and the Devouring Hill, we > have: > > Ka'shi-qti e'gaN dhasniN'i-biama'-- > "After a very long while, he was swallowed, they say." > > Here we seem to have a passivizing -i, followed by > dubitative -bi. There's also 101.4, 221.14, 288.5, 357.5, 361.10, 561.9, 589.4, 591,14. I doubt this is Ponca usage per se, and I'm definitely going to have to look at these examples. A lot of them are ?iibi with 'give' or akiibi sometoimeds written aki-i-bi, which I think is akhi=i=bi, with the i being 'to come'. I will definitely have to look at these examples, however. > I would speculate that our problem arises from the > collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. (Caution: what about > Osage, Kaw and Quapaw? Do they have -bi, or -i, as > their pluralizing particle?) Osage has pi (never i) alternating with pa and pe, which seem to be pi + a 'male speaker' or pi + e 'female speaker'. Kaw is similar, but substitute b for p. I forget what Quapaw has, but only OP has the i allomorph. IO and Wi have wi. Dakotan has pi or bi, depending on the dialect. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 22:18:55 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:18:55 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I recall the discussion, but someone else must have used "conjunct" to > describe it. My comparison was with the Dakotan article k?uN, and David > pointed out that the use of (this cognate) k?uN was the same as our > description of egaN. It's one of the ways tenseless languages sequence > events. Historically it is/was kiN 'the' + *?uN 'do/be'. It could be called > a conjuction nowadays. I thought I remembered the term coming from Bob, but I can't guarantee it, and I don't recall if it was on this list or maybe at the last Oklahoma Siouan & Caddoan Conference. In any event, I just didn't want to claim credit for the conception when I didn't deserve it. I definitely don't want to foist it on Bob against his will either. > > Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in > the sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed > part of e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. > > In Kaw it can come after lots of things as a modifier. zhuje-ego 'pink' < > 'like red'. si-ego 'meat pie' < 'like a foot'. With colors is a pattern in OP, too. It might be glossed "-ish" in such cases. I don't, off hand, recall an example with a noun, but I'm sure they must occur. > Since I have not really been searching for homophonous '-bi's', I would have > to say the same. But I'm at least skeptical of the polymorphemic solution, > i.e., I would plunk for polysemy, not homophony. That's not to say that > there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. I tend to feel the same way, obviously, but Rory's come up with a couple of kinds of data that will at least force me to sharpen my analysis! The two issues that bother me are more precisely characterizing the occurrence of bi when it occurs in cases I can't characterize well as far as syntactic or lexical conditioning, and those cases where it seems to co-occur with =i (as =i=bi?). ==== Incidentally, am I correct in thinking to recall that in Dakotan the order is article + demonstrative, whereas in Dhegiha it is demonstrative + article? I think that is a context where Dhegiha articles behave rather like verbs, though perhaps trivially so. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Wed Aug 29 05:46:13 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 00:46:13 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: (Bob wrote:) > In Kaw and Quapaw it doesn't seem to me that there is anything but =abe/=abi > and =awe/=awi respectively. The first member of each pair is female speech. > The phenomenon of reduction to -i in Omaha and Ponca looks to me to be > entirely phonological. Note that this does not mean that speakers could not > have assigned morphemic status to earlier allomorphs though! That is, in OP > there may BE more than one morpheme now. But not in Kaw/Quapaw. >> My conception is that we are dealing with several, >> probably three or four, completely different, if not >> always adequately distinguished grammatical particles >> that come out as -bi or -i in Omaha, and which may have >> as many distinct etymological origins. I would speculate >> that our problem arises from the collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. > Unfortunately, there are no post-verbal [u"] morphemes in Kaw or Osage that > I can think of. Quapaw merges u and i like OP. And no post-verbal [bu"] or [i] morphemes either, I suppose. Oh well, it was a nice thought. (Bob wrote:) > Since I have not really been searching for homophonous '-bi's', I would have > to say the same. But I'm at least skeptical of the polymorphemic solution, > i.e., I would plunk for polysemy, not homophony. That's not to say that > there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. Any thoughts on where the *(a) is coming in, or why it usually disappears? Until now, I had always thought the pluralizing particle in Siouan was just plain *pi. (John wrote:) > Osage has pi (never i) alternating with pa and pe, which seem to be pi + a > 'male speaker' or pi + e 'female speaker'. Kaw is similar, but substitute > b for p. I forget what Quapaw has, but only OP has the i allomorph. IO > and Wi have wi. Dakotan has pi or bi, depending on the dialect. It doesn't look good for my hypothesis that several different morphemes were involved, with great confusion caused by the collapse of u into i in OP, as comparable particles do not seem to be present in Kaw and Osage which would have preserved the original phonological distinction. However, I believe that -bi in historical OP, exclusive of fossilizations in names and old songs, is best understood as casting a dubitative sense on what preceeds it, rather than as a conditioned alternate of the now-standard pluralizing particle -i. If -bi and -i are taken as semantically equivalent alternates derived from the standard Siouan pluralizing particle *pi, then I think it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory phonological or other explanation for their distribution in OP that is not arbitrarily cut to fit the individual cases. We do not seem to have any cases of -wi, as Dorsey would surely have given us had there been an actual phonological gradient between the forms. The two forms are discrete, and their distribution is fairly regular. Bob suggests above that the reduction of -bi to -i is phonological, but that an earlier allomorph ( -bi ) could have been made into a different morpheme. This would be my fallback hypothesis if I can't have an incoming separate morpheme such as dubitative *bu". The problem with this solution, however, is that we need a good explanation of how a pluralizing particle develops into a dubitative. In general, a phonological theory would predict *bi as the pluralizing particle in OP, and the fossilizations make plain that that is what it once was. An advantage to the dubitative -bi theory is that it provides a compelling motivation for the speakers to switch to a different means of expressing plural, as I argued in my previous post. If so, the switch would need to have been phonologically discrete from the beginning, rather than a gradual phonological erosion of the stop. I think one possible explanation of the jump from -bi to -i might be found in Chiwere. The Omaha sacred legend indicates that the Omahas were closely connected with the Iowas at the time they crossed the Mississippi, and somebody (John?) pointed out about a month ago that OP "HiNdakhe" was a loan word from IO. Since the IO version of the pluralizing particle is wi, the Omaha would already be familiar with usage of the particle in a weakened form. After a round vowel, it would be indistinguishable from -i. If dubitative -bi appeared in the Omaha language by whatever channel, creating an embarrassing conflict with the standard pluralizing -bi, then a garbled version of the Iowa form might have been the natural choice for eliminating the semantic conflict. Rory From rankin at ku.edu Wed Aug 29 14:00:13 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:00:13 -0500 Subject: Two -bi, or not two -bi. Message-ID: >I thought I remembered the term (conjunct) coming from Bob, but I can't guarantee it, and I don't recall if it was on this list or maybe at the last Oklahoma Siouan & Caddoan Conference. I really can't remember. If the verb in the subordinate is treated differently, then I wouldn't object to 'conjunct', but it's probably best to try to keep terms as standard as possible. > those cases where it seems to co-occur with =i (as =i=bi?). That's interesting, and I don't recognize it from Kaw. In the ?i-i=bi 'give' examples quoted, noting it would involve vowel length, a long-discussed problem. >Incidentally, am I correct in thinking to recall that in Dakotan the order is article + demonstrative, whereas in Dhegiha it is demonstrative + article? I think that is a context where Dhegiha articles behave rather like verbs, though perhaps trivially so. I THINK that's right but will, obviously, defer to dakotanists. My (typically diachronic) view would be that the positional articles of Dhegiha are different (and at the end, i.e., verb-like syntactically) because they represent more recent grammaticalizations. And they're from verbs 'sit, stand, lie, move'. The Dakotan article, kiN, is apparently older usage with cognates in, e.g., Tutelo, and it has no de-verbal source as far as I can tell. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Wed Aug 29 14:39:46 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:39:46 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: >> Unfortunately, there are no post-verbal [u"] morphemes in Kaw or Osage that I can think of. Quapaw merges u and i like OP. >And no post-verbal [bu"] or [i] morphemes either, I suppose. A couple of things: (1) while it's true that there are no post-verbal bu" affixes or enclitics, it is possible that u">i in all five languages in post-verbal morphology. Osage and Kaw both variably unround u" under accent and pre-verbally, but as far as I know there are NO u"'s in suffixes or enclitics. Carolyn Quintero can/should correct me on this if I'm wrong about Osage. (2) We probably shouldn't give up on -i too easily; the phonology of V1V2 sequences is messy, and I wouldn't want to dismiss the possibility of a sneaky little -i- being there sometimes.... I'm not sure I believe that either of these possibilities is going to produce more morphemes, but we'd better all look.... >> That's not to say that there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. >Any thoughts on where the *(a) is coming in, or why it usually disappears? Until now, I had always thought the pluralizing particle in Siouan was just plain *pi. The -a- is tied in with the entire Mississippi Valley Siouan "Ablaut" problem. I have a paper on the topic. Historically at least, the -a- is part of the following morpheme, not the verb stem. It replaces preceding -e (which some consider epenthetic anyway). >If -bi and -i are taken as semantically equivalent alternates derived from the standard Siouan pluralizing particle *pi, then I think it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory phonological or other explanation for their distribution in OP that is not arbitrarily cut to fit the individual cases. We do not seem to have any cases of -wi, as Dorsey would surely have given us had there been an actual phonological gradient between the forms. The two forms are discrete, and their distribution is fairly regular. True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there are two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized [p], certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest of Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is -tu. Go figure. I'm trying to remember if Osage has the -i variant. Carolyn can tell us. This is enough monkey wrenches for one day. :-) Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 29 23:36:31 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 17:36:31 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Rory: > If -bi and -i are taken as semantically equivalent alternates > derived from the standard Siouan pluralizing particle *pi, > then I think it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory > phonological or other explanation for their distribution in > OP that is not arbitrarily cut to fit the individual cases. That's essentially my contention. Though I think that the =bi cases are always more fossilized - more hidden as it were. The =bi forms occur with particular following morphemes with which they tend to fuse, like =ama QUOTATIVE, or =egaN CONJUNCT, or in formulaic contexts like names and songs. The productive form is =i. Or would be, if that, too, weren't being replaced by a-grade conditioning zero. > We do not seem to have any cases of -wi, as Dorsey would > surely have given us had there been an actual phonological > gradient between the forms. The two forms are discrete, > and their distribution is fairly regular. I don't think there's any need to require =bi => =i via =wi. Loss of intervocalic postaccentual b (or /p/) is common enough in Dhegiha, cf. Osage sae ~ sape and so on. However, I don't see any way to get around the linguistic awkwardness of this change being essentially an arbitrary feature of this morpheme. Barring the possibility of homophonous or near-homophonous morp dubitative and plural/proximate morphemes, there's no other b-initial post-stem (i.e., "enclitic" in the Siouanist sense) morpheme, and though there are various post-accential root-internal b's, cf/ sabe 'black' mentioned above, these don't seem to be subject to b-elision or softening or any other reduction of that nature. It is true that *e=p-he 'I say' is reduced to e=he', but *uNphaN '(female) elk' is still aNphaN 'elk'. On the other hand, I suspect that most of the environments in which *=bi remains =bi can be summed up as (a) before a vowel-initial fellow enclitic, (b) in names (treated as part of the root?), and (c) in songs (lack of change prized?). The main exceptions to these are the cases of =bi=the and =bi=khe as "evidently" evidentials (but often =i appears before =the). Thus, though =bi is written =b in =b=azhi 'negative plural', but =bi in =bi=ama and =bi=egaN, in fact, the latter two are close to =b=ama and =b=egaN. (What I actually heard for =bi=ama in the one case I heard it in speech was [bea:m].) The use of =bi in quotations under verbs of thinking are most effectively pre-vocalic, too, I think, though this is an area I have to resolve, like the cases of =bi=the vs. =i=the and the small number of cases of =i=bi. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Aug 30 02:25:36 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 21:25:36 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there are > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I > suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized [p], > certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest of > Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is -tu. > Go figure. Well! I took two years of Lakhota, and I don't recall ever running into a pluralizing -u! But if that's so, it provides an even easier solution to our problem. In Omaha, *pi => bi, and *u => i. A dubitative -bi comes in, and the particle i < *u becomes the pluralizing particle of choice. OVS is Ohio Valley Siouan, comprising Biloxi, Ofo and Tutelo, correct? > The -a- is tied in with the entire Mississippi Valley Siouan "Ablaut" > problem. I have a paper on the topic. Historically at least, the -a- is part > of the following morpheme, not the verb stem. It replaces preceding -e > (which some consider epenthetic anyway). Hmm, that requires me to do some rethinking. I assume that the "Ablaut" problem concerns the verb endings the Colorado Lakhota project people express with a capital -A, which derives -a, -e or -iN depending on what follows, correct? I had been inclining toward the notion that the -a was the basic stem, with -e being an alternate of -ai. A lot of verb or ta- endings in Omaha do seem to be allomorphic this way, and I had been about to ask about this issue in conjunction with the "two -bi or not two -bi" discussion. Could you expand on your paragraph, or perhaps put me in touch with your paper? > I'm trying to remember if Osage has the -i variant. Carolyn can tell us. > This is enough monkey wrenches for one day. :-) It makes my day a little more confusing. Thanks for your input! Rory From mosind at yahoo.com Thu Aug 30 03:24:35 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Wablenica) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:24:35 +0400 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Rankin, Robert L: > > In Dakotan there are > > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in > > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. Boas & Deloria (1941) Dakota Grammar 11. TERMINAL CONSONANTS OF CVC VEBBS "Colloquially the terminal i of the plural pi is dropped. When it follows a nasalized vowel and preceding the future kta, p changes to a weak uN or a nasalized w. he'chi ?uNyaN'wNkte? < he'chi ?uNyaN'pikte? we will go there he'chi ya'wkte? < he'chi ya'pikte? they will go there In other cases, preceding a /k/ the /p/ is a mere closure of the lips without any release of breath. After a nasalized vowel it becomes either an unvoiced /m/ or a nasalized /w/. ?eya'p k?e'yas^ they said, but ?echuN'm k?e'yas^, or ?echuN'wN k?e'yas^ they did so, but" ----------------------- Rood & Taylor (1976) further describe allomorphs of -pi (-b, -m; -o, -oN, -u, -uN) in Pine Ridge, depending on the following consonant and preceding vowel's height and nasalization. Connie From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Aug 30 22:40:37 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 16:40:37 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there > are > > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in > > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I > > suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized > [p], > > certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest > of > > Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is > -tu. > > Go figure. > > Well! I took two years of Lakhota, and I don't recall ever running > into a pluralizing -u! But if that's so, it provides an even easier > solution to our problem. In Omaha, *pi => bi, and *u => i. A > dubitative -bi comes in, and the particle i < *u becomes the > pluralizing particle of choice. Connie explains this in a subsequent letter, but -u- is essentially a fast speach variant of pi. I wonder if plurals like =tu elsewhere might not amount to *(r)u, i.e., fast *=pi with epenthetic r separating it from preceding vowels (preferably high). I suspect the main problem with this is that =pi appears to have been historically *api, with replacement of preceding root final e or occurrence instead of an e from another source explaining ablaut in verbs. Anyway, if api reduces to au, I wouldn't expect epenthetic *r in that context: (?) *aru. > OVS is Ohio Valley Siouan, comprising Biloxi, Ofo and Tutelo, > correct? Yes. Sometimes referred to as Southeastern. > > The -a- is tied in with the entire Mississippi Valley Siouan "Ablaut" > > problem. I have a paper on the topic. Historically at least, the -a- is > part > > of the following morpheme, not the verb stem. It replaces preceding -e > > (which some consider epenthetic anyway). > > Hmm, that requires me to do some rethinking. I assume that > the "Ablaut" problem concerns the verb endings the Colorado > Lakhota project people express with a capital -A, which derives > -a, -e or -iN depending on what follows, correct? I had been > inclining toward the notion that the -a was the basic stem, with > -e being an alternate of -ai. A lot of verb or ta- endings in Omaha > do seem to be allomorphic this way, and I had been about to > ask about this issue in conjunction with the "two -bi or not two -bi" > discussion. Could you expand on your paragraph, or perhaps > put me in touch with your paper? Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. Siouanists more used to dealing with the other languages (e.g., Crow or Omaha-Ponca) tend to assert the basic status of e specifically because neither of these factors occur there. In fact, in OP except for two rather special stems all e-final verb roots are ablauting, so it's not really necessary to distinguish a morphophoneme E vs. regular e. Weird things do occur in the e-dominant languages, though. One is that the stem for 'go' is something like rEEhEE in Hidatsa. In other words, the ablaut occurs internally as well as finally. It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Why are the a-vowel grade the citation forms? I've tried to tie the latter to Dakotan nominal ablaut, and intepreted the a-grade of verbs in citation forms of verbs as the nominal a-grade serving to nominalize the verb stem. It's also possible that the common use of a ~ e in marking male vs. female declaratives, etc., may be connected. The possibility that there is (or was) a declarative e or 7e following most verbs in main clauses might explain several things about Dakotan verbs, e.g., the 7-declarative sometimes mentioned. (7 = glottal stop) As far as the alternations between e ~ a, there's no reason to believe the e is derived from ai, though this is a change that occurs in various Indo-European languages. The usual historical explanations of the e-grades are that the verbs end in e historically, or that e is the usual epenthetic vowel added to C-final stems, or that e is a thematic morpheme of some sort - perhaps a declarative or demonstrative in origin. Perhaps both. The usual historical explanation with a is that it is part of the following morpheme, e.g., the plural is =api, not just =pi. Similarly in OP and Dhegiha generally the negative is clearly =azhi, since not only does e change to a before zhi, but the plural form is =b=azhi < =(a)bi=azhi. In Dakotan, the negative =s^ni is an e-grade, interestingly enough. I take that to be something like *=shi=niN, with the *=shi matching Dhegiha =zhi and equating to the Dakotan =sh adversative, too, but not everyone agrees with that. I'm not sure why -a- in Dhegiha. The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is found elsewhere in Siouan. Omaha-Ponca does have a form e=iN=the 'perhaps', which may contain the iN as a dubitative particle in what is otherwise just e=the 'the aforesaid' + 'the vertical'. But iN doesn't occur, with the OP future =ttE, which is cognate with Dakotan =ktA. It appears that Teton, at least, has =iN=ktA for the future, anyway, and that this explains the iN ablaut pattern for its future. === We tend to think of ablaut in terms of verbs only, but Dakotan has nominal ablaut, too, though it's fairly obsolescent. However, a number of factors suggest that sopme sort of final vowel alternation was fairly common with noun stems in Mississippi Valley: - Dakotan has all those CV'C-a noun stems with "epenthetic a". - Dakotan has some CV'Ca ~ tha-CV'Ce stems, like shuNk-, not to mention itazip-. - Dakotan has some CVCa ~ CVC (in compound) stems. (Sorry, can't recall an example.) - Dakotan has some CV-ya ~ CV (in compound) stems, like wiN- and he-. - Dakotan has some CVCe' ~ CVC (in compound) body part stems, like siNt- and c^haNt-. - Dakotan CV'C-alternant stems correspond pretty nicely with the CV'Ce stems in Dhegiha and Ioway-Otoe and the CVVC stems in Winnebago. - Dakotan CV'-ya stems correspond pretty nicely with the CV(V) stems of Dhegiha, IO, and Winnebago, cf. Da wiNya(N) and heya vs. OP miN(ga) and he. - The Winnebago "article" is ra (and Dakotan -ya < *-ra). - Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca have a series of CV nouns that take an insert -ya (Dakotan) or -a- (OP) before certain postpositions, e.g., Dakotan thi ~ thiyata, OP tti ~ ttiatta (tti-a-t-ta cf. Da e-k-ta). - OP has ablaut (e > a) in some CVCe nouns before some postpositions, e.g., ppahe ~ ppaha=di. - Dhegiha proximate animate articles (OP akha and ama) seem to have an extra a- on the front of them (and follow nouns). For that matter the obviative animate ones have a sort of "locative" a in the inclusive: aNg-a-thaN, aNg-a-dhiN, if I remember rightly. It seems to me that all these patterns intergrade when looked at carefully, i.e., that it's hard to divide them up into the neat subtypes this list suggests. That is, CV'Ca ~ CVC nouns are sometimes also CV'Ca ~ CVCe ~ CVC nouns (like shuNk-) and so on, and even though a > e is not the normal development of a in OP, all those Dakotan a-final nouns tend to come out e-final in OP. The *-ra forms also seem to suggest that the -a can occur after vowel final stems with epenthetic *-r-, too. Given this we have a bit more than a set of arbitrary unrelated facts. We have some sort of process that allows e ~ a after stems of the form CV'C and perhaps CV. Either both of the vowels are affixal in some way (I've suggested articles) or one is organic or epenthetic and the other morphemic, etc. Epenthesis doesn't work very well to explain unaccented a or e, if there are V-final cases, but perhaps those are -r final stems. This has been suggested by Rankin and Carter, at least, working from a somewhat different set of considerations. It's difficult for me to see how the ablaut of both nouns and verbs can be reduced to a single simple phenomenon, but they can clearly interact. If =a is a postnominal morpheme, it can occur with nominalized verbs, for example, and the same argument can apply to epenthetic -a after a CVC stems of both kinds. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Aug 30 02:49:04 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 21:49:04 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: >> > True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there >> are >> > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in >> > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I >> > suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized >> [p], >> > certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest >> of >> > Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is >> -tu. >> > Go figure. >> Well! I took two years of Lakhota, and I don't recall ever running >> into a pluralizing -u! But if that's so, it provides an even easier >> solution to our problem. In Omaha, *pi => bi, and *u => i. A >> dubitative -bi comes in, and the particle i < *u becomes the >> pluralizing particle of choice. > Connie explains this in a subsequent letter, but -u- is essentially a fast > speach variant of pi. Yes, I caught that. By her explanation, u and several other phonological variants of -pi appear respectively in very predictable phonological environments, which is not the case with -bi and -i in OP. I drop the above "solution" like a hot potato. Thanks, Connie! > Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were > basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e > ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- > and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. > Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair > of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish > these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. > Siouanists more used to dealing with the other languages (e.g., Crow or > Omaha-Ponca) tend to assert the basic status of e specifically because > neither of these factors occur there. In fact, in OP except for two > rather special stems all e-final verb roots are ablauting, so it's not > really necessary to distinguish a morphophoneme E vs. regular e. Weird > things do occur in the e-dominant languages, though. One is that the stem > for 'go' is something like rEEhEE in Hidatsa. In other words, the ablaut > occurs internally as well as finally. I'm not getting to the conclusion of what you say here from the premises you cite. We want to know which of the ablaut forms represents the bare stem of the verb, and which has been modified, presumably by an absorbed extraneous morpheme, or part of one. You claim that most Siouan languages seem to have -e as the basic form, with -a the derived form. Dakotan does not appear to be this way for two reasons: 1) It has verbs that use -aN as well as ones that use -a in opposition to -e, while other languages have only -a / -e variants; 2) The citation form is -a in Dakotan, but -e in other languages. Premise 1 seems to be a strong reason for favoring the -a or -aN version as the stem in Dakotan, since if the -e version were the stem, there would be no explanation for forking to -a or -aN respectively depending on the verb. The fact that other Siouan languages do not have an -aN / -e version of ablaut is only negative evidence, however. It does not give us any reason to choose -e over -a as basic in a series that uses only -a and -e. In fact, the Dakotan case should argue for -a as the stem version not only for itself, but for all the other Siouan languages that show this type of ablaut. I assume the "citation form" is the form native speakers use when asked to speak of the word by itself. This seems to be the only argument given here for favoring the -e form as basic in the non-Dakotan languages. But how strong is this? It seems to me that a native speaker, asked to cite a word in his own language, would tend to present it in its most finite, and least verbal, form. This form might well be inflected, and hence not the basic stem. Do we have other reasons for favoring -e as the bare stem form in non-Dakotan languages, and especially OP? > As far as the alternations between e ~ a, there's no reason to believe the > e is derived from ai, though this is a change that occurs in various > Indo-European languages. A reduction of ai to e is a common phonetic shift that occurs all over. We get it in Siouan too, as in the common accented first syllable of many verbs: we'-, from an original wa-i'-. This occurs in both Lakhota and Omaha. I think you yourself mentioned ai and e, "s/he says/said", as alternates a few weeks back. (Or did you just mean that these were different conjugates of the same verb?) Tai' and te certainly seem to be allomorphic in Dorsey at least some of the time. We can illustrate this from the story of HiNqpe-Agdhe. On page 163, line 4, the second brother has been challenged to a contest by the four bad guys. He says: Eda'daN aNaN' te a? "What will we do (by way of a contest)?" On page 164, line 6, HiNqpe-Agdhe, the fourth brother, has been challenged to a contest by the same four bad guys. He says: Khe', eda'daN aNaN' tai' a? "Come, what will we do (by way of a contest)?" The circumstances and the wording are almost identical. In this case, at least, tai' and te seem to be allomorphs, presumably of an original sequence of two morphemes, ta-i. (Or perhaps you would argue for te-a(b)i, with indifferent use of the pluralizing particle?) > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, > but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is > found elsewhere in Siouan. Omaha-Ponca does have a form e=iN=the > 'perhaps', which may contain the iN as a dubitative particle in what is > otherwise just e=the 'the aforesaid' + 'the vertical'. But iN doesn't > occur, with the OP future =ttE, which is cognate with Dakotan =ktA. > It appears that Teton, at least, has =iN=ktA for the future, anyway, and > that this explains the iN ablaut pattern for its future. Are we absolutely sure (checked with native speakers) that that final -te in e'iNte is a -the and not a tte? Dorsey doesn't mark the potentive particle tte any differently from the positional the, as far as the t goes, anyway. Rory From mosind at yahoo.com Fri Aug 31 03:45:39 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Wablenica) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 07:45:39 +0400 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu > [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Koontz John E > Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were > basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e > ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- > and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. --Talking about citation forms, I'm inclined to think that at least two of the native speaker use -e form as a basic one - Violet Catches and Albert WhiteHat in their language books. > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Why are > the a-vowel grade the citation forms? --Besides other reasons, -a form is a "default" form when any of the 25 000 words that do not trigger ablaut is following an -A/-AN verb. Among any class of words - enclitics, determiners, postpositions - there are both triggers and non-triggers of ablaut. > > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, > but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is > found elsewhere in Siouan. =ktA triggers -a > -iN ablaut in Assiniboine too, at least in some subdialects (Shaw, 1980) Besides, -iN ablaut occurs in Lakota before: conjunctions na, nahaN, naiNsh; familiar imperative yetxo' (m.s.) (not everywhere?); polite imperative ye (all sexes) (interchangeably with -i : o'makiyi ye! help me! - o'kiyA, to help) Connie miye yelo. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Aug 30 04:09:16 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 23:09:16 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: Bob: > Biloxi is quite different in that the positionals are a retention in the > verb system there, as they are in Dakotan and other Siouan subgroups outside > of Dhegiha. Positionals form something like continuatives in all Siouan > languages and indeed in many other language families as well including > Indo-European. (Spanish/Italian estar/stare, the progressive AUXs, are < PIE > *stan, after all.) In Dhegiha languages, however, these verbs undergo > several stages of grammaticalization. The post verbal positionals are all > derived from the article forms of the old verb roots. The articles always > combine with -he 'be in a place' (which is conjugated only in the second > person): dhiNk-he 'sitting', k-he 'lying', thaN-he 'standing anim.', dhiN-he > 'moving'. So the articles underly all these auxiliaries. Once a verb is > grammaticalized into something like an article (or classifier if you want), > it is not supposed to return to full lexical status, but we weren't there to > warn the speakers that they were violating a universal. This is interesting. It explains why the positionals are so frequently aspirated. It looks like the -he is not preserved after a (nasal) vowel in Omaha. Are the terms you cite above Kaw, or proto-Dhegiha? What about other positionals that don't end in -he? Could we get a complete chart of these in Dhegiha? I'll start it with what I've got from OP. Omaha/Ponca Quapaw Osage Kaw *Dhegiha Others? dhiN thaN dhiNkhe' khe the dhaN ge ma dhaNkha' akha' ama' Rory From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Fri Aug 31 05:10:49 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 00:10:49 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > "Colloquially the terminal i of the plural pi is dropped. When it follows a > nasalized vowel and preceding the future kta, p changes to a weak uN or a > nasalized w. In Dakota as spoken in Manitoba, I have never heard this uN allomorph of plural pi; -pi kte is contracted to -pte. > he'chi ?uNyaN'wNkte? < he'chi ?uNyaN'pikte? we will go there > he'chi ya'wkte? < he'chi ya'pikte? they will go there In Manitoba: he'chi ya'pte? > In other cases, preceding a /k/ the /p/ is a mere closure of the lips > without any release of breath. That's how it sounds in Manitoba too, also in -pte. > After a nasalized vowel it becomes either an > unvoiced /m/ or a nasalized /w/. /m/ here too, but I haven't noticed any devoicing. The lack of the uN allomorph in a closely related Sioux dialect suggests to me that the different treatments of -pi kte may have no very great time depth and probably provide weak evidence for what happens in Omaha-Ponca. --------------------------------------- > Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were > basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e > ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- > and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. Again, Manitoba Dakota seems to disagree with this. Native speakers emphatically prefer final e-variants as citation forms and may not even recognize a word if presented out of context in the a- or aN- final variant. I had assumed citation with final a or aN was strictly a linguist's practice, due to the following. > Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair > of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish > these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Just analogy? yatkaN 'drink' joins the semantically related yuta 'eat'? > the 7-declarative > sometimes mentioned. (7 = glottal stop) Definitely present in Manitoba. > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, Not in Manitoba. > We tend to think of ablaut in terms of verbs only, but Dakotan has nominal > ablaut, too, though it's fairly obsolescent. Very much so here. Paul From mosind at yahoo.com Fri Aug 31 12:28:56 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Wablenica) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 16:28:56 +0400 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: <3B8F1C59.BD26532F@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu > [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of > voorhis at westman.wave.ca > > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really > taken up - > > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? > > Just analogy? yatkaN 'drink' joins the semantically related yuta 'eat'? > Here are some -AN verbs with nasal -a that cannot be explained with "nasalization spread": -hAN, to stand (and numerous compounds) yukxAN, to exist (for) Plus -mA(N)/-be verbs -mAN, 1) brood, hatch; -> -me (L.), -be (D.) 2) file, rub, grind is^tiNmA, to sleep. naxmA, to conceal mimA, circular s^mA, deep I have a question: all e-ablaut-triggers begin with (7)e-, k-, s-, or s^-, with occasional l- (diminutive la). What are the generalizations? Connie. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 14:14:03 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 08:14:03 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: <3B8F1C59.BD26532F@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > > Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair > > of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish > > these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. > > > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? > > Just analogy? yatkaN 'drink' joins the semantically related yuta 'eat'? I thought there were other cases, though yatkaN is, of course, the canonical example of AN. --- I'm interested that the e-alternants are being put forward as citation forms by everyone. I think I've been corrected from e-variants to a-variants even for inflected forms at SACC, by Dakota speakers, though I couldn't say who it was who did it. So I don't think it's entirely a linguistic concoction. However, I am not a Dakotanist - though I sometimes play one on the Net - and this should definitely be investigated. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 14:56:18 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 08:56:18 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > I'm not getting to the conclusion of what you say here from the > premises you cite. We want to know which of the ablaut forms > represents the bare stem of the verb, and which has been > modified, presumably by an absorbed extraneous morpheme, > or part of one. > > You claim that most Siouan languages seem to have -e as the > basic form, with -a the derived form. Dakotan does not appear > to be this way for two reasons: > > 1) It has verbs that use -aN as well as ones that use -a > in opposition to -e, while other languages have only > -a / -e variants; > > 2) The citation form is -a in Dakotan, but -e in other languages. > > Premise 1 seems to be a strong reason for favoring the -a or > -aN version as the stem in Dakotan, since if the -e version were > the stem, there would be no explanation for forking to -a or -aN > respectively depending on the verb. Yes, this is the argument the Dakotanists use. It doesn't hold any particular water outside Dakotan, of course, and the ablaut of aN-stems seems to be a secondary development there. > The fact that other Siouan languages do not have an -aN / -e version > of ablaut is only negative evidence, however. True, but nobody suggests that Dakotan is conservative in this, and even Dakotan is somewhat schizophrenic in this regard, since the e-vowel appears in the singulars in finite clauses. The usual explanation of this in Dakotan grammar is that A => e before the 7-declarative. > It does not give us any reason to choose -e over -a as basic in a > series that uses only -a and -e. In fact, the Dakotan case should > argue for -a as the stem version not only for itself, but for all the > other Siouan languages that show this type of ablaut. Not when it's clear in each of these languages that the e-form is less marked there in context, and, in fact, is (as far as I know) always the citation form in these other languages, too. > I assume the "citation form" is the form native speakers use > when asked to speak of the word by itself. In principle, though, it can be a bit difficult to determine this with languages where metalinguistic discourse is not often practiced. In such cases one looks for a very unmarked context. In OP, for example, this would be under the scope of another verb, e.g., in a causative, or in first persons and second persons, or in obviatives. One has to have proceded far enough in one's studies to have noticed that proximate third persons pattern with plurals and have the a-grade, and that imperatives, though not pronominalized, also have the a-grade (and an enclitic which is ga for male speakers, and a for females). > This seems to be the only argument given here for favoring the -e form > as basic in the non-Dakotan languages. But how strong is this? It convinces me, but I admit that the evaluation may be in some degree arbitrary. If there were as many Siouanists as there are Gemanists, then debate would probably be perennial. > It seems to me that a native speaker, asked to cite a word in his own > language, would tend to present it in its most finite, and least > verbal, form. This form might well be inflected, and hence not the > basic stem. Do you mean "most infinite" or "most finite"? Finite usually means inflected, and for me inflected definitely means verbal, though there are inflected infinite forms in some languages. My experience is that Omaha speakers prefer not to extract enclitics from context, so they can more easily discuss e=di than =di. This is a general tendency with Siouan speakers and they prefer to think of, e.g., ga=di as derived from e=di than composed from dhe and =di. They also prefer simple sentences to words in isolation, so it is easier for them to say "adha[=i]" 'he/she/it went' than adhe or dhe for 'go'. I think this is a human tendency that speakers of languages with extensive traditions of grammatical introspection escape from during education. When carried to extreme one arrives at languages for which the stem cannot actually be cited except as a linguist's abstraction, and these are common enough. The concept of a citation form is in part just a crutch for approximating the abstract stem and not all languages have useful citation forms in this sense. > Do we have other reasons for favoring -e as the bare stem > form in non-Dakotan languages, and especially OP? For OP, I rely on the "least marked context" argument and, given that the third person singular proximate might be expected to be "least marked," but is not, I (would) point this out carefully in working with a new student of the language, even a native speaker becoming newly "introspective." This circumnstance is not unheard of. The third person singular is not least marked in English, either, and the conventional citation forms for classical IE languages are often the first person singular, though, e.g., for Romance languages there is some tendency (in classes, anyway) to prefer the infinitive. > A reduction of ai to e is a common phonetic shift that occurs > all over. We get it in Siouan too, as in the common accented > first syllable of many verbs: we'-, from an original wa-i'-. This > occurs in both Lakhota and Omaha. Touche', but I'm not convinced it explains the e-grade of ablauting sets. I have pondered whether it might reflect, say, *a=ki, where *ki is an article, cf. Dakotan, but for the present I'm operating on the hypothesis that e and a simply have different morphemic sources and that a is not simply the original underlying vowel. > I think you yourself mentioned ai and e, "s/he says/said", as > alternates a few weeks back. (Or did you just mean that > these were different conjugates of the same verb?) Yes, proximate and obviative or *a=pi and *e, variants of *E, if you will. > Tai' and te certainly seem to be allomorphic in Dorsey at > least some of the time. We can illustrate this from the story > of HiNqpe-Agdhe. On page 163, line 4, the second brother > has been challenged to a contest by the four bad guys. > He says: > > Eda'daN aNaN' te a? > "What will we do (by way of a contest)?" > > On page 164, line 6, HiNqpe-Agdhe, the fourth brother, has > been challenged to a contest by the same four bad guys. > He says: > > Khe', eda'daN aNaN' tai' a? > "Come, what will we do (by way of a contest)?" You'd have to read the first as inclusive "singular" (or dual, or non-augmented), i.e., 'what will you (sg.) and I do', referring to one of the four brothers, and the second as inclusive "plural" (or augmented), i.e., 'what will you-all and I do'. The =i is the plural or "augment" as I think the Austronesianists say, indicating that additional third parties are included as well as the pronominal referents. > The circumstances and the wording are almost identical. > In this case, at least, tai' and te seem to be allomorphs, > presumably of an original sequence of two morphemes, > ta-i. (Or perhaps you would argue for te-a(b)i, with > indifferent use of the pluralizing particle?) Yes, =tte :: =tt=a(b)i, cf., Dakotan =kte :: =kt=api. But I think there's an actual contrast of meaning here. Non-pluralized or dual, etc., use of the inclusive pronoun is fairly rare in Dhegiha, but does occur. Ardis and Carolyn more or less forced me to see this in separate cases. This is the rule in Dakotan, of course, and my understanding is that in Winnebago the augment or plural can be combined with both the first person (as 'I and he') and the inclusive (as 'you and I and he'). > Are we absolutely sure (checked with native speakers) > that that final -te in e'iNte is a -the and not a tte? > Dorsey doesn't mark the potentive particle tte any > differently from the positional the, as far as the t > goes, anyway. He tends to put a breve over e in the vs. e in tte. I'm pretty sure I've got the tte and the sorted out, partly, but not entirely with the help of speakers: =tta=i ~ =tte future, =tta=i=the ~ =tte=the future of surity (Dorsey's 'shall surely') or future + evidently, =bi=the ~ =i=the ~ =the 'evidently' (sometimes glossed narrative past, etc.), e=iN=the ~ iN=the 'perhaps', e=the modal. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 15:00:37 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 09:00:37 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Wablenica wrote: > --Talking about citation forms, I'm inclined to think that at least two of > the native speaker use -e form as a basic one - Violet Catches and Albert > WhiteHat in their language books. Noted, and cf. what Paul Voorhis said above. > > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Why are > > the a-vowel grade the citation forms? > > --Besides other reasons, -a form is a "default" form when any of the 25 000 > words that do not trigger ablaut is following an -A/-AN verb. Among any > class of words - enclitics, determiners, postpositions - there are both > triggers and non-triggers of ablaut. Ah! This is the argument I use for e as basic in Omaha-Ponca. > > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, > > but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is > > found elsewhere in Siouan. > > =ktA triggers -a > -iN ablaut in Assiniboine too, at least in some > subdialects (Shaw, 1980) > Besides, -iN ablaut occurs in Lakota before: > conjunctions na, nahaN, naiNsh; > familiar imperative yetxo' (m.s.) (not everywhere?); > polite imperative ye (all sexes) (interchangeably with -i : o'makiyi ye! > help me! - o'kiyA, to help) I thought some of these were sometimes given as just i? Of course, before n this would be somewhat moot. I think i occurs instead of short e in Crow and/or Hidatsa, but I don't control the details. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 15:16:33 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 09:16:33 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Wablenica wrote: > Here are some -AN verbs with nasal -a that cannot be explained with > "nasalization spread": And, of course, nasalization spread could fairly be argued to have had a crucial part in producing AN. > -hAN, to stand (and numerous compounds) This one may be related to the OP thaN 'the (standing)' animate obviative article (inflected like the other animate obviative articles), which seems in some what to be paired with the OP the 'the (upright)' inanmiate article (not inflected). (Note that usually *th => h in Dakotan.) The interesting thing about the inflection of thaN, as Bob Rankin has recently noted, is that it pairs with a stem *he in the first and second persons: a-thaN=he, dha-thaN=s^e. Although there's no sign of =he in the third person in OP, one could imagine *thaN=he contracting to *the. > yukxAN, to exist (for) There's a thaN 'have; be plentiful at' stem in OP. > Plus -mA(N)/-be verbs > -mAN, 1) brood, hatch; -> -me (L.), -be (D.) > 2) file, rub, grind > is^tiNmA, to sleep. > naxmA, to conceal > mimA, circular > s^mA, deep At the moment I don't recognize these as having cognates. > I have a question: all e-ablaut-triggers begin with (7)e-, k-, s-, or > s^-, with occasional l- (diminutive la). What are the generalizations? I'm not sure I see one. In OP e is the default, as indicated, and a is conditioned by =(b)i, =z^i (zhi), =ga ~ =a in verbs, and by =di, =tta in nouns. Common verbal enclitics that don't condition a are =tte (cf. Dakotan =kte), =xti, =(s^ ~ h ~ 0)na, =s^te. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Aug 31 15:53:11 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 10:53:11 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: I wrote a longish reply to Connie's post but it went away into cyberspace before I could send it. I'll try to find it.... > Here are some -AN verbs with nasal -a that cannot be explained with > "nasalization spread": And, of course, nasalization spread could fairly be argued to have had a crucial part in producing AN. > -hAN, to stand (and numerous compounds) >This one may be related to the OP thaN 'the (standing)' animate Yes, *rVhaN > Dhegiha thaN, Dakotan haN, Winnebago jaN, etc. regularly. And there is the verb *haN-ke, presumably the source of the haN part of *rV-haN. >...one could imagine *thaN=he contracting to *the. Right now, I'd stick with two separate etymologies for the animate/inanimate pair. > yukxAN, to exist (for) > Cf. Biloxi and Tutelo /yuke'/ 'auxiliary'. But there are problems with the y/y equation. >There's a thaN 'have; be plentiful at' stem in OP. bob From shanwest at uvic.ca Fri Aug 31 19:48:32 2001 From: shanwest at uvic.ca (Shannon West) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 12:48:32 -0700 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu > [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Koontz John E > Sent: August 31, 2001 7:56 AM > To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu > Subject: Re: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) > > > On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > I'm not getting to the conclusion of what you say here from the > > premises you cite. We want to know which of the ablaut forms > > represents the bare stem of the verb, and which has been > > modified, presumably by an absorbed extraneous morpheme, > > or part of one. > > > > You claim that most Siouan languages seem to have -e as the > > basic form, with -a the derived form. Dakotan does not appear > > to be this way for two reasons: > > > > 1) It has verbs that use -aN as well as ones that use -a > > in opposition to -e, while other languages have only > > -a / -e variants; > > > > 2) The citation form is -a in Dakotan, but -e in other languages. > > > > Premise 1 seems to be a strong reason for favoring the -a or > > -aN version as the stem in Dakotan, since if the -e version were > > the stem, there would be no explanation for forking to -a or -aN > > respectively depending on the verb. > > Yes, this is the argument the Dakotanists use. It doesn't hold any > particular water outside Dakotan, of course, and the ablaut of aN-stems > seems to be a secondary development there. > > > The fact that other Siouan languages do not have an -aN / -e version > > of ablaut is only negative evidence, however. > > True, but nobody suggests that Dakotan is conservative in this, and even > Dakotan is somewhat schizophrenic in this regard, since the e-vowel > appears in the singulars in finite clauses. The usual explanation of this > in Dakotan grammar is that A => e before the 7-declarative. Okay. I'll start out by saying that phonology usually gets the best of me, so if I don't seem to be talking on the same thread, please set me straight. Am I understanding the above to say that in Dakotan, the final A becomes e before the glottal stop ending (declarative)? If so, I don't believe this is true of Assiniboine. For example: buza waNz^i mnuha7. 'I have a cat' The a is very clearly a and not e, but it is definitely [e] in yuhebi 'they have'. That's one I could immediately think of, but I'm sure there's more. The -e form in singulars was one of the first things I noticed when I started looking at Lakhota for insights into Assiniboine. I'm sure they're not like that in ASB. Most of the verbs I can think of offhand with final ablauting vowels just drop those vowels entirely (or sometims devoice them) in the singular forms. Woda -> wowad(a) 'I ate' --> wodiNkta 'I will eat' Yuza -> mnuz(a) 'I held it' --> mnuziNkta 'I will hold it' Anyway, just my $0.02. I'll make no attempt at analysis of this, but figured some extra data might be fun. :) Shannon From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 20:11:45 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:11:45 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > We tend to think of ablaut in terms of verbs only, but Dakotan has nominal > ablaut, too, ... > Given this we have a bit more than a set of arbitrary unrelated facts. > We have some sort of process that allows e ~ a after stems of the form > CV'C and perhaps CV. Either both of the vowels are affixal in some way > (I've suggested articles) or one is organic or epenthetic and the other > morphemic, etc. ... I perhaps should have said that my suggestion was that nominal ablaut and related cross-language patterns were to be explained by postulating two "articles" *e 'specific' and *a 'generic' that acted as enclitics to nouns in, say, Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan and were widely preserved with what had been CVC-stem nouns as well as with some CV nouns (+> CV-r- with epenthetic r), as well as with verb citation forms in Dakotan and in the various fossils like the Winnebago =ra article and =re relativizer, in those intrusive -a- linkers with postpositions in Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca, and so on. I thought that *e was clearly the *e demonstrative (or third person pronoun), and that *a was the *a demonstrative that is used to form indefinites and interogatives widely in MVS (but not in Dakotan), cf. OP e=naN 'that many' :: a=naN 'how many, some number or other'. A significant morphological problem I recognized later with this is that the *a demonstrative surfaces as *ha in Dhegiha outside of Omaha-Ponca. I still think there may be something in the general approach, but I'm a bit worried about that h, even though it is a bit of an odd-ball. Incidentally, Dakota nominal ablaut does clearly seem to have a-variants for less-specific cases and e-variants for more specific. This holds for nouns where the e-grades are for possessed forms, and I had the impression it accounted for anomalous cases of e vs. a in nominalized verbs, too. You can compare that a :: ha set with 'day', incidentally. That has h in Osage, say, but 0 in OP and Dakotan: Da aNpe=(tu), OP aNba(=dhe), Os haNba (I seem to recall, but can't look up at the moment). I think the h continues on into Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago. Something similar occurs with the first person *wa, which is a in Dhegiha (throughout), but ha in IO and Wi. In Wi there is reason to believe that h is epenthetic before initial short vowels, but this doesn't explain IO. Another nominalizing, probably demonstrative particle that gets attached to nouns is *ka, which sure looks like the 'yon' demonstrative. In Winnebago it looks like *a after velars gets shifted to *e and all final *e after simple finals is deleted, though it is preserved after clusters. Mandan and Winnebago are hotbeds of *ka affixation, though it occurs in other branches as well. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 20:20:12 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:20:12 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Shannon West wrote: > For example: > buza waNz^i mnuha7. 'I have a cat' The a is very clearly a and not e, but > it is definitely [e] in yuhebi 'they have'. > > That's one I could immediately think of, but I'm sure there's more. The -e > form in singulars was one of the first things I noticed when I started > looking at Lakhota for insights into Assiniboine. I'm sure they're not like > that in ASB. Most of the verbs I can think of offhand with final ablauting > vowels just drop those vowels entirely (or sometims devoice them) in the > singular forms. > > Woda -> wowad(a) 'I ate' --> wodiNkta 'I will eat' > Yuza -> mnuz(a) 'I held it' --> mnuziNkta 'I will hold it' One factor that I would wonder about is that Pat Shaw showed in her dissertation that a-epenthis and a ~ e ablaut are independent in the Dakotan dialects, so that many verbs have a final a that does not ablaut. Nouns can have a final unaccented a, even, that is deleted in compounds but doesn't alternate with e. I think most such cases are just chance, as nominal ablaut is clearly controlled by derivational factors. Moreover, which a's ablaut varies widely with the dialect and subdialect. Her dissertation discusses this extensively. On the other hand, in Omaha-Ponca if a verb ends in e it ablauts. The only exceptions I've noticed are e 'that' used as a verb and nouns used as verbs, e.g., kkaghe 'crow' or tte 'buffalo'. JEK From Zylogy at aol.com Wed Aug 1 16:10:48 2001 From: Zylogy at aol.com (Jess Tauber) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:10:48 EDT Subject: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) Message-ID: Hi- Salishan terms for "bow" might be similar- will send data when I can Jess Tauber From Zylogy at aol.com Thu Aug 2 19:58:28 2001 From: Zylogy at aol.com (Jess Tauber) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 15:58:28 EDT Subject: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) Message-ID: Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: Coast Tsimshian: hakwda:kh "back" : hak?>: Koasati: ittobihi "back" : atabi Tarahumara ata-ka Lushootseed: ts'a?such note also qch=ic < -ich "back Squamish: tEXwa?ch Cowichan tEXwats -ch suff. "back" Colville/Okanagon (s)-tskw=in?k Spokane tskw=in?ch note also =in?ch just as "bow" as lexical suffix These as well as a number of terms for "sinew", "knee", "walking stick", etc. which seem to have similar phonosemantics indicate that in many cases one has a combination of some root meaning tight (though elastic) flexibility combined with a term which might be construed as "back", possibly from recognition of the bow-like flexure of the back in life and especially in death. It is of course possible that this is a folk etymology from a borrowed form- I believe I've also seen similar terms in other parts of the New World.\ Other terms of interest? Cahuilla -tacha- lie on back tavish projectile point Tuscsrora also has a root -nachr- for "bow". Jess Tauber zylogy at aol.com From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Aug 4 01:33:48 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 20:33:48 -0500 Subject: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: I wonder if I could get an expansion on the discussion below from John or anyone else doing Dhegihan grammar. I'm a student in Mark's Omaha class, and I've been studying the Dorsey texts for much of this past year trying to make sense of the language. Much of it seems clear, but the rules and meanings of suffixed -bi or -i, and a- prefixed to verbs of motion, are still thwarting me. John's explanation of -bi / -i is tantalizing, but I'd like something a little fuller, plus some more examples set in a larger context. Before reading the contribution below, I was working with the following scheme. The pluralizing particle equivalent to Dakotan -pi had shifted regularly to -bi in Dhegihan. In recent Omaha, probably in the 19th century, the initial stop had been slurred away so that it became -i. In archaic quoted speech, as in songs, it might still be preserved as -bi; a good example of both forms in equivalent usage is found in "The Lament of the Fawn Over its Mother", Dorsey page 358, with -i in the text and -bi in the song. However, another particle -bi also existed in Omaha, which was perhaps an entirely different word, although it fell in a similar position. Dorsey has an extensive note describing this, in the story of Ishtinike being dropped down a hollow tree, and feigning to be a fat raccoon to get some women to let him out (I can't locate the reference at the moment.). This -bi was a dubitive particle which meant: "This is my understanding or presumption about the situation I am describing, but I am not a witness and hence do not take full responsibility for the correctness of what I just said". The dubitive -bi remained -bi, while the rival pluralizing -bi shifted to -i partly to maintain its functional distinction from the dubitive. Being much reduced, the -i would often just be dropped in sloppy speech, so that the plurality information would just not be conveyed. A problem with this is that the -i sometimes shows up for a singular subject. The situation may be saved by postulating another -i particle as well, since the -i for a singular subject often seems to be used in cases of accomplished actions that preceded the current flow of narrative events, or else for actions that are understood as passive events. These postulates are dubious; I'm still sniffing down this trail. Now as I understand John's explanation, there is no such thing as dubitive -bi, despite Dorsey's note and his consistent glossing of singleton -bi as "they say". The initial stop is consistently retained in bi-ama because of the quotative ama. Why should this make a difference? Looking back at Dorsey, it appears that most of the cases of singleton -bi either preceed egaN (accented on the second syllable), or come at the end of a clause. It would seem that egaN and ama have a parallel, mutually exclusive relationship to -bi, however we interpret -bi. They are phonologically similar in being two-syllable words accented on the second, with an initial vowel. Is the conservatory function of ama phonological in basis? I understand that third person singular and plural have merged. This may be, though my prejudices are against them having merge in favor of the plural form. My model would predict that one could have pluralizing -i followed by dubitive -bi. I have not been able to find a case of this yet, which favors the model John presents of only one -bi / -i particle. Now we have the obviate/proximate distinction. As I understand the explanation, a third person verb with -bi / -i is proximate, while without one it is obviate. "Obviate" means something like "off-stage" or "out of sight". How does this work in practical speech? In describing events and situations that are not present to the listener, just what does it mean for one actor to be "out of sight" or "off-stage" and the other one not to be? This has been long. Thanks for any thoughts, expansions or clarifications anyone can offer! Rory Koontz John E @lists.colorado.edu on 07/23/2001 06:04:24 PM Please respond to siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent by: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu To: "'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'" cc: Subject: RE: Odds & Ends of Ioway-Otoe in Omaha Sources On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Trechter, Sara wrote: > Hey John, I've missed something...what do you mean by "a simple declaration > (in obviative form)". It's obviously "the obviative form" that I'm > curious about. I'm sorry I was obscure. I was afraid I was droning on about something that might not be generally interesting, so I hurried. > kkettaNga wa'the agi'=bi=ama > big turtle he struck them he came back QUOTE This is embedded under (or tagged with) a quotative (=ama), but the verb is agi=bi 'he comes back', which is the third singular proximate form (in Omaha-Ponca), homophonous with, or better, identical with, the third plural. The form should be pretty recognizable as being like a plural to a Dakotanist, as =bi compares nicely with =pi. The quotative conditions the conservative form =bi of the proximate/plural here. Otherwise it would be agi=i. > es^a=i=dhaN > you said EVID? Here's the second person quotation form I mentioned. > e' the agi ha > him he struck he came back DECL This is in obviative form, having no =i ~ =bi with the third singular. And then the ha (=ha?) is the declarative. So this means something like 'he-obviative struck him' or 'he-offstage struck him' or 'he-(not seen) struck him', whereas the first clause would mean 'he-proximate ...', etc. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Aug 4 08:36:11 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 02:36:11 -0600 Subject: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I actually got started loking at Omaha-Ponca trying to figure out what shu= was and what that =bi= in =bi=ama was. It would be really embarassing to have been wrong about either one, but it always pays to question one's deductions from time to time. This is all kind of tricky and maybe I did make a wrong turn somewhere. On Fri, 3 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > I wonder if I could get an expansion on the discussion below from John > or anyone else doing Dhegihan grammar. I'm a student in Mark's Omaha > class, and I've been studying the Dorsey texts for much of this past > year trying to make sense of the language. Much of it seems clear, > but the rules and meanings of suffixed -bi or -i, and a- prefixed to > verbs of motion, are still thwarting me. Speaking of thwarting, there's nothing in Dorsey's grammar to suggest that he had a clue what =bi was or what was going on in the third person singular in general. The notes in the texts and his files suggest he had begun to get somewhere on on the two kinds of third person singular by 1890 or so, after 20 years of working with Omaha-Ponca, but was still not really thinking of bi as an allomorph of i. He didn't live many more years after 1890. For that matter, if I recall correctly, at several points in Boas's letters to Hahn he encourages her to see if she can't figure out what that bi is. I paid less attention to her letters than his, as they were in German, but I have the impression that an answer was not forthcoming then, either. But, to summarize my views, as far as I know, all the Dhegiha languages distinguish plural from singular using some reflex of the Mississippi Valley Siouan *=pi plural suffix or enclitic. It's an enclitic under the usual MVS rules of repelling stress even when it constitutes the second syllable of a word. In most of the Dhegiha languages =pi appears primarily as =pi (or =bi, if there is voicing of unaspirated stops) merged with the male/female declarative pair a/e as =pa/pe (or =ba/be), with =pi (or =bi) as an occasional variant when the declarative is missing. I don't think there are any dubitative =pi or =bi attested in the other Dhegiha languages. In Omaha-Ponca, however, the alternant =bi is found only (a) in personal names (Ishkada=bi), in songs (as noted by Rory), and before certain other enclitics in regular text that can follow it, e.g., especially =ama QUOTATIVE. As far as other conditioning enclitics, though I haven't worked out the details, it seems also to occur often before =egaN (I think in the sense 'having', i.e., the conjunct mode marker), sometimes before the 'evidently' evidentials =the/=khe, and sometimes (environment d!) in quoted material, especially under verbs of thinking. Otherwise it is reduced to =i, and this, in turn, is usually omitted by most modern Omaha speakers, except when followed by =the EVIDENTLY, =ga IMPERATIVEm, and other enclitics. I gather some folks do keep it finally, however, and I gather that it is usually retained there by modern Ponca speakers, since Kathy seems to hear it. Another context in which =bi is retained is in the negative plural, somewhat concealed, since =bi=azhi is reduced to =b=azhi regularly. Here I mean regularly in the sense of invariably. I don't see an actual generalization! But as to reduction, the -i of =bi was lowered to e in =bi=ama in the instance I elicited in text, and I suspect this probably happened in =bi=egaN [=b(e)=egaN'?], too. I think that Dorsey (and maybe the speakers he worked with, too) associated the =bi with the =ama as a single morpheme =bi=ama, and that he took many cases of =bi alone to be reduced versions of =bi=ama, which explains why he often glosses them 'they said', too. He doesn't seem to have associated this bi with the bi in names or songs, though he knew the one in songs alternated with =i in regular spoken material. Apart from the use of =bi ~ =i (~ 0) ~ =b... as a plural marker, there is a pattern in OP of using these markers (all of them, according to the context) to mark some (in fact, most, but not all) third person singulars. This parallels a pattern of usage of the animate definite articles as well. The animate definite articles come in two sets, the usual subject set akha and ama (the single, non-moving, and the multiple or moving - though we're not sure of this), and the usual non-subject (object, oblique) set dhiNkhe (plural stem dhaNkha), thaN, dhiN, and ma (the sitting, the standing, the moving, and the whole of). If the noun third person singular subject of a verb takes the articles akha or ama, then the verb will take =bi ~ =i, and vice versa. If it takes one of the non-subject articles, then the verb doesn't take =bi ~ =i, and vice versa. Of course, often enough a third person singular subject won't be a definite noun, but if it is, this pattern holds. In short, in just those cases where the verb is marked unexpectedly plural, the usual subject articles will be used with the subject, and in just those cases where it is not marked plural, the usual non-subject articles will be used. One kind of surprise or another. I have been calling "proximate" those cases where the third person singular subject is marked plural (in the verb) and (if definite) takes a "subject" animate article. The others I call "obviatives." This is because Dorsey or rather his sources describe the latter as situations where the speaker did not see the event occur, or where the subject did something at the behest of others. Rory mentions this, but I believe he has it backward. It is the non=bi, non=i cases that are this way. As it happens, a very similar characterization is given for so-called obviative sentences of Kickapoo by native speakers of Kickapoo, making me conclude that the Omaha-Ponca non=bi/i cases were like these Kickapoo obviatives. And if the non=bi/i cases were obviatives, then the =bi/i cases were, ipso facto, proximates. I hope the Algonquianists aren't too shocked at this. In fact, subsequently examining cases of non=bi/i subjects in context I came to the conclusion that I could see a sort of "not in focus, secondary character" quality to them in general. Ardis Eschenberg has looked at these more extensively since, and concluded that the non=bi/i cases are associated with subjects that are "off-stage" or not "center-stage" in narratives, while the =bi/i cases are "center-stage". The theatrical metaphor is common in analysis of text these days, and I think it does a better job of the situation here than my use of proximate/obviative. Maybe central and peripheral or something like that would work better than proximate/obviative? Of course, historically, proximate and obviative mean something like this - "nearby" and "off the path," but they've come to be used in a rather specialized way because of their first use in connection with Algonquian morphology. Ardis points out that in OP several individuals can be center stage at once, so this is not very much like a standard Algonquian proximate/obviative system at all, and it was never really being compared to the standard "first" obviative, anyway, but only to the special case semantics of the second obviative in Fox, Kickapoo, and other closely related languages. If use of non-subject articles (dhiNKhe, thaN, dhiN, ma) marks "obviative" of "non-center-stage" references in subjects, then we'd have to say that all objects are inherently obviative in OP, which is also rather different from the Algonquian scheme. There is one oddity here, and that is that while no object ever seems to take the akha or ama article, there are some cases of oblique noun phrases that have akha or ama followed by a postposition. The category of proximate, or whatever it is, is not restricted to cases =bi/i as a plural-and/or-proximate marker. The definite articles mentioned above happen also to be used as progressive auxiliaries. In this capacity they follow the verb, and in this case the verb never takes a plural or proximate use of =bi ~ =i. Any plurality is marked by the article or auxiliary itself. And proximate/obviative is also marked this way. That is, there are some sentences that use non-subject (let's say proximate) articles with their subjects and these must use proximate articles as their progressive auxiliary, while other sentences use non-subject (let's say obviative) articles with their subject, and these must use the same non-subject article as their progressive auxiliary. Of course, if a subject of a progressive sentences is not a noun or isn't definite, the article occurs as an auxiliary only. Incidentally, except for certain special cases, the OP future is marked progressive, i.e., a definite article follows it. Dorsey, or rather the people helping him edit the texts he had collected, noticed some cases of exceptions to the above rules of sentence formation and characterized them as errors. They suggested that they could be corrected by making both the verb and the subject fit either the obviative or proximate pattern, whichever he wished, not some mixture like he had in the texts at these points. He footnotes this situation several tims in the 1890 and 1891 text collections without attempting to correct the texts. I've always been very grateful to him and his consultants for those notes, as they were the main hint I had that the alternations mentioned above had something to do with proximate.obviative (or central/periperhal). Interestingly, as far as I know, all the exceptions that occur work out to have obviative marking followed by proximate marking. Whether the exception is a verb or a noun depends on which follows which. I suspdect that these sentences were initially intended to be obviative, but somehow, perhaps by dint of repetition as Dorsey wrote them down, changed to proximate as they went along. Or maybe it's a kind of speech error that just tends to occur in OP. I notice in English that I often end a sentence somewhat inconsistently with the start. Sometimes I repeat things in a corrected form, sometimes I don't. Examples (made up - I just know I'm going to regret this!): UmaNhaN=akha PpaNdhiN=dhiNkhe daNba=i 'The Omaha saw the Pawnee' UmaNhaN=thaN PpaNdhin=dhiNkhe daNbe 'The Omaha (obv) saw the Pawnee' UmaNhaN=akha PpaNdhiN=dhiNkhe daNbe=akha 'The Omaha is watching the Pawnee' UmaNhaN=thaN PpaNdhiN=dhiNkhe daNbe=thaN 'The Omaha (obv) is watching the Pawnee' (Somewhere I have some pat examples put together by or for Dorsey, and, of course, real examples are in the texts.) So, to sum things up, I see no evidence of two bi markers, only of what seems to me as a linguist (not a speaker) to be two uses of one bi marker. One of those uses - marking proximates or centrals - is also done independently with the proximate (or central) animate articles ama and akha, and the existence of this separate scheme for marking proximateness clearly shows that the proximate or central category of nouns is not associated solely with =bi. > However, another particle -bi also existed in Omaha, which was perhaps > an entirely different word, although it fell in a similar position. > Dorsey has an extensive note describing this, in the story of > Ishtinike being dropped down a hollow tree, and feigning to be a fat > raccoon to get some women to let him out (I can't locate the reference > at the moment.). This -bi was a dubitive particle which meant: "This > is my understanding or presumption about the situation I am > describing, but I am not a witness and hence do not take full > responsibility for the correctness of what I just said". I wonder if this was a case with =the (~ =khe ~ dhaN ~ =ge) as an 'evidently' evidential to describe something that must be concluded from the context, but wasn't actually witnessed? Anyway, I know the text, and I'd be interested in the comment. This story is the part of the Trickster cycle where buzzard, having been insulted by the Trickster after agreeing to fly him across a stream, drops him into a hollow tree. The Trickster gets some women out collecting wood to cut a hole and let him out by pretending to them to be a fat racoon. In the Dorsey texts, see pp. 74-78. (Note that there's a reference to an Oto version to be published in a projected collection of Chiwere texts. It is said to have been given by J[oseph] LaFle(s)che. I don't think I've ever seen this text in manuscript or otherwise.) The only note here is one that says that in wedhe t[h]i=bi=ama the bi=ama refers to the thought of IshtiniNkhe and must not be rendered "it is said." The full clause is produced as IshtinNkhe is stuck in the tree and runs "'Ni'ashiNga we'dhe thi=bi=ama,' edh=egaN=bi=ama". "'People seeking-wood they-arrive-QUOTE,' he-thought-QUOTE." This is certainly interesting in terms of the semantics of the quotative, but I'm pretty sure it's not the note Rory has in mind. From personal experiences of this sort I'd guess he has the locations of several interesting =bi=ama notes mixed! > Now as I understand John's explanation, there is no such thing as > dubitive -bi, despite Dorsey's note and his consistent glossing of > singleton -bi as "they say". I'd have to know the particular note to know what to make of it. I'm pretty sure the =bi 'they say' are due to a false association of =bi with =bi=ama 'they say'. In that context the =ama is the 'they say'. Ama just happens to condition the =bi variant of =i. There are cases of =ama without =bi (or =i) before it, because the subjects aren't plural and are obviative. > Is the conservatory function of ama phonological in basis? That is, is there somehting about the phonology of ama that cases bi to remain bi, and not become i? I'm not really sure on that one. At least two of the situations that preserve b involve following enclitics of the form (C)VCV'. > I understand that third person singular and plural have merged. This > may be, though my prejudices are against them having merge in favor of > the plural form. There are some singulars that lack "plural marking" - the obviatives. I'd have to say that my prejudices are against the plural replacing the singular, too, but I can't think of any other way to characterize it. > My model would predict that one could have pluralizing -i followed by > dubitive -bi. I have not been able to find a case of this yet, which > favors the model John presents of only one -bi / -i particle. I haven't seen any cases of adjacent double plurals or i + bi or bi + i, either, though there are various cases of more than one plural with material separating them. This is common where one of the plurals is in a negative. > Now we have the obviate/proximate distinction. As I understand the > explanation, a third person verb with -bi / -i is proximate, while > without one it is obviate. "Obviate" means something like "off-stage" > or "out of sight". How does this work in practical speech? In > describing events and situations that are not present to the listener, > just what does it mean for one actor to be "out of sight" or > "off-stage" and the other one not to be? These are all excellent questions, which Ardis might be a bit better prepared to answer than I am. It appears that the matter is something of a judgement call on the part of the speaker, and that we only know the speaker's mind by what marking pattern they use. The pattern makes sense after the fact, but we might sometimes find that we would have guessed something to be one kind of reference when it was the other. > This has been long. Thanks for any thoughts, expansions or > clarifications anyone can offer! I hope this has been some help, and I hope it will prove convincing when compared to the state of things in the texts or with speakers. If it doesn't, of course, I'd appreciate counter arguments. Examples would be good, if the non-Dhegiha folks will bear with us. === Incidentally, I may be a bit out of touch next week and, especially, the week after, due to travel. John From Rgraczyk at aol.com Mon Aug 6 19:15:24 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 15:15:24 EDT Subject: Soup Message-ID: Thanks for the help with 'soup'. So there is some evidence that it is a borrowing from Algonquian. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Aug 7 03:15:10 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 22:15:10 -0500 Subject: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: John, thanks so much for your long reply to my lengthy question. I hope that didn't cost you your whole Saturday! You've given me a lot to chew on, and I'll need a while to digest what you said in consultation with Dorsey. For now, a few thoughts from the hip: >> However, another particle -bi also existed in Omaha, which was perhaps >> an entirely different word, although it fell in a similar position. >> Dorsey has an extensive note describing this, in the story of >> Ishtinike being dropped down a hollow tree, and feigning to be a fat >> raccoon to get some women to let him out (I can't locate the reference >> at the moment.). This -bi was a dubitive particle which meant: "This >> is my understanding or presumption about the situation I am >> describing, but I am not a witness and hence do not take full >> responsibility for the correctness of what I just said". > I wonder if this was a case with =the (~ =khe ~ dhaN ~ =ge) as an > 'evidently' evidential to describe something that must be concluded from > the context, but wasn't actually witnessed? Anyway, I know the text, and > I'd be interested in the comment. > This story is the part of the Trickster cycle where buzzard, having been > insulted by the Trickster after agreeing to fly him across a stream, drops > him into a hollow tree. The Trickster gets some women out collecting wood > to cut a hole and let him out by pretending to them to be a fat racoon. > In the Dorsey texts, see pp. 74-78. (Note that there's a reference to an > Oto version to be published in a projected collection of Chiwere texts. > It is said to have been given by J[oseph] LaFle(s)che. I don't think I've > ever seen this text in manuscript or otherwise.) > The only note here is one that says that in wedhe t[h]i=bi=ama the bi=ama > refers to the thought of IshtiniNkhe and must not be rendered "it is > said." The full clause is produced as IshtinNkhe is stuck in the tree and > runs "'Ni'ashiNga we'dhe thi=bi=ama,' edh=egaN=bi=ama". "'People > seeking-wood they-arrive-QUOTE,' he-thought-QUOTE." This is certainly > interesting in terms of the semantics of the quotative, but I'm pretty > sure it's not the note Rory has in mind. From personal experiences of > this sort I'd guess he has the locations of several interesting =bi=ama > notes mixed! Actually, the note I had in mind was the one right below the one you discuss. This references page 75, line 14-15. Ishtinike has just spoken to the women from inside the tree, as follows: "Mika' taN'ga bthiN' ha" -- "I am a big raccoon. Make [the hole] big around." One woman says to the other: "HiN! shikaN', Mika' akha' taNga'-bi ai he" -- "Oh! sister-in-law, he says he is a big raccoon!" This uses -bi with respect to the information the "raccoon" has offered about himself, and -i with respect to the fact, clear to both women, that he has said the thing the woman is repeating. The note on page 77 says: 75, 14. mika akha taNga-bi ai he. She had perceived by the sense of hearing (taking _direct cognizance_) that he had said this, so she says "ai" instead of "a-biama." But she did not learn by direct cognizance that he was large, she learned it _indirectly_, so she says "taNga-bi," not "taNga." I've run into another line and note that seem to say the same thing. In the story, "How the Rabbit Killed the Black Bears," page 16, line 4-5, we have: "GaN'khi a'shi adha'-biama' Wasa'be ama', ni'kashiNga'-bi edhe'gaN-bi egaN' " -- "And so the Black Bear went outside, they say, thinking that they were people". In this case, we have -bi appended directly to the noun, and precisely to the noun of the false assumption, since these "people" were actually the Rabbit's own faeces giving the scalping cry. The note on page 18 says: 16, 5. niashiNga-bi edhegaN-bi egaN. The -bi after niashiNga shows that the Black bear, while he thought that there were men outside, had not seen them. [...] In both of these cases, -bi seems to make very good sense if understood as modifying the foregoing with the caveat of "presumably" or "supposedly" or "seemingly". Dorsey, or whoever wrote the notes, certainly seems to have believed that this was the sense. Another argument in favor of dubitive -bi is that is that it nicely explains why -bi is so rare in the dialogues, while it absolutely infests the narrative. In telling a myth, the speaker is constantly trying to distance himself from responsibility for the truth of the tale, and consequently tends to qualify every main verb of a clause with the caveat -bi, "supposedly". In dialogue, one usually knows well enough whereof one speaks, and hence feels no need to -bi everything. It would also explain the close association between -bi, "supposedly" and ama', "they say", because these are both used habitually to deny responsibility for the truth of the tale, though their exact meanings are different. >I have been calling "proximate" those cases where the third person >singular subject is marked plural (in the verb) and (if definite) takes a >"subject" animate article. The others I call "obviatives." This is >because Dorsey or rather his sources describe the latter as situations >where the speaker did not see the event occur, or where the subject did >something at the behest of others. Rory mentions this, but I believe he >has it backward. It is the non=bi, non=i cases that are this way. This is a problem. I think I have no trouble seeing all non-fossilized cases of -bi in Dorsey as being dubitive in sense, while -i acts as a different (though possibly mutually incompatible) morpheme. If "obviative" includes "that which the speaker cannot vouch for", and is signalled by the absence of -bi / -i, then our interpretations of -bi are going to be hard to reconcile. We may need to rake in a few more examples from Dorsey or native speakers. I hope that Ardis will be able to add some comments too, especially on the practical usage of obviative/proximate. >I hope this has been some help, and I hope it will prove convincing when >compared to the state of things in the texts or with speakers. If it >doesn't, of course, I'd appreciate counter arguments. Examples would be >good, if the non-Dhegiha folks will bear with us. >Incidentally, I may be a bit out of touch next week and, especially, the >week after, due to travel. >John It's been a great help, and I really appreciate your comments. I'll also be gone next week, so the non-Dhegiha folks are guaranteed a respite! Rory From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Tue Aug 7 17:42:26 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 17:42:26 GMT Subject: Soup In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Cree the apoy morph comes in a lot of words for edible liquids like 'milk', 'coffee' and 'soup', but I haven't got the other examples to hand at the moment. Bruce Date sent: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 13:52:14 -0700 Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: "Shannon West" To: Subject: RE: Soup -----Original Message----- From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Rgraczyk at aol.com Sent: July 27, 2001 12:41 PM To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Soup >I recently came across a Cheyenne form hohpe 'soup'. This is suspiciously >like Crow hu'ppii 'soup'. Does this have a Siouan etymology? What about >Algonkian? It sure looks like a borrowing to me, and I am curious about the >direction of borrowing. > >Randy Can't say, but I can give you the Nakota for 'soup' haNbi. I think there's another word for a thick soup, or stew, but I can neither rememeber nor find it right now. Hohpe reminds me of hoxpa 'cough', but that's almost certainly coincidence. The Cree word for soup (if I recall correctly) is anapapoy. Ojibwe for 'soup' is naboob. Those are the only Algonquian languages I have a sniff about. I've been not much help, I'm afraid. Shannon Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Tue Aug 7 17:48:44 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 17:48:44 GMT Subject: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On details about bows there is a Journal of the Society of Archer Antiquaries published over here somewhere which often has articles on native American bows. Bruce Date sent: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 08:32:13 -0500 (EST) Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: Michael Mccafferty To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Bows (IO tradition)/Yankton sociology (fwd) On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > Unlurking very much appreciated. The comment on the irregularity of the > second term *ahta or *a?ta is interesting, as this is the one that > resembled PI *a?ta? that the Blair Rudes suggested was regular in > Iroquoian. This could well be a borrowing that could have diffused, according to the distribution of PA *ahta- ~ *a?ta- in Algonquian terms for 'bow' you find it along the East Coast and in the Western Great Lakes (Ojibwe and Miami-Illinois), (and it is an **old** morpheme in Miami-Illinois as attested by the Jesuit sources from around the turn of the 18th century; in other words, it's not a late borrowing from, say, Unami) it could have diffused both to the east and to the west from an (several) Iroquoian population(s) lying between the Algonquians. This notion jibes, of course, with the general Algonquian-Iroquian population distribution model for late prehistory. In addition, there is good evidence of positive Iroquian-Algonquian interaction in the area southwest of the Lake Erie, where exchange of ideas, technology, and language could/would have occurred. The archaeologist Bob McCullough has discovered this and written about it. I'll have to find the sources for those interested. It appears that present-day central, southeast and northern Indiana was, say, an "interaction zone," where peoples from various cultural backgrounds and languages lived cheek to jowl and, lacking any evidence of warfare thusfar, were pretty much getting along. Drawing back from this particular focus, it seems wise to consider the possibility that the bow was invented in more than one place. Time out of mind people have been attaching cordage to wood. One question I have, does anyone know the poundage that native bows have? Best, Michael McCafferty > > On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, David Costa wrote: > > > Hello all... > > > > As a Lurking Algonquianist, I felt obliged to correct some of the Algonquian > > forms given previously. I should warn people that the Proto-Algonquian > > dictionary is not the most dependable place to get Algonquian data, for > > either proto-forms or daughter language cognates. The daughter language data > > is only as good as the original source from which it was taken. > > > > I apologize if this is redundant by now, or if the interested parties > > already have all these forms. I can't recall how much of this data has > > already been given here, but since I had it at hand... (These are all > > phonemic forms.) > > > > (? = glottal stop, 'E' = front mid lax vowel, @ = schwa) > > > > P.A. *me?tekwa:pyi 'bow, bowstring' (*me?tekw- 'tree, wood' + -a:py- > > 'string, cord') > > > > Miami-Illinois mihte(h)ko:pa, mihte(h)kwa:pa 'bow', mihte(h)kwa:pinti, > > mihte(h)ko:pinti 'bowstring'; also old Illinois mihtekwi & Miami mihtehki > > 'forest, timber, wood' > > > > Shawnee mtekwa, pl. mtekwa:pali 'gun' [very likely the pre-contact word for > > 'bow', obviously], mtekwa:piti 'bowstring', and hilenahkwi 'bow'; also > > mhtekwi 'tree' > > > > Ojibwe mitigwa:b 'bow', mitig 'tree' > > > > Potawatomi mt at gwap 'bow', mt at g 'tree' > > > > Fox mehtekwa (archaic) & mehtekwanwi (modern) 'arrow', mehtekwi 'tree, > > wood'; mehtekwa:pi 'bowstring' & mehte:ha 'bow'; Kickapoo mehte:ha 'bow' > > > > Menominee nemE:?tek 'my bow' (animate; as an inanimate noun mE?tek this > > means 'wood') & mE?tekuap 'bowstring, bow' > > > > Cheyenne ma?tahke 'bow' > > > > Arapaho b?:t?? 'bow' & be:t?yo:k 'bowstring'. > > > > Another cognate set is exemplified by Ojibwe acha:b 'bowstring', Unami > > Delaware hat?:p:i 'bow ', and the Miami-Illinois alternates ne:htia:pa > > 'bow' & ne:htia:pinti 'bowstring'. As I think has been mentioned, tho, this > > etymon is mostly found in Eastern Algonquian, along the Atlantic Coast. I > > haven't give those forms since I figure Maliseet and Unquachog aren't very > > plausible candidates for Siouan loans. :-) Incidentally, the etymon doesn't > > reconstruct cleanly. The consonant clusters line up rather poorly. > > > > Thanks for your patience. Anyway, back to my lurking. :-) > > > > best, > > > > David Costa > > > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 8 06:53:03 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 00:53:03 -0600 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <12d.25950b6.289b0ae4@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you mention is just chance. > Koasati: ittobihi > "back" : atabi My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. From pankihtamwa at earthlink.net Wed Aug 8 07:27:37 2001 From: pankihtamwa at earthlink.net (David Costa) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 00:27:37 -0700 Subject: Bows Message-ID: /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was favored for making bows? Dave Costa ---------- >From: Koontz John E >To: >Subject: Re: Bows >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > mention is just chance. > >> Koasati: ittobihi >> "back" : atabi > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed Aug 8 09:59:44 2001 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 04:59:44 -0500 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <200108080728.AAA25587@hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I think I laid this all out on day one. Maybe in my dreams. :-) On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, David Costa wrote: > /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate > with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar > semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is > /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow > tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), > literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that > mulberry wood was favored for making bows? > > Dave Costa > > > ---------- > >From: Koontz John E > >To: > >Subject: Re: Bows > >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > > > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > > > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > > mention is just chance. > > > >> Koasati: ittobihi > >> "back" : atabi > > > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > > > > > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 8 18:35:35 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 12:35:35 -0600 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <200108080728.AAA25587@hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: > I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was > favored for making bows? It might be. The usual 'bow wood' in Osage is the Osage Orange, I think, though this is from memory. Sometimes such trees are called bois d'arc in English. JEK From Zylogy at aol.com Wed Aug 8 19:15:55 2001 From: Zylogy at aol.com (Jess Tauber) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 15:15:55 EDT Subject: Bows Message-ID: The connection with "back" is folk etymology, perhaps? Note the use of the term in English itself - bow (for archery) versus bow (to the nobility, for instance) (and lets not forget boughs. Baying (dogs)?). Not that I'd be averse to a deep etymological or phonosemantic connection between these and "back" in IE (anyone know offhand?). In my analysis of quite a few lexical systems there appears to be a subcomponent, organized along phonosemantic lines, which characterizes bodily postures by shape, orientation, tension, etc. and by extension emotional or health states accompanying them on the one hand, and to properties of nonhuman entities on the other. Mongolian languages, for instance, have many hundred such terms, as do Southern Bantu languages. In these language types such terms are expressives or ideophones. More lexicalized systems (such as found in western Indoeuropean) appear to have many fewer terms surviving mostly in derivations or shifted semantically. I wonder whether "bow" is such a survival here, as in the Native American languages we are looking at. There is also, here, a connection with raw onomatopoeia: the sound of an arrowshot, or a gunshot- bow/pow//back/bang vs takw (and variants). Interesting shift, no? Also the fact that in use there is always a "backish" component of action in these weapons- pushing the projectile back (in muzzleloaders) from the vertical in order to usually point it in the horizontal, or pulling (for bows), or breechloading (for modern guns), the "backish" recoil of guns (bows?). As if stiff verticality/straightness was the expected norm. The projectile is then an intrusive fulcrum, tension increasing to get rid of it. I also wonder whether kicking and cocking are part of this phonosemantic set in English. Jess Tauber zylogy at aol.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mmccaffe at indiana.edu Wed Aug 8 19:40:44 2001 From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 14:40:44 -0500 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This is true. The name of the tree is pronounced [bo'dark] in English. On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > > I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was > > favored for making bows? > > It might be. The usual 'bow wood' in Osage is the Osage Orange, I think, > though this is from memory. Sometimes such trees are called bois d'arc in > English. > > JEK > > Michael McCafferty 307 Memorial Hall Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 47405 mmccaffe at indiana.edu From daynal at nsula.edu Thu Aug 9 17:05:25 2001 From: daynal at nsula.edu (Dayna Bowker Lee) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 10:05:25 -0700 Subject: Bows Message-ID: Among the Caddo, cha-w?h is the word for both bow and bois d'arc tree, the material from which Caddo bows were and still are constructed. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Costa To: Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 12:27 AM Subject: Re: Bows > /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate > with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar > semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is > /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow > tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), > literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that > mulberry wood was favored for making bows? > > Dave Costa > > > ---------- > >From: Koontz John E > >To: > >Subject: Re: Bows > >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > > > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > > > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > > mention is just chance. > > > >> Koasati: ittobihi > >> "back" : atabi > > > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > > > > From Ogalala2 at aol.com Tue Aug 14 14:38:36 2001 From: Ogalala2 at aol.com (Ogalala2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 10:38:36 EDT Subject: Stoney Phonology Message-ID: I need some help with Stoney phonology. I have been using John Laurie's "Dictionary of the Stony Language." He uses h where other Siouan linguist use x for the gutteral German ch. He also uses h for h and for the gutteral g, the sonant of x. My questions are: Does Stoney not contain the gutterals? Is h the proper phoneme to represent all three of the phonemes mentioned above? Thanks for your help. Ted Grimm From mosind at yahoo.com Wed Aug 15 10:22:39 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Constantine Xmelnitski) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 03:22:39 -0700 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Siouanists: I wonder what is the cause of irregular paradigm of Dakotan transitive verb yu'tA. L/D: 1s: wa'te, 2s: ya'te, 12: uNyu'tapi > uN'tapi, yul-/yun-/yud- According to Shannon West, Assiniboine's "yuda" behaves [at least in some dialects?] as if a regular Y-verb: mnu'da - nu'da - uNyu'dabi. Detransitivized wo'tA ( wauN'tapi;, wol-/won-/wod- ASB wo'da: 1s wo'wada. Besudes Dakotan stuff I have only Osage and Winnebago dictionaries, so I could found only these possible cognates: Osage: dha'ce (bdha'ce - sta'ce - oNdha'ca i), "to eat" (vt?) noN'bdhe (awanoN'bdhe - wadhanoN'bdhe - oNwoN'noNbdha i) to eat, to consume (vt?) wanoN'bdhe, to eat, to dine (vi?) Winnebago: ruc^- So what is the PSi form, and which paradigm (L/D vs. ASB is older)? Thank you. Connie. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Wed Aug 15 13:05:37 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 13:05:37 GMT Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <200108080728.AAA25587@hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Has anyone got an etymology for Lakota itazipa 'bow'. I may have missed it in all the flurry of activity over Dheghiha and Chikasaw. Incidentally you mention the possible original measning may have been 'blow pipe'. A parallel case is that Persian tir kamaan literally 'arrow (and) bow' passes into some arabic dialects as telkammaan 'catapult'. Bruce Date sent: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 00:27:37 -0700 Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: "David Costa" To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Bows /bihi'/ is the Chickasaw word for 'mulberry', and this is probably cognate with Alabama /bihi/. Apologies if I mentioned this already, but a similar semantic connection is found in Shawnee & Miami as well; in Miami, 'bow' is /mihtekwaapa/, while 'mulberry tree' is /mihtekwaapimishi/, literally 'bow tree'. 'Mulberry' in Miami is /mihtekoopimini/ (Shawnee /mtekwaapimina/), literally 'bow berry'. I guess the reason for the connection is that mulberry wood was favored for making bows? Dave Costa ---------- >From: Koontz John E >To: >Subject: Re: Bows >Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2001, 11:53 pm > > On Thu, 2 Aug 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote: > >> Here is what I was able to grab in a very quick run-though at UCSB library: > > Thanks, Jess! An association with 'back' is an interesting possibility I > hadn't thought of. However, I think at least once of the cases you > mention is just chance. > >> Koasati: ittobihi >> "back" : atabi > > My understanding of the Koasati term (per Karen Booker's note to Bob > Rankin that I mentioned before) is that it is a compound of itto 'tree, > wood' and bihi, which is probably the archaic term for 'bow', or at least > 'blowgun' or 'weapon' or something like that, cf. Alabama bihi 'bow'. In > other words, after bihi was transferred to 'gun', ittobihi was innovated > to refer specifically to 'bow'. It doesn't have anything to do with > 'back', I think. I decided not to list it at the time since bihi doesn't > seem to bear any resemblance to the Siouan term. > > > Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From mosind at yahoo.com Thu Aug 16 09:23:46 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Constantine Xmelnitski) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:23:46 -0700 Subject: Stoney Phonology In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --- Ogalala2 at aol.com wrote: .... My questions are: Does Stoney not contain > the gutterals? Is h the > proper phoneme to represent all three of the > phonemes mentioned above? In Patricia Shaw's (1980) book on phonology and morphology of Dakotan I found the following (chapter 1): "..Notably, however, the velar fricatives /x, g^/ of other dialects occur as the pharyngeals [ ] in Stoney. This seems to be a fairly recent sound shift for there is still some variability in the articulation of these segments in the speech of older and more conservative speakers". Connie. > > Thanks for your help. > > Ted Grimm > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From mosind at yahoo.com Thu Aug 16 09:26:28 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Constantine Xmelnitski) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 02:26:28 -0700 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <0108159979.AA997914826@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: Just two words in addition to yuta - wota stuff: yu'tA has a regular glu'tA (waglu'tA) possessive form. Another perhaps relevant verb is yata' (blata', lata', uNya'tapi), vt. "to chew, to try by tasting smth" Connie. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Fri Aug 17 12:01:42 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 12:01:42 GMT Subject: bows (and arrows) In-Reply-To: <005a01c09f32$1e2694c0$1509ed81@9afl3> Message-ID: Having fond out about bows, does anyone know the derivation of Lakota waNhiNkpe 'arrow'. The waN element (also w-, wa- )occurs as an incorporatable element in waNtaNyeyela 'good archer', waNsaka 'arrow shaft', wawakhaN 'sacred arrow'. waNhiNkpe looks as though it may be from waN 'arrow', hi 'tooth, point' and iNkpa 'end', but that sems like a very superfluous derivation. Anmy ideas Bruce Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 21 01:37:22 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:37:22 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <20010815102239.59108.qmail@web13403.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Constantine Xmelnitski wrote: I surveyed the r-stem pattern and also 'to eat' which has additional irregularities, in: Koontz, John E. 1983. Siouan Syncopating *r-Stems. pp. 11-23, Na'po [Plains Cree for 'Man'] Vol. 13, October 1983, Special Issue: Proceedings of the Second Siouan Languages Conference, 1982. Ed. by Mary C. Marino. (MM says na'po is actualy Plains Cree for 'male'.) > I wonder what is the cause of irregular paradigm of Dakotan transitive > verb yu'tA. L/D: 1s: wa'te, 2s: ya'te, 12: uNyu'tapi > uN'tapi, > yul-/yun-/yud- According to Shannon West, Assiniboine's "yuda" behaves > [at least in some dialects?] as if a regular Y-verb: mnu'da - nu'da - > uNyu'dabi. Winnebago has alternative inflectional patterns for this stem, either haa'c^/raa'c^/ruu'c^ (cf. Dakotan wa'te/ya'te/yu'tA) or duu'c^/s^uruc^/ruu'c^ (cf. Assiniboine mnu'da/nu'da/yu'da). IO has haj^i'/raj^i'/ru'j^e, which is more or less along the first pattern, though the accentuation and final vowel are not quite an exact fit. In the paper I treated this stem as being monomorphemic, i.e., with the initial *ru (> yu in Dakotan) being only coincidentally identical with the hand instrumental. Clearly, though, that coincidence would be an operative factor in the evolution of the verb. The Dhegiha cognate of this stem would be *dhute (cf. Osage dhuce, spelled thidse by LaFlesche), which has a gloss 'to scoop from a hollow place' in which the hand instrumental seems interpretation to be involved. Omaha-Ponca seems to lack the *dhute form - it would be expected to occur as dhide. There is a potential cognate of Proto-Siouan *rut(e) 'to eat' in Catawban exhibited in the Woccon utterance rendered Noccoo Eraute? 'Have you got anything to eat' in Lawson's word list (cited by Carter in a 1980 article on the Woccon data). Frankly, I'm not sure why the PS verb *rut(e) has first and second persons based on a stem allomorph *t(e) in Dakotan and Winnebago and Ioway-Otoe. I'm inclined to think that this pattern is old, and that occurences of the more normal pattern in Dhegiha and elsewhere are cases of regularizations. Of course, the pattern "regularized" to is that of the *ru- instrumental, which follows the *r-stem syncopating conjugation as opposed to thre "regular" pattern used with cluster and fricative initials. If the Dakotan pattern for 'eat' is old, then one possibility is that the stem was originally *ot(e) or *ut(e). In that case the first and second persons could be explained as involving a vowel contraction (notice that they are normally accented in violation of the second syllable tendency), while the third person has an epenthetic *r. This *r would be conditioned when suitable vowel-final morpheme preceded the stem. One that would make the most sense for me formally would be a hypothetical third person pronominal *i, but there is no consistent evidence for this in the active paradigms, though third person *i is reflected in possesive paradigms. It may also be worth noticing that Osage has an opposition of dhache 'to eat' vs. idhache 'to eat one thing with another'. Allan Taylor tells me a semantic distinction of 'eat one thing' vs. 'eat two things together' occurs in some Algonquian languages (I think Atsina is one). If *i were regularly used to derive such stems in Siouan, then a frequent opposition of *ut(e) vs. i-rut(e) might lead to a revision of the root from *ute to *rute, affecting only the third person, though subsequently the first and second persons might be modified to fit the normal pattern for *r-stems. > Besudes Dakotan stuff I have only Osage and Winnebago dictionaries, so > I could found only these possible cognates: Osage: dha'ce (bdha'ce - > sta'ce - oNdha'ca i), "to eat" (vt?) noN'bdhe (awanoN'bdhe - > wadhanoN'bdhe - oNwoN'noNbdha i) to eat, to consume (vt?) wanoN'bdhe, > to eat, to dine (vi?) Rankin explained these sets to me back in '82 as: Dhegiha *dhathE 'to eat' cf. Dakotan yathA 'to chew'; Dhegiha *naNbdhE 'to eat' cf. Dakotan naNpc^ha 'to swallow'. He also pointed out the *dhute 'scoop up' set to me and argued that it did not historically involve an instrumental. The PS stems seem to be *ra-the', *raN'pye (or *naN'pye?), *(r)u't(e). From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 21 01:44:34 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:44:34 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <0108159979.AA997914826@router-8.camnet.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Sep 2001, Hu Matthews wrote: > sg pl > 3rd duush?k duus?uk > 1st buush?k buus?uk > 2nd dil?shik dil?suuk > > 'eat' is irregular also in Crow. > The final k in these forms is the declarative marker. > (In case the accents don't make it through, - in the 1st and 3rd > person, the accent goes on the first vowel of the last syllable; in > the 2nd person it is on the middle syllable. For the record, I believe that this is the regular pattern for the lu- instrumental in Crow, and reflects the Crow outcome of th *r-stem syncopating conjugation. Thus it would follow the alternate pattern of inflection for 'eat' attested in Assiniboine and Winnebago (or Dhegiha, etc.). It's particularly neat to find such a nice exhibition of this pattern in Crow, of course, and it's on the strenght of this that I think that the *r-stem pattern can be read into Proto-Siouan, not just Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan, I've wondered if the -u- vowel of plurals in Crow might not reflect the *p of =*pi as a plural in MV, though this may be stretching things! I don't know of any parallel development of *p to u in the enclitic sequences of Crow (or Hidatsa). From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 21 01:49:06 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:49:06 -0600 Subject: Bows In-Reply-To: <1050352612E@soas.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote: > Has anyone got an etymology for Lakota itazipa 'bow'. I may > have missed it in all the flurry of activity over Dheghiha and > Chikasaw. Incidentally you mention the possible original measning > may have been 'blow pipe'. A parallel case is that Persian tir > kamaan literally 'arrow (and) bow' passes into some arabic dialects > as telkammaan 'catapult'. I think most likely is ita + zipa, with ita representing an analogically modified borrowing mita 'bow', and zipa being something like 'thin', presumably referring to the thinned structure of the bow staff. However, this is just a guess as far as zipa. I'm pretty sure of ita < mita < some Algonquian source. From BARudes at aol.com Tue Aug 21 17:04:02 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:04:02 EDT Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan Message-ID: The root of the Catawba verb to eat is -raN-, which appears in Woccon with the regular replacement of /aN/ by /a:/ as -ra:-. The -te in Eraute is a modal suffix. -raN- itself is a mutating verb. More often than not, it cooccurs with the mutating instrumental ru:# by hand, in such forms as du:raNre: one eats. Blair From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 22 05:56:22 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 23:56:22 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > The root of the Catawba verb to eat is -raN-, which appears in Woccon with > the regular replacement of /aN/ by /a:/ as -ra:-. The -te in Eraute is a > modal suffix. -raN- itself is a mutating verb. More often than not, it > cooccurs with the mutating instrumental ru:# by hand, in such forms as > du:raNre: one eats. This means that *rut(e), maybe *ut(e), is attested only in Siouan, and might conceivably involve the *ru instrumental, if the r is organic to the stem. The Woccon and Catawba forms actually look more like the first part of *raNpyE, even though the phonotactics of that suggest an analysis of *raNp-yE. Although it would be, I think, a unique instance of this pattern of suppletion, perhaps the Siouan 'eat' stem is just *t(e) (or *tE), and the third person has the instrumental, while the first and second (and sometimes the inclusive) lack it. In this case the occurrence of instrumental forms instead of non-instrumental forms in the first and second, etc., persons would be an old alternative, rather than regularization. I'm not sure but what Blair was suggesting as much. JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Wed Aug 22 20:32:33 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:32:33 EDT Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan Message-ID: In a message dated 08/20/2001 6:45:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time, John.Koontz at colorado.edu writes: > For the record, I believe that this is the regular pattern for the lu- > instrumental in Crow, and reflects the Crow outcome of th *r-stem > syncopating conjugation. Thus it would follow the alternate pattern of > inflection for 'eat' attested in Assiniboine and Winnebago (or Dhegiha, > etc.). > > I'm not sure I'm understanding John correctly, but duushi' does not follow the regular pattern for du- 'by hand' instrumentals in Crow. It is irregular in two respects: in the first person form the initial vowel of the stem is replaced by the first person marker b-, and the accent is on the final vowel of the stem (duushi'). In all the du- instrumentals, the instrumental prefix bears the accent, e.g., du'tchi 'take'. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 22 23:54:48 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:54:48 -0600 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <13d.2b04f5.28b570e1@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > > For the record, I believe that this is the regular pattern for the lu- > > instrumental in Crow, ... > > I'm not sure I'm understanding John correctly, but duushi' does not follow > the regular pattern for du- 'by hand' instrumentals in Crow. It is irregular > in two respects: in the first person form the initial vowel of the stem is > replaced by the first person marker b-, and the accent is on the final vowel > of the stem (duushi'). In all the du- instrumentals, the instrumental prefix > bears the accent, e.g., du'tchi 'take'. Which is the polite way to say I was wrong. The first person of an l-stem in Crow would have buru'... (not sure of length). And it looks like the length would be different, too, since 'eat' is long (duushi'), while the instrumental is short. So, rapidly reversing direction on Crow, I point out that at least the first person is somewhat comparable to the Dakotan or Winnebago treatment, though the vowel that follows is the stem vowel, not the usual pronominal vowel. It looks like Crow supports a stem analysis of *u't(e) in the first person, as opposed to *ru-t(e) (stress not clear to me). And, carefully checking the paper I referred to (in lieu of the original sources) it appears that Hidatsa has the same treatment of the first person as Crow: A1 wuu'ti A2 raruu'ti A3 ruu'ti But the instrumental ru is inflected: A1 wa-ru- (where Crow has bu-lu-) A2 ra-ru- (where Crow has di-lu-) A3 ru- I'm not sure about the accent in Hidatsa in either case, or the manner of marking it, but I do know that initial w is actually pronounced (and usually written) m and initial r is actually pronounced (and usually written) n. Thanks Randy! From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Aug 23 04:20:17 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:20:17 -0600 Subject: Mixed Conjugations (Re: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In regard to the case of Crow and Hidatsa having what looks like a *V-initial 'eat' stem in the first person and an *r-initial stem in the second and third persons, this is a kind of suppletion that occurs elsewhere in Siouan. Suppletion in the more general sense is also widely found, of course. As an example of that it would be hard to beat OP 'to say', which has something like e=...he in the first and second persons, e in the third person (usually a=i or a=bi=ama), and dhaN in the inclusive. The first two are probably related historically, with the second a simplification of the first - either a contraction or just the e(=), but treated as ablauting like =he. Anyway, for the simpler type where the stems are essentially identical, but treated as if they have different initial sounds, and thus different conjugations, consider the Dakotan glottal stop stem pattern, e.g.,: A1 m-uN A2 n-uN (probably from *sh-nuN) A3 uN Compare this with the Dhegiha pattern: A1 m-aN A2 zh-aN A3 aN and with the corresponding forms in the *r-stem paradigm, cf. Dakotan A1 b-l... A2 l... (probably from *sh-l...) A3 y... and Dhegiha (this is the OP version) A1 b-dh... A2 sh-n... (becoming just n since 1870 or so) A3 dh... This suggests that maybe the Dakotan glottal stop stem second person (n, i.e., l before a nasal vowel) is from the *r-stems. Another example occurs with the inflection of Dhegiha *i...aNghe 'to ask someone (a question)'. This varies among reflexes of idhaNghe and iwaNghe for the third person, where the dh and w are plainly epenthetic. The first person is either imaNghe (like a glottal stop stem) or ibdhaNghe (like an *r-stem). The second person is usually inaNghe (earlier ishnaNghe) (like an *r-stem) (details vary for different Dhegiha languages, depending on how they treat *sh-r). Another verb like this is the sitting definite article: A1 m-iNkhe A2 (sh)-niNkhe A3 dhiNkhe How *i...aNghe 'to ask someone (a question)' gets a mixed paradigm is fairly clear, but the mechanism in Dakotan glottal stops stems or with Dhegiha *dhiNkhe (< Proto-SIouan *riNkhe) isn't as clear. Incidentally, though glottal stop does appear in some persons of some languages' glottal stop stems, this kind of stem usually looks more like a special kind of V-initial stem. JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Thu Aug 23 15:00:28 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:00:28 EDT Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan,Crow, Hidatsa, etc. Message-ID: My guess is that the second person forms in Crow and Hidatsa (dilu'shi/waru'ti) were 'regularized' along the lines of the du- 'by hand' conjugation. So we have an old inflectional pattern that is preserved only in the first person. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Mon Aug 27 20:12:50 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:12:50 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: John and I went off-list for a while with our discussion of the -bi / -i problem in OP. We decided to test the tolerance of the other members of the list by alternately posting our recent correspondence, until we caught up to where we presently are. So here's the first chunk! Rory ---------------------- Forwarded by Rory M Larson/IS/UNL/UNEBR on 08/27/2001 02:52 PM --------------------------- Rory M Larson 08/21/2001 10:51 PM To: Koontz John E cc: Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (Document link: Rory M Larson) Hi John, Thanks for the note! I've been reading/re-reading the texts some more, and I've found a few more items I'd like to add to the fire. 1) If -bi / -i are semantically equivalent alternates of each other, then the difference ought to be made by the phonological environment. We suggested that a subsequent ama' or egaN' might preserve -bi, while the morpheme would be reduced to -i in most other environments. If -bi and -i are distinct morphemes, however, then their use should depend on the semantics of the situation. I proposed that -bi was a modal marker that conveyed a dubitative value to the preceding noun or statement, while -i indicated either plurality, or factuality of the statement. I argued that -bi was used almost constantly in narrative statements, because the speaker wished to emphasize that he was not personally testifying to the truth of them, but that it hardly ever appeared in the dialogue, because here the speakers were normally claiming to know what they were talking about. We cannot easily distinguish these two models on the basis of subsequent ama', because ama' means something like "they say", and is intrinsically dubitative in meaning itself. Hence, the second theory as well as the first predicts that the ( -bi | -i ) particle preceding it will always be -bi. But egaN', "the preceding having occurred", or "because of the preceding", is not intrinsically dubitative, and can be used equally well for factual as for doubtful clauses. Therefore, our two models differ in their predictions for the ( -bi | -i ) particle preceding egaN'. If the dubitative -bi model is valid, then egaN' should normally be preceded by -bi in narrative statements, but by -i or nothing in most dialogue statements. But if the phonological environment model is correct, then the particle preceding egaN' should always be -bi, regardless of whether the statement is narrative or dialogue. Finding compound third-person dialogue statements is difficult, but I found two of them in the story, "How the Rabbit Killed a Giant", pages 22 - 25. The first is on page 23, line 10-11. When the giant demands to know which of them had had the audacity to cut up the deer they had shot, the two frightened men admit that the Rabbit made them do it: She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so that's why we cut it up". Here the accusation arises from personal experience, and the men do not precede egaN' with -bi. The second is on page 23, line 17-18. As the giant proceeds to maul him, the Rabbit declares the difference between himself and the craven men: Dhe'ama naN'dhiphai' egaN' a'dhikhi'dha-bazhi'-hnaN'-i; wi' naN'wipha ma'zhi egaN' a'wikhi'bdha ta' miNkhe. -- "These ones fear you, so they don't attack you; I fear you not, so I will attack you". Here again we have no -bi in front of egaN' in either of the two places it appears. The first one has -i, which can be construed as the plural particle. The second has only the first person negator ma'zhi, but can't be counted in this test since its subject is not third person. In these two cases of dialogue, egaN' takes no preceding -bi. I count six other cases of egaN' in narrative statements of the same story, each of which does take a preceding -bi (or -b alone, tacked to the final vowel of the preceding word). These are at lines 2, 4, 7, 15, 17 and 20, all on page 23. This story at least seems to support the dubitative -bi model. I don't claim that this is perfectly predictable, since I think I have run into a case or two in other stories where -bi fails to occur before egaN' in a narrative statement, but I believe this pattern is the rule. Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. I would claim that to be a standard exception to the rule of dubitative -bi in narrative statements. 2) I think I've found a counter-example to our rule that -i and -bi could not both occur at the same time. In "Ishtinike and the Deserted Children", page 87, line4, we have: E'gidhe shaN'ge i' khaNthaN'i-biama'. -- "It happened that the horses mouths were tied, they say". In this case, we seem to have a pluralizing, or passive voice, -i, which lets us know we are talking about more than one horse, or that the tying was done to the horses' mouths without a named actor rather than that the horses' mouths did the tying. This is simply part of the narrative, however, so the whole thing is cast in doubt with a following bi ama'. The dubitative -bi model predicts this as a possibility, but it should not be possible under the -bi / -i equivalence model. 3) I think I've also found a case of two different -i morphemes appearing at the same time. On page 88 of the same story, line 7-8, we refer to "the children who were abandoned" as shiN'gazhiN'ga waaN'dhaii ama' Here we have two -i's following the verb "abandon them". My sense is that the first one indicates plurality or passive voice, "they abandon them", or "they are abandoned", and that the second throws the action into the past with respect to the time of the narrative: "the children who had been abandoned". If this interpretation is correct, then we are dealing with at least two separate -i morphemes as well as a dubitative -bi morpheme. These are the only examples I've found of these two cases, both in the same story, which is otherwise rather difficult. Perhaps NudaN-axa spoke a somewhat different dialect than that of the La Fleches. These arguments are tenuous, but so far the dubitative -bi model seems to offer the best fit for me. I'd be interested in any counter-examples from Dorsey you could find that would support the -bi / -i equivalence model, or specifically the obviative/proximate model. I certainly agree with you that the whole issue is very tricky! Also, I'm wondering if I could ask a favor of you. I've been working up a series of lessons for teaching an Omaha class, and Mark is thinking of using them on our class this coming semester. So far, they're pretty much off the top of my head, and I'm floundering. They need to be vetted both by the native speakers and by a qualified OP linguist. Would you be willing to take on the latter role? I've got about five lessons done so far, plus an introduction to explain how I'm doing it and why. The lessons are pretty short and simple, and mainly grammar-oriented. If you would be willing to look them over and give me your feedback, I'd really appreciate it. Rory Koontz John E on 08/11/2001 02:15:50 AM To: cc: Subject: Re: Obviate/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Rory: These are fair problem examples, though I think they're just additonal environments in which i comes out bi. One's I've been mentally sweeping under the rug. I'll try to deal with them when I'm at home! Thanks for pointing out the problems here, because I'm pretty sure I'll learn something from wrestling with these. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 14:25:57 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 08:25:57 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 01:14:12 -0600 (MDT) From: Koontz John E To: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Please feel free to post any substantive discussion to the list. I'll reply offline in this case. I think I started the offline thing myself, though intending it mainly as a temporizing apology for not giving you the full response your excellent points deserve. On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > 1) If -bi / -i are semantically equivalent alternates of each > other, then the difference ought to be made by the phonological > environment. It is much nicer if the conditioning is phonological, but cases of morphological conditioning aren't precluded in linguistic analysis if the data seem to bear them out. > We suggested that a subsequent ama' or egaN' might preserve -bi, while > the morpheme would be reduced to -i in most other environments. If > -bi and -i are distinct morphemes, however, then their use should > depend on the semantics of the situation. Agreed. > But egaN', "the preceding having occurred", or "because of the > preceding", is not intrinsically dubitative, and can be used equally > well for factual as for doubtful clauses. Therefore, our two models > differ in their predictions for the ( -bi | -i ) particle preceding > egaN'. If the dubitative -bi model is valid, then egaN' should > normally be preceded by -bi in narrative statements, but by -i or > nothing in most dialogue statements. But if the phonological > environment model is correct, then the particle preceding egaN' should > always be -bi, regardless of whether the statement is narrative or > dialogue. > > Finding compound third-person dialogue statements is difficult, > but I found two of them in the story, "How the Rabbit Killed a Giant", > pages 22 - 25. The first is on page 23, line 10-11. When the giant > demands to know which of them had had the audacity to cut up the > deer they had shot, the two frightened men admit that the Rabbit > made them do it: > > She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' > aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so > that's why we cut it up". > > Here the accusation arises from personal experience, and the men > do not precede egaN' with -bi. > > The second is on page 23, line 17-18. As the giant proceeds to maul > him, the Rabbit declares the difference between himself and the > craven men: > > Dhe'ama naN'dhiphai' egaN' a'dhikhi'dha-bazhi'-hnaN'-i; > wi' naN'wipha ma'zhi egaN' a'wikhi'bdha ta' miNkhe. -- > "These ones fear you, so they don't attack you; > I fear you not, so I will attack you". > > Here again we have no -bi in front of egaN' in either of the two places > it appears. The first one has -i, which can be construed as the plural > particle. The second has only the first person negator ma'zhi, but > can't be counted in this test since its subject is not third person. > > In these two cases of dialogue, egaN' takes no preceding -bi. I count > six other cases of egaN' in narrative statements of the same story, > each of which does take a preceding -bi (or -b alone, tacked to the > final vowel of the preceding word). These are at lines 2, 4, 7, 15, 17 > and 20, all on page 23. My counter argument here is that there seem to be two egaN conjunctions. This is something I'd noticed during my last active progress on my dissertation a few years ago, though I'm not sure I ever associated it with bi-conditioning and I haven't written anything up on it that I can recall. I think I may have mentioned it to Ardis later, but maybe that was just multiple kinds of ama. My recollection is that one of the forms was regularly stressed on a particular syllable (apparently the second). The other was accented in various ways depending on the accent of the preceding verb (depending on where the tendency to alternating syllables for secondary accent placed it). As far as glosses, one form was usually glossed something like 'so', or sometimes maybe 'in order that'. The other was the 'having' conjunction. It appears from your examples that the first pattern in each of these is paired, though I'd have to go look at my notes to be sure this is what I noticed. Maybe it's more complex and my initial analysis and this one don't match because I'm completely off base. Anyway, the first examples you provide have the sense 'so, in order that', while the group on p. 23 are the other - more common one, "having," what Bob Rankin recently called (I forget where, maybe just conference comments or email) the "conjunct mode" after a term used in Algonquian grammar (maybe elsewhere, too) to refer to generically subordinated clauses (as opposed to specific kinds of subordinates like conditionals, causals, temporals, etc.). These are somewhat like active present or imperfect participles in Indo-European languages (note tha "having"), but in Algonquian they take personal inflection. There may be an implication of sequencing (not always in Algonquian, I think), so they are somewhat temporal, but not in marked way like 'when' clauses. In OP they're just regular verbs, of course, followed by a kind of generic conjunction. Now what you need for a counter example would be a 'so' that had a bi or a 'having' that didn't. The easy way to find this would be to search the computer file version of the texts (which I assume you have?) for 'so' and 'having'. I should add that there are also a number of other uses of egaN. Basically, it is a verb e=...gaN 'to be thus, to be so to something', inflected e=gimaN, e=gizhaN, e=gaN. This neat pattern of gi before the first or second person pronoun or g fused with the third person stem also occurs with e=ge (alternatively suppletively e=gidhaN from dhaN 'tell' instead) 'to say to someone', inflected e=giphe (or is it egihe?), e=gis^e, e=ge. The underlying verbs (without -g(i)- 'to someone/something') are eaN 'how; to be so' and, of course, e 'to say' (which has some many alternaive stems it's difficult to describe except by listing the inflections ehe, e^e, e ~ a=i ~ a=bi). Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in the sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed part of e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. It's also part of a pattern or set of related patterns of the shape "eska(naN) ... gaN=dh=egaN" = 'would that ..., oh that ...' Sort of like Spanish ojala is how I conceptualize it, though not a loan from Arabic like that! > Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the > words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, > and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar > of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. I would claim > that to be a standard exception to the rule of dubitative -bi in > narrative statements. In these sentences, which I call progressives, though that's not entirely apt, for various reasons - maybe imperfects is closer to the mark - both i and bi are missing, I believe, and number and obviation come from the form of the article. Basically, the lack of i ~ bi is equivalent to the use of the obviative articles (dhiNkhe, etc.), while the presence of i ~ bi is equivalent to the use of the proximate articles (akha and ama). I'd be interested in your logic with the term dispositional. > 2) I think I've found a counter-example to our rule that -i and -bi could > not both occur at the same time. In "Ishtinike and the Deserted Children", > page 87, line4, we have: > > E'gidhe shaN'ge i' khaNthaN'i-biama'. -- > "It happened that the horses mouths were tied, they say". I'd take this to be a typo or mispeaking, though I'd have to reconsider if there were many examples. I've noticed a few other typos here and there, surprisingly few, though. There are also definitely some mistranscriptions and mispeakings, e.g., the errors noted with proximate and obviative marking (or dubitative) in the footnotes. > 3) I think I've also found a case of two different -i morphemes > appearing at the same time. On page 88 of the same story, > line 7-8, we refer to "the children who were abandoned" as > > shiN'gazhiN'ga waaN'dhaii ama' Same reaction. Of course, the only support I can offer to this is that Dorsey doesn't comment on these somewhat unusual cases, which is negative evidence, and weak anyway. Anyone could overlook something. And, for that matter, I think Dorsey assumed with you that bi had a dubitative sense, though he glosses it as quotative. > These are the only examples I've found of these two cases, > both in the same story, which is otherwise rather difficult. > Perhaps NudaN-axa spoke a somewhat different dialect > than that of the La Fleches. I think he was Ponca. > These arguments are tenuous, but so far the dubitative -bi > model seems to offer the best fit for me. I'd be interested > in any counter-examples from Dorsey you could find > that would support the -bi / -i equivalence model, or > specifically the obviative/proximate model. I certainly > agree with you that the whole issue is very tricky! In general, why would songs and names be dubitative? From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Aug 28 16:19:14 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 11:19:14 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: ---------------------- Forwarded by Rory M Larson/IS/UNL/UNEBR on 08/28/2001 11:05 AM --------------------------- Rory M Larson 08/24/2001 03:57 PM To: Koontz John E cc: Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (Document link: Rory M Larson) Hi John, > Please feel free to post any substantive discussion to the list. I'll > reply offline in this case. I think I started the offline thing myself, > though intending it mainly as a temporizing apology for not giving you the > full response your excellent points deserve. Why don't I post my last letter to the list, and then you can post the one you last wrote? Then I can post this one, and they will be up in sequence. I wasn't sure before which way it would be better to go. >> In these two cases of dialogue, egaN' takes no preceding -bi. I count >> six other cases of egaN' in narrative statements of the same story, >> each of which does take a preceding -bi (or -b alone, tacked to the >> final vowel of the preceding word). These are at lines 2, 4, 7, 15, 17 >> and 20, all on page 23. > My counter argument here is that there seem to be two egaN conjunctions. > This is something I'd noticed during my last active progress on my > dissertation a few years ago, though I'm not sure I ever associated it > with bi-conditioning and I haven't written anything up on it that I can > recall. I think I may have mentioned it to Ardis later, but maybe that > was just multiple kinds of ama. > My recollection is that one of the forms was regularly stressed on a > particular syllable (apparently the second). The other was accented in > various ways depending on the accent of the preceding verb (depending on > where the tendency to alternating syllables for secondary accent placed > it). > As far as glosses, one form was usually glossed something like 'so', or > sometimes maybe 'in order that'. The other was the 'having' conjunction. > It appears from your examples that the first pattern in each of these is > paired, though I'd have to go look at my notes to be sure this is what I > noticed. Maybe it's more complex and my initial analysis and this one > don't match because I'm completely off base. > Anyway, the first examples you provide have the sense 'so, in order that', > while the group on p. 23 are the other - more common one, "having," what > Bob Rankin recently called (I forget where, maybe just conference comments > or email) the "conjunct mode" after a term used in Algonquian grammar > (maybe elsewhere, too) to refer to generically subordinated clauses (as > opposed to specific kinds of subordinates like conditionals, causals, > temporals, etc.). These are somewhat like active present or imperfect > participles in Indo-European languages (note tha "having"), but in > Algonquian they take personal inflection. There may be an implication of > sequencing (not always in Algonquian, I think), so they are somewhat > temporal, but not in marked way like 'when' clauses. In OP they're just > regular verbs, of course, followed by a kind of generic conjunction. > Now what you need for a counter example would be a 'so' that had a bi or a > 'having' that didn't. The easy way to find this would be to search the > computer file version of the texts (which I assume you have?) for 'so' and > 'having'. No, I don't have the computer file version. I just have a paper copy up to page 293. Mark is gradually filling me in with the rest. I agree that there are two forms of egaN. The one I was discussing is the subordinating conjunction with the accent (almost always) on the second syllable, egaN'. This one is usually glossed "having", though in my second example it is glossed "because". The other form is not a conjunction. Its accent pattern varies as you describe, though when it is not too much bound up with other words its accent is generally on the first syllable, e'gaN. (Thanks for pointing out the varying accent pattern-- I hadn't realized this and was about to protest that it never happened, but I've just found a couple of examples of it.) This word means "like the preceding", or "like that", or "in that way". I think you can use e'gaN by itself to mean "okay", "agreed", "as you say", or "that's what happened". You can definitely use it alone in command form as "E'gaN ga!", "Do that which has just been described!", or you can give a long-winded description of an action and terminate it with "e'gaN ga!" (or "egaN' ga!") to order someone to do the sort of thing you have elucidated. In the story "How the Rabbit Killed a Giant", there are two to four cases of e'gaN as well. In the test I considered in the last letter though, I was only counting the cases of the conjunction egaN'. I think the semantic difference between "having" and "because" is a distinction made in English, but not in Omaha. EgaN' covers both of these usages at once, though Dorsey may choose different English words to gloss it depending on the context. The meaning of Clause1 egaN' Clause2 is that Clause1 took place as a precondition to Clause2, which followed either temporally or logically. Clause1 is not necessarily a complete explanation of Clause2, so we can't always gloss egaN' as "because" or "so" in English. However, I think it does always give some background explanation that elucidates how and why Clause2 came about; e.g. [The giant rushed at the Rabbit] egaN' [he pushed him down in the blood], in which Clause1 is a prerequisite to Clause2, but not a statement of the operative cause. On the other hand, [They fear you] egaN' [they do not attack you] is a statement where Clause1 is the operative cause of Clause2, so egaN' can be glossed with "because" or "so" in English. It also refers to the present, so "having" will not work as the English gloss. If we have a statement referring to the past, in which Clause1 is the operative cause of Clause2, we can gloss egaN' either as "having" or as "because". But the Omaha grammatical paradigm does not seem to distinguish past from present, or operative cause from prerequisite condition; it is all equally egaN' to them. The counter-example you ask for of egaN' glossed as "having" without -bi is already with us as the first of the two examples I offered of egaN' in dialogue without -bi: >> She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' >> aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so >> that's why we cut it up". In my own free translation, I put egaN' into English as "so that's why", but Dorsey actually glossed the word in this case as "having". > I should add that there are also a number of other uses of egaN. > Basically, it is a verb e=...gaN 'to be thus, to be so to something', > inflected e=gimaN, e=gizhaN, e=gaN. This neat pattern of gi before the > first or second person pronoun or g fused with the third person stem also > occurs with e=ge (alternatively suppletively e=gidhaN from dhaN 'tell' > instead) 'to say to someone', inflected e=giphe (or is it egihe?), > e=gis^e, e=ge. > The underlying verbs (without -g(i)- 'to someone/something') are eaN 'how; > to be so' and, of course, e 'to say' (which has some many alternaive stems > it's difficult to describe except by listing the inflections ehe, e^e, e ~ > a=i ~ a=bi). I'm not sure I follow these conjugations, and I'd be interested in seeing examples from Dorsey. I did run across a case of e'gigaN this morning, which seems to mean something like "(come to) be like itself (again)", glossed by Dorsey as "was as before". This is in "Two Faces and the Twin Brothers", page 213, line 15, in the context of a magical feat that is difficult to understand. This certainly appears to be a case of e'gaN with an infixed -gi-. > Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in the > sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed part of > e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. It's also > part of a pattern or set of related patterns of the shape "eska(naN) ... > gaN=dh=egaN" = 'would that ..., oh that ...' Sort of like Spanish ojala is > how I conceptualize it, though not a loan from Arabic like that! I think these are cases of compounds that use the non-conjunctive e'gaN form discussed above, which would mean "like the preceding" or, as you say, "sort of". >> Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the >> words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, >> and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar >> of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. I would claim >> that to be a standard exception to the rule of dubitative -bi in >> narrative statements. > In these sentences, which I call progressives, though that's not entirely > apt, for various reasons - maybe imperfects is closer to the mark - both i > and bi are missing, I believe, and number and obviation come from the form > of the article. Basically, the lack of i ~ bi is equivalent to the use of > the obviative articles (dhiNkhe, etc.), while the presence of i ~ bi is > equivalent to the use of the proximate articles (akha and ama). > I'd be interested in your logic with the term dispositional. All right. I'm starting out under the influence of a chart that Mark made up for us last year, and which I think came ultimately from you! It seems to me that these words basically indicate the disposition of the preceding noun, which may be standing, moving, sitting, lying, elongate, flat, globular, plural, scattered, in a row, in a bundle, at a point, in an area, committing the action, or being affected by the action. These are like our markings for singular or plural, or for gender, but except for the absence of gender distinction, the Omaha system is much more powerful than our own in indicating to the listener what pattern to look for or to imagine. These words can be used to close a noun phrase, in which position they may feel like the definite article to us English speakers, or they can act as the main verb of a sentence, in which case they are asserting the disposition of the noun in a timeless sort of way that may be like the progressive or imperfect for us. The closest thing I can think of in English are sentences like "A man stands tall", or "She is sitting pretty", or "The boy lay sick". The standing, sitting or lying verb is just slid into a sentence that would function just fine without them if they were replaced by a form of "to be", but they add the extra information of the subject's disposition. >> 2) I think I've found a counter-example to our rule that -i and -bi could >> not both occur at the same time. In "Ishtinike and the Deserted Children", >> page 87, line4, we have: >> >> E'gidhe shaN'ge i' khaNthaN'i-biama'. -- >> "It happened that the horses mouths were tied, they say". > I'd take this to be a typo or mispeaking, though I'd have to reconsider if > there were many examples. I've noticed a few other typos here and there, > surprisingly few, though. There are also definitely some > mistranscriptions and mispeakings, e.g., the errors noted with proximate > and obviative marking (or dubitative) in the footnotes. >> 3) I think I've also found a case of two different -i morphemes >> appearing at the same time. On page 88 of the same story, >> line 7-8, we refer to "the children who were abandoned" as >> >> shiN'gazhiN'ga waaN'dhaii ama' > Same reaction. Of course, the only support I can offer to this is that > Dorsey doesn't comment on these somewhat unusual cases, which is negative > evidence, and weak anyway. Anyone could overlook something. And, for > that matter, I think Dorsey assumed with you that bi had a dubitative > sense, though he glosses it as quotative. Should we really be using the term "quotative" here for ama', biama', etc.? Direct quotes are usually in the form of "X", a' biama', or ga: "X". The word ama' seems to mean "the foregoing is the repute", but the actual wording of the foregoing is the narrator's. Dubitative -bi with the meaning of "supposedly" is only marginally different from ama'. The ama' particle appeals to the standard tradition of the community, while -bi implies that the foregoing is open to doubt. Encountering either of these as a repetitive narrative device, "they say" is probably the best and shortest gloss we can think of to fit in a small place, but its implication is not that the foregoing is a direct quote, but rather that the speaker divorces himself from responsibility for the truth of the preceding statement. >> These are the only examples I've found of these two cases, >> both in the same story, which is otherwise rather difficult. >> Perhaps NudaN-axa spoke a somewhat different dialect >> than that of the La Fleches. > I think he was Ponca. If that's true, then I think it's much more likely that cases of -i / -bi doubling up are normal in Ponca but not in Omaha, than that these cases are random typos. I've just gone through another story by NudaN'-axa and found a third example. In "How the Rabbit Went to the Sun", page 28, line 5, in a short version of the myth of the Rabbit and the Devouring Hill, we have: Ka'shi-qti e'gaN dhasniN'i-biama'-- "After a very long while, he was swallowed, they say." Here we seem to have a passivizing -i, followed by dubitative -bi. If we accept that this is the way NudaN'-axa actually spoke, rather than that this peculiar sort of typo just happened to be made three times in two different stories that he gave, and if we suppose that the way he spoke was typical of the Ponca dialect, then it follows that the Ponca dialect at least recognizes -bi and two types of -i as three distinct morphemes. >> These arguments are tenuous, but so far the dubitative -bi >> model seems to offer the best fit for me. I'd be interested >> in any counter-examples from Dorsey you could find >> that would support the -bi / -i equivalence model, or >> specifically the obviative/proximate model. I certainly >> agree with you that the whole issue is very tricky! > In general, why would songs and names be dubitative? They wouldn't. I think we'd agree that the -bi that appears in these cases is simply a fossilization of the original MVS pluralizing -bi that was locked into these "texts" before pluralizing -bi was reduced to -i in OP. Your conception is that we have just one ( -bi / -i ) postverbal particle, which may be either -bi or -i depending on the environment of its occurrance, and which is derived from the well-known MVS pluralizing particle *pi (or whatever the original is supposed to be). My conception is that we are dealing with several, probably three or four, completely different, if not always adequately distinguished grammatical particles that come out as -bi or -i in Omaha, and which may have as many distinct etymological origins. I would speculate that our problem arises from the collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. (Caution: what about Osage, Kaw and Quapaw? Do they have -bi, or -i, as their pluralizing particle?) Suppose that proto-OP, before the [u]=>[i] collapse had, say, four distinct post-verbal particles, as follows: *bi - the foregoing is plural, or the subject is not defined. *bu - the foregoing is to be taken with a grain of salt. *u - the foregoing is a fact. *i - the foregoing took place prior to the time that the rest of our talk is concerned with. Then the [u]=>[i] collapse occurs. Now we have two different forms of *bi, and two different forms of *i, respectively indistinguishable. Trying to sort out by context whether -i signals fact or past perfect is a manageable nuisance. But the confusion of pluralizing -bi with dubitative -bi is simply not acceptable. Everything you try to say about a plurality comes out sounding insincere. You are a father in the market for a daughter-in-law. "My sons are great hunters!" you boast. The family of the prospective bride hears: "My son is supposedly a great hunter-- but don't bet on it!" In this context, it is not the dubitative -bi, the scoundrel responsible for this faux pas, but the honorable pluralizing -bi that retreats in shame. You desparately want to signal plurality, and you know that to do it you should add a particle after the verb that sounds like -bi, only it can't be -bi. You seize on -i, which is already polymorphous in meaning. Neither of its original meanings will cause you the embarrassment of dubitative -bi, so you bet that adding one more meaning to -i can't hurt as much as the current situation. So you indulge in some creative bad grammar, and soon everyone is gratefully using -i as the pluralizing particle. But this shift from -bi to -i was pragmatic, not phonological. Hence, any traditional "text", be it name or song, that was already fixed before the leap was taken, will keep its original pluralizing -bi's. But outside of these sacred reserves, dubitative -bi holds sway as the only active -bi in OP. As I say, the preceding paragraph is speculative, so please consider every statement made in it to be followed by dubitative -bi! >> Also, I'm wondering if I could ask a favor of you. I've been >> working up a series of lessons for teaching an Omaha >> class, and Mark is thinking of using them on our class >> this coming semester. So far, they're pretty much off the >> top of my head, and I'm floundering. They need to be >> vetted both by the native speakers and by a qualified >> OP linguist. Would you be willing to take on the latter >> role? I've got about five lessons done so far, plus an >> introduction to explain how I'm doing it and why. The >> lessons are pretty short and simple, and mainly >> grammar-oriented. If you would be willing to look >> them over and give me your feedback, I'd really >> appreciate it. > I'll give it a try. I'm swamped at the moment, but this is something I'd > like to support as much as possible. How about trying me with one? Alright! Here's a copy of lesson 1, and also the introduction, to explain what I'm trying to do. Thanks! Rory (See attached file: Lesson 1.doc)(See attached file: Introduction.doc) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Lesson 1.doc Type: application/msword Size: 25600 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Introduction.doc Type: application/msword Size: 32768 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Aug 28 20:52:56 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 15:52:56 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > Anyway, the first examples you provide have the sense 'so, in order that', while the group on p. 23 are the other - more common one, "having," what Bob Rankin recently called (I forget where, maybe just conference comments or email) the "conjunct mode" after a term used in Algonquian grammar (maybe elsewhere, too) to refer to generically subordinated clauses (as opposed to specific kinds of subordinates like conditionals, causals, temporals, etc.). I recall the discussion, but someone else must have used "conjunct" to describe it. My comparison was with the Dakotan article k?uN, and David pointed out that the use of (this cognate) k?uN was the same as our description of egaN. It's one of the ways tenseless languages sequence events. Historically it is/was kiN 'the' + *?uN 'do/be'. It could be called a conjuction nowadays. > Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in the sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed part of e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. In Kaw it can come after lots of things as a modifier. zhuje-ego 'pink' < 'like red'. si-ego 'meat pie' < 'like a foot'. >> Also, I should note that statements or clauses ending in one of the >> words that you call articles, and that I have been calling dispositionals, and that Paula Ferris Einaudi calls classificatory verbs in her Grammar of Biloxi, never seem to take -bi, even in the narrative. Biloxi is quite different in that the positionals are a retention in the verb system there, as they are in Dakotan and other Siouan subgroups outside of Dhegiha. Positionals form something like continuatives in all Siouan languages and indeed in many other language families as well including Indo-European. (Spanish/Italian estar/stare, the progressive AUXs, are < PIE *stan, after all.) In Dhegiha languages, however, these verbs undergo several stages of grammaticalization. The post verbal positionals are all derived from the article forms of the old verb roots. The articles always combine with -he 'be in a place' (which is conjugated only in the second person): dhiNk-he 'sitting', k-he 'lying', thaN-he 'standing anim.', dhiN-he 'moving'. So the articles underly all these auxiliaries. Once a verb is grammaticalized into something like an article (or classifier if you want), it is not supposed to return to full lexical status, but we weren't there to warn the speakers that they were violating a universal. > The closest thing I can think of in English are sentences like "A man stands tall", or "She is sitting pretty", or "The boy lay sick". The standing, sitting or lying verb is just slid into a sentence that would function just fine without them if they were replaced by a form of "to be", but they add the extra information of the subject's disposition. And the -he on the end of each of the articles to derive the AUX of course IS 'be', as I mentioned above. I suppose you can think of them historically as compounds of the positional article and 'locative be'. > ...it follows that the Ponca dialect at least recognizes -bi and two types of -i as three distinct morphemes. I doubt if I can address all the arguments related to this question, and I'm 'WAY behind reading most of the Siouan list messages because of my absence, but... In Kaw and Quapaw it doesn't seem to me that there is anything but =abe/=abi and =awe/=awi respectively. The first member of each pair is female speech. The phenomenon of reduction to -i in Omaha and Ponca looks to me to be entirely phonological. Note that this does not mean that speakers could not have assigned morphemic status to earlier allomorphs though! That is, in OP there may BE more than one morpheme now. But not in Kaw/Quapaw. > My conception is that we are dealing with several, probably three or four, completely different, if not always adequately distinguished grammatical particles that come out as -bi or -i in Omaha, and which may have as many distinct etymological origins. I would speculate that our problem arises from the collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. Unfortunately, there are no post-verbal [u"] morphemes in Kaw or Osage that I can think of. Quapaw merges u and i like OP. *bi - the foregoing is plural, or the subject is not defined. *bu - the foregoing is to be taken with a grain of salt. *u - the foregoing is a fact. *i - the foregoing took place prior to the time that the rest of our talk is concerned with. These are certainly something to look for, but I don't have any "mystery particles" like these or derivable from these in Kaw or Quapaw. Carolyn should speak for Osage. >As I say, the preceding paragraph is speculative, so please consider every statement made in it to be followed by dubitative -bi! Since I have not really been searching for homophonous '-bi's', I would have to say the same. But I'm at least skeptical of the polymorphemic solution, i.e., I would plunk for polysemy, not homophony. That's not to say that there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 22:04:52 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:04:52 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 23:02:28 -0600 (MDT) From: Koontz John E To: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > Why don't I post my last letter to the list, and then you can > post the one you last wrote? Then I can post this one, and > they will be up in sequence. I wasn't sure before which way > it would be better to go. That sounds reasonable to me! > I agree that there are two forms of egaN. The one I was discussing is > the subordinating conjunction with the accent (almost always) on the second > syllable, egaN'. This one is usually glossed "having", though in my second > example it is glossed "because". The other form is not a conjunction. > Its accent pattern varies as you describe, though when it is not too > much bound up with other words its accent is generally on the first > syllable, e'gaN. (Thanks for pointing out the varying accent pattern-- > I hadn't realized this and was about to protest that it never happened, > but I've just found a couple of examples of it.) This word means > "like the preceding", or "like that", or "in that way". I think you > can use e'gaN by itself to mean "okay", "agreed", "as you say", or > "that's what happened". You can definitely use it alone in command This is the origin of Italian and Peninsular 'yes' si, from Latin sic 'like that', by the way. I don't know the story on Germanic yes/yea(h)/jah or on French oui/oc. > form as "E'gaN ga!", "Do that which has just been described!", or you > can give a long-winded description of an action and terminate it with > "e'gaN ga!" (or "egaN' ga!") to order someone to do the sort of thing > you have elucidated. I definitely missed egaN as 'yes' in my list. The imperative is the imperative of the 'be like that' verb I mentioned. 'Yes' is just one of the long list of specialized lexical uses of that verb. I'll look at the rest of this progressively. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 22:06:29 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:06:29 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 00:00:58 -0600 (MDT) From: Koontz John E To: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > The counter-example you ask for of egaN' glossed as "having" without > -bi is already with us as the first of the two examples I offered of > egaN' in dialogue without -bi: > > >> She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN' > >> aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so > >> that's why we cut it up". > > In my own free translation, I put egaN' into English as "so that's > why", but Dorsey actually glossed the word in this case as "having". I'd have to wonder if Dorsey didn't maybe misgloss it. I don't recall anywhere that he discusses the difference between the two. I think, though it's not clear to me, that adaN 'therefore' and the egaN' 'in order that, so' are actually part of the following clause, though normally conjunctions are part of the preceding clause. > I'm not sure I follow these conjugations, and I'd be interested in > seeing examples from Dorsey. I did run across a case of e'gigaN > this morning, which seems to mean something like "(come to) be like > itself (again)", glossed by Dorsey as "was as before". This is in > "Two Faces and the Twin Brothers", page 213, line 15, in the context > of a magical feat that is difficult to understand. This certainly > appears to be a case of e'gaN with an infixed -gi-. The paradigms are in various of Dorsey's manuscripts, but there are examples in the texts, I think. Let's see: 90:232.11 e'giphe 'I said it (to him)' 487.16, etc., actually have 'to him' in the gloss 90:712.5 e'gishe 'you say to (him)' 90:170.3 NikkashiNga ege'=hnaN=bi=ama '(the) man usually said to him' but 90:39.7 e'gidhaN=i 'he said to him' (alternative form with stem e=gi...dhaN) 90:245.5 e'gimaN 'I do thus' 90:26.14 e'gizhaN 'you do thus' The 'he does thus' interpretation of egaN is clear from the imperative examples you mention. They are 'do thus!' > > I'd be interested in your logic with the term dispositional. > > All right. I'm starting out under the influence of a chart that Mark > made up for us last year, and which I think came ultimately from you! > > It seems to me that these words basically indicate the disposition of > the preceding noun, which may be standing, moving, sitting, lying, > elongate, flat, globular, plural, scattered, in a row, in a bundle, > at a point, in an area, committing the action, or being affected by > the action. These are like our markings for singular or plural, or > for gender, but except for the absence of gender distinction, the > Omaha system is much more powerful than our own in indicating to the > listener what pattern to look for or to imagine. OK, so you use 'disposition' in the sense of pattern. The standard Americanist term is positional. > These words can be used to close a noun phrase, in which position > they may feel like the definite article to us English speakers, I'd go further and say it was precisely a definite article, albeit encoding also the positional logic with its implications. > or they can act as the main verb of a sentence, in which case they > are asserting the disposition of the noun in a timeless sort of > way that may be like the progressive or imperfect for us. The There are a few cases where they do act as the main verb, but normally they follow what is logically the main verb and act as an auxiliary to add som additional sense to it (apart from configuration or position). This is where the term "progressive" or "imperfect" applies. Of course, the auxiliary verb is logically the main verb in most linguistic situations. So, for example, "he is searching for it" has the auxiliary "is" as the inflected main verb. In OP, the embedded verb retains personal inflection, whereas in English it is reduced to a participle. > closest thing I can think of in English are sentences like "A man > stands tall", or "She is sitting pretty", or "The boy lay sick". > The standing, sitting or lying verb is just slid into a sentence > that would function just fine without them if they were replaced > by a form of "to be", but they add the extra information of the > subject's disposition. > Should we really be using the term "quotative" here for ama', > biama', etc.? Direct quotes are usually in the form of > "X", a' biama', or ga: "X". The word ama' seems to mean > "the foregoing is the repute", but the actual wording of Quotative, again, is just the standard Americanist term for such narrative or reputative markers with meanings like 'they say; by repute' or 'I don't know, but I been told'. It doesn't really imply that this is the form used to quote something in any marked way. > > I think he was Ponca. > > If that's true, then I think it's much more likely that cases > of -i / -bi doubling up are normal in Ponca but not in Omaha, > than that these cases are random typos. > I've just gone through another story by NudaN'-axa and found a third > example. In "How the Rabbit Went to the Sun", page 28, line 5, in a > short version of the myth of the Rabbit and the Devouring Hill, we > have: > > Ka'shi-qti e'gaN dhasniN'i-biama'-- > "After a very long while, he was swallowed, they say." > > Here we seem to have a passivizing -i, followed by > dubitative -bi. There's also 101.4, 221.14, 288.5, 357.5, 361.10, 561.9, 589.4, 591,14. I doubt this is Ponca usage per se, and I'm definitely going to have to look at these examples. A lot of them are ?iibi with 'give' or akiibi sometoimeds written aki-i-bi, which I think is akhi=i=bi, with the i being 'to come'. I will definitely have to look at these examples, however. > I would speculate that our problem arises from the > collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. (Caution: what about > Osage, Kaw and Quapaw? Do they have -bi, or -i, as > their pluralizing particle?) Osage has pi (never i) alternating with pa and pe, which seem to be pi + a 'male speaker' or pi + e 'female speaker'. Kaw is similar, but substitute b for p. I forget what Quapaw has, but only OP has the i allomorph. IO and Wi have wi. Dakotan has pi or bi, depending on the dialect. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Aug 28 22:18:55 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:18:55 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I recall the discussion, but someone else must have used "conjunct" to > describe it. My comparison was with the Dakotan article k?uN, and David > pointed out that the use of (this cognate) k?uN was the same as our > description of egaN. It's one of the ways tenseless languages sequence > events. Historically it is/was kiN 'the' + *?uN 'do/be'. It could be called > a conjuction nowadays. I thought I remembered the term coming from Bob, but I can't guarantee it, and I don't recall if it was on this list or maybe at the last Oklahoma Siouan & Caddoan Conference. In any event, I just didn't want to claim credit for the conception when I didn't deserve it. I definitely don't want to foist it on Bob against his will either. > > Anyway, apart from verbal uses, egaN seems to be used after verbs in > the sense of 'sort of'. Probably in this sense it seems to be a fixed > part of e=dhe 'to think', which is always e=dh=egaN 'to sorta think'. > > In Kaw it can come after lots of things as a modifier. zhuje-ego 'pink' < > 'like red'. si-ego 'meat pie' < 'like a foot'. With colors is a pattern in OP, too. It might be glossed "-ish" in such cases. I don't, off hand, recall an example with a noun, but I'm sure they must occur. > Since I have not really been searching for homophonous '-bi's', I would have > to say the same. But I'm at least skeptical of the polymorphemic solution, > i.e., I would plunk for polysemy, not homophony. That's not to say that > there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. I tend to feel the same way, obviously, but Rory's come up with a couple of kinds of data that will at least force me to sharpen my analysis! The two issues that bother me are more precisely characterizing the occurrence of bi when it occurs in cases I can't characterize well as far as syntactic or lexical conditioning, and those cases where it seems to co-occur with =i (as =i=bi?). ==== Incidentally, am I correct in thinking to recall that in Dakotan the order is article + demonstrative, whereas in Dhegiha it is demonstrative + article? I think that is a context where Dhegiha articles behave rather like verbs, though perhaps trivially so. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Wed Aug 29 05:46:13 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 00:46:13 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: (Bob wrote:) > In Kaw and Quapaw it doesn't seem to me that there is anything but =abe/=abi > and =awe/=awi respectively. The first member of each pair is female speech. > The phenomenon of reduction to -i in Omaha and Ponca looks to me to be > entirely phonological. Note that this does not mean that speakers could not > have assigned morphemic status to earlier allomorphs though! That is, in OP > there may BE more than one morpheme now. But not in Kaw/Quapaw. >> My conception is that we are dealing with several, >> probably three or four, completely different, if not >> always adequately distinguished grammatical particles >> that come out as -bi or -i in Omaha, and which may have >> as many distinct etymological origins. I would speculate >> that our problem arises from the collapse of [u] into [i] in OP. > Unfortunately, there are no post-verbal [u"] morphemes in Kaw or Osage that > I can think of. Quapaw merges u and i like OP. And no post-verbal [bu"] or [i] morphemes either, I suppose. Oh well, it was a nice thought. (Bob wrote:) > Since I have not really been searching for homophonous '-bi's', I would have > to say the same. But I'm at least skeptical of the polymorphemic solution, > i.e., I would plunk for polysemy, not homophony. That's not to say that > there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. Any thoughts on where the *(a) is coming in, or why it usually disappears? Until now, I had always thought the pluralizing particle in Siouan was just plain *pi. (John wrote:) > Osage has pi (never i) alternating with pa and pe, which seem to be pi + a > 'male speaker' or pi + e 'female speaker'. Kaw is similar, but substitute > b for p. I forget what Quapaw has, but only OP has the i allomorph. IO > and Wi have wi. Dakotan has pi or bi, depending on the dialect. It doesn't look good for my hypothesis that several different morphemes were involved, with great confusion caused by the collapse of u into i in OP, as comparable particles do not seem to be present in Kaw and Osage which would have preserved the original phonological distinction. However, I believe that -bi in historical OP, exclusive of fossilizations in names and old songs, is best understood as casting a dubitative sense on what preceeds it, rather than as a conditioned alternate of the now-standard pluralizing particle -i. If -bi and -i are taken as semantically equivalent alternates derived from the standard Siouan pluralizing particle *pi, then I think it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory phonological or other explanation for their distribution in OP that is not arbitrarily cut to fit the individual cases. We do not seem to have any cases of -wi, as Dorsey would surely have given us had there been an actual phonological gradient between the forms. The two forms are discrete, and their distribution is fairly regular. Bob suggests above that the reduction of -bi to -i is phonological, but that an earlier allomorph ( -bi ) could have been made into a different morpheme. This would be my fallback hypothesis if I can't have an incoming separate morpheme such as dubitative *bu". The problem with this solution, however, is that we need a good explanation of how a pluralizing particle develops into a dubitative. In general, a phonological theory would predict *bi as the pluralizing particle in OP, and the fossilizations make plain that that is what it once was. An advantage to the dubitative -bi theory is that it provides a compelling motivation for the speakers to switch to a different means of expressing plural, as I argued in my previous post. If so, the switch would need to have been phonologically discrete from the beginning, rather than a gradual phonological erosion of the stop. I think one possible explanation of the jump from -bi to -i might be found in Chiwere. The Omaha sacred legend indicates that the Omahas were closely connected with the Iowas at the time they crossed the Mississippi, and somebody (John?) pointed out about a month ago that OP "HiNdakhe" was a loan word from IO. Since the IO version of the pluralizing particle is wi, the Omaha would already be familiar with usage of the particle in a weakened form. After a round vowel, it would be indistinguishable from -i. If dubitative -bi appeared in the Omaha language by whatever channel, creating an embarrassing conflict with the standard pluralizing -bi, then a garbled version of the Iowa form might have been the natural choice for eliminating the semantic conflict. Rory From rankin at ku.edu Wed Aug 29 14:00:13 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:00:13 -0500 Subject: Two -bi, or not two -bi. Message-ID: >I thought I remembered the term (conjunct) coming from Bob, but I can't guarantee it, and I don't recall if it was on this list or maybe at the last Oklahoma Siouan & Caddoan Conference. I really can't remember. If the verb in the subordinate is treated differently, then I wouldn't object to 'conjunct', but it's probably best to try to keep terms as standard as possible. > those cases where it seems to co-occur with =i (as =i=bi?). That's interesting, and I don't recognize it from Kaw. In the ?i-i=bi 'give' examples quoted, noting it would involve vowel length, a long-discussed problem. >Incidentally, am I correct in thinking to recall that in Dakotan the order is article + demonstrative, whereas in Dhegiha it is demonstrative + article? I think that is a context where Dhegiha articles behave rather like verbs, though perhaps trivially so. I THINK that's right but will, obviously, defer to dakotanists. My (typically diachronic) view would be that the positional articles of Dhegiha are different (and at the end, i.e., verb-like syntactically) because they represent more recent grammaticalizations. And they're from verbs 'sit, stand, lie, move'. The Dakotan article, kiN, is apparently older usage with cognates in, e.g., Tutelo, and it has no de-verbal source as far as I can tell. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Wed Aug 29 14:39:46 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:39:46 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: >> Unfortunately, there are no post-verbal [u"] morphemes in Kaw or Osage that I can think of. Quapaw merges u and i like OP. >And no post-verbal [bu"] or [i] morphemes either, I suppose. A couple of things: (1) while it's true that there are no post-verbal bu" affixes or enclitics, it is possible that u">i in all five languages in post-verbal morphology. Osage and Kaw both variably unround u" under accent and pre-verbally, but as far as I know there are NO u"'s in suffixes or enclitics. Carolyn Quintero can/should correct me on this if I'm wrong about Osage. (2) We probably shouldn't give up on -i too easily; the phonology of V1V2 sequences is messy, and I wouldn't want to dismiss the possibility of a sneaky little -i- being there sometimes.... I'm not sure I believe that either of these possibilities is going to produce more morphemes, but we'd better all look.... >> That's not to say that there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan. >Any thoughts on where the *(a) is coming in, or why it usually disappears? Until now, I had always thought the pluralizing particle in Siouan was just plain *pi. The -a- is tied in with the entire Mississippi Valley Siouan "Ablaut" problem. I have a paper on the topic. Historically at least, the -a- is part of the following morpheme, not the verb stem. It replaces preceding -e (which some consider epenthetic anyway). >If -bi and -i are taken as semantically equivalent alternates derived from the standard Siouan pluralizing particle *pi, then I think it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory phonological or other explanation for their distribution in OP that is not arbitrarily cut to fit the individual cases. We do not seem to have any cases of -wi, as Dorsey would surely have given us had there been an actual phonological gradient between the forms. The two forms are discrete, and their distribution is fairly regular. True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there are two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized [p], certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest of Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is -tu. Go figure. I'm trying to remember if Osage has the -i variant. Carolyn can tell us. This is enough monkey wrenches for one day. :-) Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Aug 29 23:36:31 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 17:36:31 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Rory: > If -bi and -i are taken as semantically equivalent alternates > derived from the standard Siouan pluralizing particle *pi, > then I think it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory > phonological or other explanation for their distribution in > OP that is not arbitrarily cut to fit the individual cases. That's essentially my contention. Though I think that the =bi cases are always more fossilized - more hidden as it were. The =bi forms occur with particular following morphemes with which they tend to fuse, like =ama QUOTATIVE, or =egaN CONJUNCT, or in formulaic contexts like names and songs. The productive form is =i. Or would be, if that, too, weren't being replaced by a-grade conditioning zero. > We do not seem to have any cases of -wi, as Dorsey would > surely have given us had there been an actual phonological > gradient between the forms. The two forms are discrete, > and their distribution is fairly regular. I don't think there's any need to require =bi => =i via =wi. Loss of intervocalic postaccentual b (or /p/) is common enough in Dhegiha, cf. Osage sae ~ sape and so on. However, I don't see any way to get around the linguistic awkwardness of this change being essentially an arbitrary feature of this morpheme. Barring the possibility of homophonous or near-homophonous morp dubitative and plural/proximate morphemes, there's no other b-initial post-stem (i.e., "enclitic" in the Siouanist sense) morpheme, and though there are various post-accential root-internal b's, cf/ sabe 'black' mentioned above, these don't seem to be subject to b-elision or softening or any other reduction of that nature. It is true that *e=p-he 'I say' is reduced to e=he', but *uNphaN '(female) elk' is still aNphaN 'elk'. On the other hand, I suspect that most of the environments in which *=bi remains =bi can be summed up as (a) before a vowel-initial fellow enclitic, (b) in names (treated as part of the root?), and (c) in songs (lack of change prized?). The main exceptions to these are the cases of =bi=the and =bi=khe as "evidently" evidentials (but often =i appears before =the). Thus, though =bi is written =b in =b=azhi 'negative plural', but =bi in =bi=ama and =bi=egaN, in fact, the latter two are close to =b=ama and =b=egaN. (What I actually heard for =bi=ama in the one case I heard it in speech was [bea:m].) The use of =bi in quotations under verbs of thinking are most effectively pre-vocalic, too, I think, though this is an area I have to resolve, like the cases of =bi=the vs. =i=the and the small number of cases of =i=bi. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Aug 30 02:25:36 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 21:25:36 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there are > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I > suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized [p], > certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest of > Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is -tu. > Go figure. Well! I took two years of Lakhota, and I don't recall ever running into a pluralizing -u! But if that's so, it provides an even easier solution to our problem. In Omaha, *pi => bi, and *u => i. A dubitative -bi comes in, and the particle i < *u becomes the pluralizing particle of choice. OVS is Ohio Valley Siouan, comprising Biloxi, Ofo and Tutelo, correct? > The -a- is tied in with the entire Mississippi Valley Siouan "Ablaut" > problem. I have a paper on the topic. Historically at least, the -a- is part > of the following morpheme, not the verb stem. It replaces preceding -e > (which some consider epenthetic anyway). Hmm, that requires me to do some rethinking. I assume that the "Ablaut" problem concerns the verb endings the Colorado Lakhota project people express with a capital -A, which derives -a, -e or -iN depending on what follows, correct? I had been inclining toward the notion that the -a was the basic stem, with -e being an alternate of -ai. A lot of verb or ta- endings in Omaha do seem to be allomorphic this way, and I had been about to ask about this issue in conjunction with the "two -bi or not two -bi" discussion. Could you expand on your paragraph, or perhaps put me in touch with your paper? > I'm trying to remember if Osage has the -i variant. Carolyn can tell us. > This is enough monkey wrenches for one day. :-) It makes my day a little more confusing. Thanks for your input! Rory From mosind at yahoo.com Thu Aug 30 03:24:35 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Wablenica) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 07:24:35 +0400 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Rankin, Robert L: > > In Dakotan there are > > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in > > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. Boas & Deloria (1941) Dakota Grammar 11. TERMINAL CONSONANTS OF CVC VEBBS "Colloquially the terminal i of the plural pi is dropped. When it follows a nasalized vowel and preceding the future kta, p changes to a weak uN or a nasalized w. he'chi ?uNyaN'wNkte? < he'chi ?uNyaN'pikte? we will go there he'chi ya'wkte? < he'chi ya'pikte? they will go there In other cases, preceding a /k/ the /p/ is a mere closure of the lips without any release of breath. After a nasalized vowel it becomes either an unvoiced /m/ or a nasalized /w/. ?eya'p k?e'yas^ they said, but ?echuN'm k?e'yas^, or ?echuN'wN k?e'yas^ they did so, but" ----------------------- Rood & Taylor (1976) further describe allomorphs of -pi (-b, -m; -o, -oN, -u, -uN) in Pine Ridge, depending on the following consonant and preceding vowel's height and nasalization. Connie From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Aug 30 22:40:37 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 16:40:37 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there > are > > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in > > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I > > suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized > [p], > > certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest > of > > Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is > -tu. > > Go figure. > > Well! I took two years of Lakhota, and I don't recall ever running > into a pluralizing -u! But if that's so, it provides an even easier > solution to our problem. In Omaha, *pi => bi, and *u => i. A > dubitative -bi comes in, and the particle i < *u becomes the > pluralizing particle of choice. Connie explains this in a subsequent letter, but -u- is essentially a fast speach variant of pi. I wonder if plurals like =tu elsewhere might not amount to *(r)u, i.e., fast *=pi with epenthetic r separating it from preceding vowels (preferably high). I suspect the main problem with this is that =pi appears to have been historically *api, with replacement of preceding root final e or occurrence instead of an e from another source explaining ablaut in verbs. Anyway, if api reduces to au, I wouldn't expect epenthetic *r in that context: (?) *aru. > OVS is Ohio Valley Siouan, comprising Biloxi, Ofo and Tutelo, > correct? Yes. Sometimes referred to as Southeastern. > > The -a- is tied in with the entire Mississippi Valley Siouan "Ablaut" > > problem. I have a paper on the topic. Historically at least, the -a- is > part > > of the following morpheme, not the verb stem. It replaces preceding -e > > (which some consider epenthetic anyway). > > Hmm, that requires me to do some rethinking. I assume that > the "Ablaut" problem concerns the verb endings the Colorado > Lakhota project people express with a capital -A, which derives > -a, -e or -iN depending on what follows, correct? I had been > inclining toward the notion that the -a was the basic stem, with > -e being an alternate of -ai. A lot of verb or ta- endings in Omaha > do seem to be allomorphic this way, and I had been about to > ask about this issue in conjunction with the "two -bi or not two -bi" > discussion. Could you expand on your paragraph, or perhaps > put me in touch with your paper? Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. Siouanists more used to dealing with the other languages (e.g., Crow or Omaha-Ponca) tend to assert the basic status of e specifically because neither of these factors occur there. In fact, in OP except for two rather special stems all e-final verb roots are ablauting, so it's not really necessary to distinguish a morphophoneme E vs. regular e. Weird things do occur in the e-dominant languages, though. One is that the stem for 'go' is something like rEEhEE in Hidatsa. In other words, the ablaut occurs internally as well as finally. It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Why are the a-vowel grade the citation forms? I've tried to tie the latter to Dakotan nominal ablaut, and intepreted the a-grade of verbs in citation forms of verbs as the nominal a-grade serving to nominalize the verb stem. It's also possible that the common use of a ~ e in marking male vs. female declaratives, etc., may be connected. The possibility that there is (or was) a declarative e or 7e following most verbs in main clauses might explain several things about Dakotan verbs, e.g., the 7-declarative sometimes mentioned. (7 = glottal stop) As far as the alternations between e ~ a, there's no reason to believe the e is derived from ai, though this is a change that occurs in various Indo-European languages. The usual historical explanations of the e-grades are that the verbs end in e historically, or that e is the usual epenthetic vowel added to C-final stems, or that e is a thematic morpheme of some sort - perhaps a declarative or demonstrative in origin. Perhaps both. The usual historical explanation with a is that it is part of the following morpheme, e.g., the plural is =api, not just =pi. Similarly in OP and Dhegiha generally the negative is clearly =azhi, since not only does e change to a before zhi, but the plural form is =b=azhi < =(a)bi=azhi. In Dakotan, the negative =s^ni is an e-grade, interestingly enough. I take that to be something like *=shi=niN, with the *=shi matching Dhegiha =zhi and equating to the Dakotan =sh adversative, too, but not everyone agrees with that. I'm not sure why -a- in Dhegiha. The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is found elsewhere in Siouan. Omaha-Ponca does have a form e=iN=the 'perhaps', which may contain the iN as a dubitative particle in what is otherwise just e=the 'the aforesaid' + 'the vertical'. But iN doesn't occur, with the OP future =ttE, which is cognate with Dakotan =ktA. It appears that Teton, at least, has =iN=ktA for the future, anyway, and that this explains the iN ablaut pattern for its future. === We tend to think of ablaut in terms of verbs only, but Dakotan has nominal ablaut, too, though it's fairly obsolescent. However, a number of factors suggest that sopme sort of final vowel alternation was fairly common with noun stems in Mississippi Valley: - Dakotan has all those CV'C-a noun stems with "epenthetic a". - Dakotan has some CV'Ca ~ tha-CV'Ce stems, like shuNk-, not to mention itazip-. - Dakotan has some CVCa ~ CVC (in compound) stems. (Sorry, can't recall an example.) - Dakotan has some CV-ya ~ CV (in compound) stems, like wiN- and he-. - Dakotan has some CVCe' ~ CVC (in compound) body part stems, like siNt- and c^haNt-. - Dakotan CV'C-alternant stems correspond pretty nicely with the CV'Ce stems in Dhegiha and Ioway-Otoe and the CVVC stems in Winnebago. - Dakotan CV'-ya stems correspond pretty nicely with the CV(V) stems of Dhegiha, IO, and Winnebago, cf. Da wiNya(N) and heya vs. OP miN(ga) and he. - The Winnebago "article" is ra (and Dakotan -ya < *-ra). - Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca have a series of CV nouns that take an insert -ya (Dakotan) or -a- (OP) before certain postpositions, e.g., Dakotan thi ~ thiyata, OP tti ~ ttiatta (tti-a-t-ta cf. Da e-k-ta). - OP has ablaut (e > a) in some CVCe nouns before some postpositions, e.g., ppahe ~ ppaha=di. - Dhegiha proximate animate articles (OP akha and ama) seem to have an extra a- on the front of them (and follow nouns). For that matter the obviative animate ones have a sort of "locative" a in the inclusive: aNg-a-thaN, aNg-a-dhiN, if I remember rightly. It seems to me that all these patterns intergrade when looked at carefully, i.e., that it's hard to divide them up into the neat subtypes this list suggests. That is, CV'Ca ~ CVC nouns are sometimes also CV'Ca ~ CVCe ~ CVC nouns (like shuNk-) and so on, and even though a > e is not the normal development of a in OP, all those Dakotan a-final nouns tend to come out e-final in OP. The *-ra forms also seem to suggest that the -a can occur after vowel final stems with epenthetic *-r-, too. Given this we have a bit more than a set of arbitrary unrelated facts. We have some sort of process that allows e ~ a after stems of the form CV'C and perhaps CV. Either both of the vowels are affixal in some way (I've suggested articles) or one is organic or epenthetic and the other morphemic, etc. Epenthesis doesn't work very well to explain unaccented a or e, if there are V-final cases, but perhaps those are -r final stems. This has been suggested by Rankin and Carter, at least, working from a somewhat different set of considerations. It's difficult for me to see how the ablaut of both nouns and verbs can be reduced to a single simple phenomenon, but they can clearly interact. If =a is a postnominal morpheme, it can occur with nominalized verbs, for example, and the same argument can apply to epenthetic -a after a CVC stems of both kinds. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Aug 30 02:49:04 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 21:49:04 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: >> > True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there >> are >> > two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in >> > well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I >> > suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized >> [p], >> > certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest >> of >> > Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is >> -tu. >> > Go figure. >> Well! I took two years of Lakhota, and I don't recall ever running >> into a pluralizing -u! But if that's so, it provides an even easier >> solution to our problem. In Omaha, *pi => bi, and *u => i. A >> dubitative -bi comes in, and the particle i < *u becomes the >> pluralizing particle of choice. > Connie explains this in a subsequent letter, but -u- is essentially a fast > speach variant of pi. Yes, I caught that. By her explanation, u and several other phonological variants of -pi appear respectively in very predictable phonological environments, which is not the case with -bi and -i in OP. I drop the above "solution" like a hot potato. Thanks, Connie! > Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were > basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e > ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- > and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. > Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair > of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish > these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. > Siouanists more used to dealing with the other languages (e.g., Crow or > Omaha-Ponca) tend to assert the basic status of e specifically because > neither of these factors occur there. In fact, in OP except for two > rather special stems all e-final verb roots are ablauting, so it's not > really necessary to distinguish a morphophoneme E vs. regular e. Weird > things do occur in the e-dominant languages, though. One is that the stem > for 'go' is something like rEEhEE in Hidatsa. In other words, the ablaut > occurs internally as well as finally. I'm not getting to the conclusion of what you say here from the premises you cite. We want to know which of the ablaut forms represents the bare stem of the verb, and which has been modified, presumably by an absorbed extraneous morpheme, or part of one. You claim that most Siouan languages seem to have -e as the basic form, with -a the derived form. Dakotan does not appear to be this way for two reasons: 1) It has verbs that use -aN as well as ones that use -a in opposition to -e, while other languages have only -a / -e variants; 2) The citation form is -a in Dakotan, but -e in other languages. Premise 1 seems to be a strong reason for favoring the -a or -aN version as the stem in Dakotan, since if the -e version were the stem, there would be no explanation for forking to -a or -aN respectively depending on the verb. The fact that other Siouan languages do not have an -aN / -e version of ablaut is only negative evidence, however. It does not give us any reason to choose -e over -a as basic in a series that uses only -a and -e. In fact, the Dakotan case should argue for -a as the stem version not only for itself, but for all the other Siouan languages that show this type of ablaut. I assume the "citation form" is the form native speakers use when asked to speak of the word by itself. This seems to be the only argument given here for favoring the -e form as basic in the non-Dakotan languages. But how strong is this? It seems to me that a native speaker, asked to cite a word in his own language, would tend to present it in its most finite, and least verbal, form. This form might well be inflected, and hence not the basic stem. Do we have other reasons for favoring -e as the bare stem form in non-Dakotan languages, and especially OP? > As far as the alternations between e ~ a, there's no reason to believe the > e is derived from ai, though this is a change that occurs in various > Indo-European languages. A reduction of ai to e is a common phonetic shift that occurs all over. We get it in Siouan too, as in the common accented first syllable of many verbs: we'-, from an original wa-i'-. This occurs in both Lakhota and Omaha. I think you yourself mentioned ai and e, "s/he says/said", as alternates a few weeks back. (Or did you just mean that these were different conjugates of the same verb?) Tai' and te certainly seem to be allomorphic in Dorsey at least some of the time. We can illustrate this from the story of HiNqpe-Agdhe. On page 163, line 4, the second brother has been challenged to a contest by the four bad guys. He says: Eda'daN aNaN' te a? "What will we do (by way of a contest)?" On page 164, line 6, HiNqpe-Agdhe, the fourth brother, has been challenged to a contest by the same four bad guys. He says: Khe', eda'daN aNaN' tai' a? "Come, what will we do (by way of a contest)?" The circumstances and the wording are almost identical. In this case, at least, tai' and te seem to be allomorphs, presumably of an original sequence of two morphemes, ta-i. (Or perhaps you would argue for te-a(b)i, with indifferent use of the pluralizing particle?) > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, > but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is > found elsewhere in Siouan. Omaha-Ponca does have a form e=iN=the > 'perhaps', which may contain the iN as a dubitative particle in what is > otherwise just e=the 'the aforesaid' + 'the vertical'. But iN doesn't > occur, with the OP future =ttE, which is cognate with Dakotan =ktA. > It appears that Teton, at least, has =iN=ktA for the future, anyway, and > that this explains the iN ablaut pattern for its future. Are we absolutely sure (checked with native speakers) that that final -te in e'iNte is a -the and not a tte? Dorsey doesn't mark the potentive particle tte any differently from the positional the, as far as the t goes, anyway. Rory From mosind at yahoo.com Fri Aug 31 03:45:39 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Wablenica) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 07:45:39 +0400 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu > [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Koontz John E > Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were > basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e > ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- > and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. --Talking about citation forms, I'm inclined to think that at least two of the native speaker use -e form as a basic one - Violet Catches and Albert WhiteHat in their language books. > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Why are > the a-vowel grade the citation forms? --Besides other reasons, -a form is a "default" form when any of the 25 000 words that do not trigger ablaut is following an -A/-AN verb. Among any class of words - enclitics, determiners, postpositions - there are both triggers and non-triggers of ablaut. > > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, > but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is > found elsewhere in Siouan. =ktA triggers -a > -iN ablaut in Assiniboine too, at least in some subdialects (Shaw, 1980) Besides, -iN ablaut occurs in Lakota before: conjunctions na, nahaN, naiNsh; familiar imperative yetxo' (m.s.) (not everywhere?); polite imperative ye (all sexes) (interchangeably with -i : o'makiyi ye! help me! - o'kiyA, to help) Connie miye yelo. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Aug 30 04:09:16 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 23:09:16 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: Bob: > Biloxi is quite different in that the positionals are a retention in the > verb system there, as they are in Dakotan and other Siouan subgroups outside > of Dhegiha. Positionals form something like continuatives in all Siouan > languages and indeed in many other language families as well including > Indo-European. (Spanish/Italian estar/stare, the progressive AUXs, are < PIE > *stan, after all.) In Dhegiha languages, however, these verbs undergo > several stages of grammaticalization. The post verbal positionals are all > derived from the article forms of the old verb roots. The articles always > combine with -he 'be in a place' (which is conjugated only in the second > person): dhiNk-he 'sitting', k-he 'lying', thaN-he 'standing anim.', dhiN-he > 'moving'. So the articles underly all these auxiliaries. Once a verb is > grammaticalized into something like an article (or classifier if you want), > it is not supposed to return to full lexical status, but we weren't there to > warn the speakers that they were violating a universal. This is interesting. It explains why the positionals are so frequently aspirated. It looks like the -he is not preserved after a (nasal) vowel in Omaha. Are the terms you cite above Kaw, or proto-Dhegiha? What about other positionals that don't end in -he? Could we get a complete chart of these in Dhegiha? I'll start it with what I've got from OP. Omaha/Ponca Quapaw Osage Kaw *Dhegiha Others? dhiN thaN dhiNkhe' khe the dhaN ge ma dhaNkha' akha' ama' Rory From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Fri Aug 31 05:10:49 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 00:10:49 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > "Colloquially the terminal i of the plural pi is dropped. When it follows a > nasalized vowel and preceding the future kta, p changes to a weak uN or a > nasalized w. In Dakota as spoken in Manitoba, I have never heard this uN allomorph of plural pi; -pi kte is contracted to -pte. > he'chi ?uNyaN'wNkte? < he'chi ?uNyaN'pikte? we will go there > he'chi ya'wkte? < he'chi ya'pikte? they will go there In Manitoba: he'chi ya'pte? > In other cases, preceding a /k/ the /p/ is a mere closure of the lips > without any release of breath. That's how it sounds in Manitoba too, also in -pte. > After a nasalized vowel it becomes either an > unvoiced /m/ or a nasalized /w/. /m/ here too, but I haven't noticed any devoicing. The lack of the uN allomorph in a closely related Sioux dialect suggests to me that the different treatments of -pi kte may have no very great time depth and probably provide weak evidence for what happens in Omaha-Ponca. --------------------------------------- > Most Siouan languages behave as if in the ablauting set e ~ a the e were > basic. Dakotan, does not, in two ways. One is that there are also some e > ~ aN stems, like yatkaN 'to drink' (cf. OP dhattaN). The other is that a- > and aN-final variants seem to be preferred as citation forms. Again, Manitoba Dakota seems to disagree with this. Native speakers emphatically prefer final e-variants as citation forms and may not even recognize a word if presented out of context in the a- or aN- final variant. I had assumed citation with final a or aN was strictly a linguist's practice, due to the following. > Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair > of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish > these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Just analogy? yatkaN 'drink' joins the semantically related yuta 'eat'? > the 7-declarative > sometimes mentioned. (7 = glottal stop) Definitely present in Manitoba. > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, Not in Manitoba. > We tend to think of ablaut in terms of verbs only, but Dakotan has nominal > ablaut, too, though it's fairly obsolescent. Very much so here. Paul From mosind at yahoo.com Fri Aug 31 12:28:56 2001 From: mosind at yahoo.com (Wablenica) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 16:28:56 +0400 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: <3B8F1C59.BD26532F@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu > [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of > voorhis at westman.wave.ca > > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really > taken up - > > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? > > Just analogy? yatkaN 'drink' joins the semantically related yuta 'eat'? > Here are some -AN verbs with nasal -a that cannot be explained with "nasalization spread": -hAN, to stand (and numerous compounds) yukxAN, to exist (for) Plus -mA(N)/-be verbs -mAN, 1) brood, hatch; -> -me (L.), -be (D.) 2) file, rub, grind is^tiNmA, to sleep. naxmA, to conceal mimA, circular s^mA, deep I have a question: all e-ablaut-triggers begin with (7)e-, k-, s-, or s^-, with occasional l- (diminutive la). What are the generalizations? Connie. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 14:14:03 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 08:14:03 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: <3B8F1C59.BD26532F@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > > Because some a and aN do not alternate with e, Dakotanists identify a pair > > of morphophonemes A and AN to represent the alternations and distinguish > > these from non-alternating a and aN (and e) in writing stems. > > > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? > > Just analogy? yatkaN 'drink' joins the semantically related yuta 'eat'? I thought there were other cases, though yatkaN is, of course, the canonical example of AN. --- I'm interested that the e-alternants are being put forward as citation forms by everyone. I think I've been corrected from e-variants to a-variants even for inflected forms at SACC, by Dakota speakers, though I couldn't say who it was who did it. So I don't think it's entirely a linguistic concoction. However, I am not a Dakotanist - though I sometimes play one on the Net - and this should definitely be investigated. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 14:56:18 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 08:56:18 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > I'm not getting to the conclusion of what you say here from the > premises you cite. We want to know which of the ablaut forms > represents the bare stem of the verb, and which has been > modified, presumably by an absorbed extraneous morpheme, > or part of one. > > You claim that most Siouan languages seem to have -e as the > basic form, with -a the derived form. Dakotan does not appear > to be this way for two reasons: > > 1) It has verbs that use -aN as well as ones that use -a > in opposition to -e, while other languages have only > -a / -e variants; > > 2) The citation form is -a in Dakotan, but -e in other languages. > > Premise 1 seems to be a strong reason for favoring the -a or > -aN version as the stem in Dakotan, since if the -e version were > the stem, there would be no explanation for forking to -a or -aN > respectively depending on the verb. Yes, this is the argument the Dakotanists use. It doesn't hold any particular water outside Dakotan, of course, and the ablaut of aN-stems seems to be a secondary development there. > The fact that other Siouan languages do not have an -aN / -e version > of ablaut is only negative evidence, however. True, but nobody suggests that Dakotan is conservative in this, and even Dakotan is somewhat schizophrenic in this regard, since the e-vowel appears in the singulars in finite clauses. The usual explanation of this in Dakotan grammar is that A => e before the 7-declarative. > It does not give us any reason to choose -e over -a as basic in a > series that uses only -a and -e. In fact, the Dakotan case should > argue for -a as the stem version not only for itself, but for all the > other Siouan languages that show this type of ablaut. Not when it's clear in each of these languages that the e-form is less marked there in context, and, in fact, is (as far as I know) always the citation form in these other languages, too. > I assume the "citation form" is the form native speakers use > when asked to speak of the word by itself. In principle, though, it can be a bit difficult to determine this with languages where metalinguistic discourse is not often practiced. In such cases one looks for a very unmarked context. In OP, for example, this would be under the scope of another verb, e.g., in a causative, or in first persons and second persons, or in obviatives. One has to have proceded far enough in one's studies to have noticed that proximate third persons pattern with plurals and have the a-grade, and that imperatives, though not pronominalized, also have the a-grade (and an enclitic which is ga for male speakers, and a for females). > This seems to be the only argument given here for favoring the -e form > as basic in the non-Dakotan languages. But how strong is this? It convinces me, but I admit that the evaluation may be in some degree arbitrary. If there were as many Siouanists as there are Gemanists, then debate would probably be perennial. > It seems to me that a native speaker, asked to cite a word in his own > language, would tend to present it in its most finite, and least > verbal, form. This form might well be inflected, and hence not the > basic stem. Do you mean "most infinite" or "most finite"? Finite usually means inflected, and for me inflected definitely means verbal, though there are inflected infinite forms in some languages. My experience is that Omaha speakers prefer not to extract enclitics from context, so they can more easily discuss e=di than =di. This is a general tendency with Siouan speakers and they prefer to think of, e.g., ga=di as derived from e=di than composed from dhe and =di. They also prefer simple sentences to words in isolation, so it is easier for them to say "adha[=i]" 'he/she/it went' than adhe or dhe for 'go'. I think this is a human tendency that speakers of languages with extensive traditions of grammatical introspection escape from during education. When carried to extreme one arrives at languages for which the stem cannot actually be cited except as a linguist's abstraction, and these are common enough. The concept of a citation form is in part just a crutch for approximating the abstract stem and not all languages have useful citation forms in this sense. > Do we have other reasons for favoring -e as the bare stem > form in non-Dakotan languages, and especially OP? For OP, I rely on the "least marked context" argument and, given that the third person singular proximate might be expected to be "least marked," but is not, I (would) point this out carefully in working with a new student of the language, even a native speaker becoming newly "introspective." This circumnstance is not unheard of. The third person singular is not least marked in English, either, and the conventional citation forms for classical IE languages are often the first person singular, though, e.g., for Romance languages there is some tendency (in classes, anyway) to prefer the infinitive. > A reduction of ai to e is a common phonetic shift that occurs > all over. We get it in Siouan too, as in the common accented > first syllable of many verbs: we'-, from an original wa-i'-. This > occurs in both Lakhota and Omaha. Touche', but I'm not convinced it explains the e-grade of ablauting sets. I have pondered whether it might reflect, say, *a=ki, where *ki is an article, cf. Dakotan, but for the present I'm operating on the hypothesis that e and a simply have different morphemic sources and that a is not simply the original underlying vowel. > I think you yourself mentioned ai and e, "s/he says/said", as > alternates a few weeks back. (Or did you just mean that > these were different conjugates of the same verb?) Yes, proximate and obviative or *a=pi and *e, variants of *E, if you will. > Tai' and te certainly seem to be allomorphic in Dorsey at > least some of the time. We can illustrate this from the story > of HiNqpe-Agdhe. On page 163, line 4, the second brother > has been challenged to a contest by the four bad guys. > He says: > > Eda'daN aNaN' te a? > "What will we do (by way of a contest)?" > > On page 164, line 6, HiNqpe-Agdhe, the fourth brother, has > been challenged to a contest by the same four bad guys. > He says: > > Khe', eda'daN aNaN' tai' a? > "Come, what will we do (by way of a contest)?" You'd have to read the first as inclusive "singular" (or dual, or non-augmented), i.e., 'what will you (sg.) and I do', referring to one of the four brothers, and the second as inclusive "plural" (or augmented), i.e., 'what will you-all and I do'. The =i is the plural or "augment" as I think the Austronesianists say, indicating that additional third parties are included as well as the pronominal referents. > The circumstances and the wording are almost identical. > In this case, at least, tai' and te seem to be allomorphs, > presumably of an original sequence of two morphemes, > ta-i. (Or perhaps you would argue for te-a(b)i, with > indifferent use of the pluralizing particle?) Yes, =tte :: =tt=a(b)i, cf., Dakotan =kte :: =kt=api. But I think there's an actual contrast of meaning here. Non-pluralized or dual, etc., use of the inclusive pronoun is fairly rare in Dhegiha, but does occur. Ardis and Carolyn more or less forced me to see this in separate cases. This is the rule in Dakotan, of course, and my understanding is that in Winnebago the augment or plural can be combined with both the first person (as 'I and he') and the inclusive (as 'you and I and he'). > Are we absolutely sure (checked with native speakers) > that that final -te in e'iNte is a -the and not a tte? > Dorsey doesn't mark the potentive particle tte any > differently from the positional the, as far as the t > goes, anyway. He tends to put a breve over e in the vs. e in tte. I'm pretty sure I've got the tte and the sorted out, partly, but not entirely with the help of speakers: =tta=i ~ =tte future, =tta=i=the ~ =tte=the future of surity (Dorsey's 'shall surely') or future + evidently, =bi=the ~ =i=the ~ =the 'evidently' (sometimes glossed narrative past, etc.), e=iN=the ~ iN=the 'perhaps', e=the modal. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 15:00:37 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 09:00:37 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Wablenica wrote: > --Talking about citation forms, I'm inclined to think that at least two of > the native speaker use -e form as a basic one - Violet Catches and Albert > WhiteHat in their language books. Noted, and cf. what Paul Voorhis said above. > > It's sort of challenge to Dakotanists - one they haven't really taken up - > > or to comparative Siouanists in general - likewise - to explain how > > Dakotan came to be so different. Why does aN alternate with e? Why are > > the a-vowel grade the citation forms? > > --Besides other reasons, -a form is a "default" form when any of the 25 000 > words that do not trigger ablaut is following an -A/-AN verb. Among any > class of words - enclitics, determiners, postpositions - there are both > triggers and non-triggers of ablaut. Ah! This is the argument I use for e as basic in Omaha-Ponca. > > The iN allomorph of A and AN in Dakotan doesn't occur in all the dialects, > > but it is found in Teton with the future =ktA. Nothing exactly like it is > > found elsewhere in Siouan. > > =ktA triggers -a > -iN ablaut in Assiniboine too, at least in some > subdialects (Shaw, 1980) > Besides, -iN ablaut occurs in Lakota before: > conjunctions na, nahaN, naiNsh; > familiar imperative yetxo' (m.s.) (not everywhere?); > polite imperative ye (all sexes) (interchangeably with -i : o'makiyi ye! > help me! - o'kiyA, to help) I thought some of these were sometimes given as just i? Of course, before n this would be somewhat moot. I think i occurs instead of short e in Crow and/or Hidatsa, but I don't control the details. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 15:16:33 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 09:16:33 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Wablenica wrote: > Here are some -AN verbs with nasal -a that cannot be explained with > "nasalization spread": And, of course, nasalization spread could fairly be argued to have had a crucial part in producing AN. > -hAN, to stand (and numerous compounds) This one may be related to the OP thaN 'the (standing)' animate obviative article (inflected like the other animate obviative articles), which seems in some what to be paired with the OP the 'the (upright)' inanmiate article (not inflected). (Note that usually *th => h in Dakotan.) The interesting thing about the inflection of thaN, as Bob Rankin has recently noted, is that it pairs with a stem *he in the first and second persons: a-thaN=he, dha-thaN=s^e. Although there's no sign of =he in the third person in OP, one could imagine *thaN=he contracting to *the. > yukxAN, to exist (for) There's a thaN 'have; be plentiful at' stem in OP. > Plus -mA(N)/-be verbs > -mAN, 1) brood, hatch; -> -me (L.), -be (D.) > 2) file, rub, grind > is^tiNmA, to sleep. > naxmA, to conceal > mimA, circular > s^mA, deep At the moment I don't recognize these as having cognates. > I have a question: all e-ablaut-triggers begin with (7)e-, k-, s-, or > s^-, with occasional l- (diminutive la). What are the generalizations? I'm not sure I see one. In OP e is the default, as indicated, and a is conditioned by =(b)i, =z^i (zhi), =ga ~ =a in verbs, and by =di, =tta in nouns. Common verbal enclitics that don't condition a are =tte (cf. Dakotan =kte), =xti, =(s^ ~ h ~ 0)na, =s^te. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Aug 31 15:53:11 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 10:53:11 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: I wrote a longish reply to Connie's post but it went away into cyberspace before I could send it. I'll try to find it.... > Here are some -AN verbs with nasal -a that cannot be explained with > "nasalization spread": And, of course, nasalization spread could fairly be argued to have had a crucial part in producing AN. > -hAN, to stand (and numerous compounds) >This one may be related to the OP thaN 'the (standing)' animate Yes, *rVhaN > Dhegiha thaN, Dakotan haN, Winnebago jaN, etc. regularly. And there is the verb *haN-ke, presumably the source of the haN part of *rV-haN. >...one could imagine *thaN=he contracting to *the. Right now, I'd stick with two separate etymologies for the animate/inanimate pair. > yukxAN, to exist (for) > Cf. Biloxi and Tutelo /yuke'/ 'auxiliary'. But there are problems with the y/y equation. >There's a thaN 'have; be plentiful at' stem in OP. bob From shanwest at uvic.ca Fri Aug 31 19:48:32 2001 From: shanwest at uvic.ca (Shannon West) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 12:48:32 -0700 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu > [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Koontz John E > Sent: August 31, 2001 7:56 AM > To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu > Subject: Re: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) > > > On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > I'm not getting to the conclusion of what you say here from the > > premises you cite. We want to know which of the ablaut forms > > represents the bare stem of the verb, and which has been > > modified, presumably by an absorbed extraneous morpheme, > > or part of one. > > > > You claim that most Siouan languages seem to have -e as the > > basic form, with -a the derived form. Dakotan does not appear > > to be this way for two reasons: > > > > 1) It has verbs that use -aN as well as ones that use -a > > in opposition to -e, while other languages have only > > -a / -e variants; > > > > 2) The citation form is -a in Dakotan, but -e in other languages. > > > > Premise 1 seems to be a strong reason for favoring the -a or > > -aN version as the stem in Dakotan, since if the -e version were > > the stem, there would be no explanation for forking to -a or -aN > > respectively depending on the verb. > > Yes, this is the argument the Dakotanists use. It doesn't hold any > particular water outside Dakotan, of course, and the ablaut of aN-stems > seems to be a secondary development there. > > > The fact that other Siouan languages do not have an -aN / -e version > > of ablaut is only negative evidence, however. > > True, but nobody suggests that Dakotan is conservative in this, and even > Dakotan is somewhat schizophrenic in this regard, since the e-vowel > appears in the singulars in finite clauses. The usual explanation of this > in Dakotan grammar is that A => e before the 7-declarative. Okay. I'll start out by saying that phonology usually gets the best of me, so if I don't seem to be talking on the same thread, please set me straight. Am I understanding the above to say that in Dakotan, the final A becomes e before the glottal stop ending (declarative)? If so, I don't believe this is true of Assiniboine. For example: buza waNz^i mnuha7. 'I have a cat' The a is very clearly a and not e, but it is definitely [e] in yuhebi 'they have'. That's one I could immediately think of, but I'm sure there's more. The -e form in singulars was one of the first things I noticed when I started looking at Lakhota for insights into Assiniboine. I'm sure they're not like that in ASB. Most of the verbs I can think of offhand with final ablauting vowels just drop those vowels entirely (or sometims devoice them) in the singular forms. Woda -> wowad(a) 'I ate' --> wodiNkta 'I will eat' Yuza -> mnuz(a) 'I held it' --> mnuziNkta 'I will hold it' Anyway, just my $0.02. I'll make no attempt at analysis of this, but figured some extra data might be fun. :) Shannon From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 20:11:45 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:11:45 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > We tend to think of ablaut in terms of verbs only, but Dakotan has nominal > ablaut, too, ... > Given this we have a bit more than a set of arbitrary unrelated facts. > We have some sort of process that allows e ~ a after stems of the form > CV'C and perhaps CV. Either both of the vowels are affixal in some way > (I've suggested articles) or one is organic or epenthetic and the other > morphemic, etc. ... I perhaps should have said that my suggestion was that nominal ablaut and related cross-language patterns were to be explained by postulating two "articles" *e 'specific' and *a 'generic' that acted as enclitics to nouns in, say, Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan and were widely preserved with what had been CVC-stem nouns as well as with some CV nouns (+> CV-r- with epenthetic r), as well as with verb citation forms in Dakotan and in the various fossils like the Winnebago =ra article and =re relativizer, in those intrusive -a- linkers with postpositions in Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca, and so on. I thought that *e was clearly the *e demonstrative (or third person pronoun), and that *a was the *a demonstrative that is used to form indefinites and interogatives widely in MVS (but not in Dakotan), cf. OP e=naN 'that many' :: a=naN 'how many, some number or other'. A significant morphological problem I recognized later with this is that the *a demonstrative surfaces as *ha in Dhegiha outside of Omaha-Ponca. I still think there may be something in the general approach, but I'm a bit worried about that h, even though it is a bit of an odd-ball. Incidentally, Dakota nominal ablaut does clearly seem to have a-variants for less-specific cases and e-variants for more specific. This holds for nouns where the e-grades are for possessed forms, and I had the impression it accounted for anomalous cases of e vs. a in nominalized verbs, too. You can compare that a :: ha set with 'day', incidentally. That has h in Osage, say, but 0 in OP and Dakotan: Da aNpe=(tu), OP aNba(=dhe), Os haNba (I seem to recall, but can't look up at the moment). I think the h continues on into Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago. Something similar occurs with the first person *wa, which is a in Dhegiha (throughout), but ha in IO and Wi. In Wi there is reason to believe that h is epenthetic before initial short vowels, but this doesn't explain IO. Another nominalizing, probably demonstrative particle that gets attached to nouns is *ka, which sure looks like the 'yon' demonstrative. In Winnebago it looks like *a after velars gets shifted to *e and all final *e after simple finals is deleted, though it is preserved after clusters. Mandan and Winnebago are hotbeds of *ka affixation, though it occurs in other branches as well. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Aug 31 20:20:12 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:20:12 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Shannon West wrote: > For example: > buza waNz^i mnuha7. 'I have a cat' The a is very clearly a and not e, but > it is definitely [e] in yuhebi 'they have'. > > That's one I could immediately think of, but I'm sure there's more. The -e > form in singulars was one of the first things I noticed when I started > looking at Lakhota for insights into Assiniboine. I'm sure they're not like > that in ASB. Most of the verbs I can think of offhand with final ablauting > vowels just drop those vowels entirely (or sometims devoice them) in the > singular forms. > > Woda -> wowad(a) 'I ate' --> wodiNkta 'I will eat' > Yuza -> mnuz(a) 'I held it' --> mnuziNkta 'I will hold it' One factor that I would wonder about is that Pat Shaw showed in her dissertation that a-epenthis and a ~ e ablaut are independent in the Dakotan dialects, so that many verbs have a final a that does not ablaut. Nouns can have a final unaccented a, even, that is deleted in compounds but doesn't alternate with e. I think most such cases are just chance, as nominal ablaut is clearly controlled by derivational factors. Moreover, which a's ablaut varies widely with the dialect and subdialect. Her dissertation discusses this extensively. On the other hand, in Omaha-Ponca if a verb ends in e it ablauts. The only exceptions I've noticed are e 'that' used as a verb and nouns used as verbs, e.g., kkaghe 'crow' or tte 'buffalo'. JEK