Nebraska

[Lance Foster]

Platte  ne-bras-ka “flat water” (O) (Say in Thwaites (17):300)

Valley  a-bras-ka (O) (Say in Thwaites (17):295)

River  nesh-noug-a “running water” (O) (Say in Thwaites (17):295)
  nischna (I) (Maximilian in Thwaites 245)

Spring  ne-wa-bru “water springing up” (O) (Say in Thwaites (17):295)

Lance


RLR wrote:

> > > Ok.. I am trying to get a better handle of the s/th/hk transformation/shift
>
> > ... it is clear that in early times it did have s/s^/x
> > (etc.) more or less in synchrony with the other languages.
>
> Ted Grimm did a talk on this about 3 years ago at the Siouan Conference.
> He did find early transcriptions with "s" in place of "theta" (th). I
> don't remember his dates/sources off the top of my head. Maybe he is
> reading the list...?
>
> > The usual explanations for sound changes of this sort revolve around
> > unconscious individual human efforts to express group solidarity by
> > adopting (progressively exagerating) certain perceived markers of > group identity, in this case pronunciation norms.
>
> Labov (his 1994 book) has finally admitted that "imitation" in any real
> sense is only a characteristic of a relatively few sound changes and
> that most (as we've known since the 1880's) are blind, fortuitous and no
> respecters of meaning. No sound change begins for any sort of
> sociolinguistic reason. All have to do with the shape and movements of
> the human articulatory and perceptual apparatus (the mouth, tongue,
> teeth, larynx, etc.) AFTER the change has already taken place, however,
> it can be diffused from person to person, group to group via immitation.
> This is what linguists have traditionally called "dialect borrowing".
> And as John points out, at that point it can involve the notion of
> "prestige" (tho that doesn't necessarily refer to class distinctions).
>
> My lecture for the day. ;-)
>
> Bob

--
Lance Michael Foster
Email: ioway at earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~ioway
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