Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system

[Koontz John E]

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