From hu_matthews at sil.org Sat Sep 15 19:15:52 2001 From: hu_matthews at sil.org (Hu Matthews) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 15:15:52 -0400 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan Message-ID: 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. From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Sat Sep 1 01:38:17 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 20:38:17 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: Koontz John E wrote: > 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. A question: What time relative to Proto-Siouan are we talking about here? The ablaut patterns in Dakota/Lakota, Winnebago, and Omaha-Ponca seem to be similar enough in most details to warrant simply reconstructing ablaut in the ancestor of these languages, at least. (I went to check on Biloxi and Tutelo but I find I have left those grammars about a mile away from the computer and decided not to delay this query while going out into the growing twilight to fetch them.) Of course, morpheme alternants presumably always arise from phonemic or morphemic changes, and it is appropriate historical inquiry to try to discover those changes -- I'm not questioning the inquiry. But do you think those changes occurred in post-Proto-Siouan times or in pre-Proto-Siouan? A parallel from ablaut in Germanic: It is thought to arise, at least in part, in reaction to the shifting place of accent in Proto-Indo-European. But as far as Proto-Germanic is concerned, I think the accent is already fixed on the first syllable except for a few prefixes, and ablaut as a device for indicating tense, etc., is simply reconstructed for the proto-language much as it is found in the daughter languages to this day. Paul From BARudes at aol.com Sat Sep 1 15:04:14 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 11:04:14 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: If the changes occurred in pre-Proto-Siouan, one would expect to find some trace of the phenomenon in Catawba, but there is none. One could argue that Catawba has leveled out the phenomenon, but then the argument becomes circular. So, the change must have occurred in Proto-Siouan or later. Blair From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 2 00:42:47 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 18:42:47 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > 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' Are the dropped or devoiced vowels clearly always /a/ in this context? Perhaps some of the dropped vowels are e? David Rood has a funny story about the differences in voiceless vowels in Wichita, but it's his and I'll leave it to him! > 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. I didn't make it clear that the independence of unaccented final a - C# stems in Shaw's terminology - and ablaut applies especially to verbs. Examples of a# verbs: niya', yugha', xpec^a', ba', gleska', paha', etc. aN# verbs: lowaN', ki'nihaN, yughaN', yuthaN', etc. A# verbs: yeA', aphA', nasA', yA' (to go), yA' (causative), etc. AN# verbs: yatkAN', hAN', nuwAN', hihAN', slohAN', hiNxtAN', etc. (Connie had a list of such forms, too) C#a verbs: c^ha'gha, the'c^a, thaN'ka, lu'ta, c^huwi'ta, etc. C#A verbs: yu'zA, ka'ghA, s^a'pA, kuN'zA, uN'pA, etc. These examples are for Teton, from Shaw. She treats a with C# stems (for which stress and reduplication pattern are diagnostic) as an epenthetic vowel added by a phonological rule of stem formation, rather than, say, as a thematic morpheme. She treats verbal ablaut as a lexical property of stems. She further notices that ablauting status varies with dialect. For example, she finds that yuha' 'have' ablauts in Sioux Valley (a form of WaxpetuNwaN Santee), Stoney and "Riggs" Santee, but not Teton; xa' 'bury' ablauts in Teton and Sioux Valley, but not in Assinigoine or Yankton; dowaN' 'sing' ablauts in Assiniboine, but not in Teton, Sioux Valley or Stoney; etc. On the other hand, on closer reading, it sounds like what Shannon is describing is not a variation in which stems ablaut, but in how ablaut behaves with singulars? JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 2 01:51:41 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 19:51:41 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: <3B903C09.82689B31@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > A question: What time relative to Proto-Siouan are we talking about > here? The ablaut patterns in Dakota/Lakota, Winnebago, and Omaha-Ponca > seem to be similar enough in most details to warrant simply > reconstructing ablaut in the ancestor of these languages, at least. ... It's clear that similar forms of verb ablaut are attested right across Siouan. I think that pretty much the only constants are e ~ a. The conditioning contexts are always following enclitics and a set of additional factors like nominalization. Some specific enclitics are subject to ablaut themselves in the same contexts. Perhaps the main ones that are reconstructable for earlier stages of the language are *ktE or (?) iNktE, the irrealis marker, and maybe something like *krE as a kind of third person plural. The specific grades associated with particular enclitics are not very constant. I think perhaps plural stems are always a-grades, but things like negatives and the irrealis vary wuite a bit, even within particular dialect continuums. Ablaut may or may not be associated with something like unaccented final vowels. Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', yA 'cause' in Teton. It's true that at least 'go' may come from something like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as secondary. Verbal ablaut is by its nature a constant, productive factor in Siouan morphology, since the conditioning enclitics are in constant use. It can only disappear by an active change in the morphology or phonology of the languages. What does seem clear is that there is a very good chance that ablaut is some of its primary specific examples (with pi or ktE) can be accounted for nicely by assuming that the vowel preceding the enclitic is actually an historical part of the enclitic. I think this was proposed first (that I'm aware of) by Wes Jones, and taken up by David Rood, and subsequently Bob Rankin. It looks very reasonable to see the plural as *api (across much of the family) and the irrealis as iNkt(e) (in at least some Dakotan dialects). This doesn't account for all of verbal ablaut in any cut and dried way, because there are so many enclitics, many of them not clearly cognate, and varying from dialect to dialect, let alone language to language. Furthermore, in some cases apparently cognate enclitics condition different ablaut grades in different languages. I'm think here of the negative, which is an e-grade in dakotan, but an a-grade in Dhegiha. It's true that this particular set is quite complex, and seems to involve a group of associated morphemes *s^(i) ~ *z^(i), *niN*, etc. I'd say that ablaut as an abstract phenomenon is somewhat self-renewing. Once you have any situation that results in a common pattern of e ~ a alternation, any chance circumstance that produces a new e ~ a alternation gets dragged into the complex. Probably something like the plural *api in connection with a rule that merges some V1 + V2 as V2 across enclitic boundaries and syllabifies the initial vowel of the enclitic with a final consonant of a host seeded the situation, and additional fuel has been added to the fire since then by other enclitics at intervals. I'm also inclined to feel that there is an additional common source of final vowel alternations in Proto-Siouan verbs that we haven't yet recognized. It seems to me that the additional of aN-finals to ablaut and the inclusion of iN as an ablaut grade are specific to Dakotan and involve analogical extensions of ablaut in the abstract, albiet fueled in the case of iN by a new instance of something like the original source of ablaut. To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, but not as morphologized and lexicalized ablaut (vowel alternations) per se. I suppose you could call the stage at which it was still an unpatterned collection of vowel elicisions or combinations and resyllabifications at enclitic boundaries Pre-Proto-Siouan, and the stage at which it was more abstract and arbitrary Proto-Siouan, though I'm not sure that this phase of the development hasn't occurred more or less independently in the ealy stages of development of the several branches of Siouan. Certainly the system continues to evolve in the various contemporary languages. Turning to nominal ablaut, either in the form of not very productive internal relicts, as in Dakotan or Omaha-Ponca, or cross-branch alternations, as between, say, Dakotan and Ioway-Otoe, it is more restricted, and may only occur in Mississippi Valley. It, too, involves e ~ a alternations, but it is usually fairly obscure in conditioning. I'd say that the e-grade could be attributed to 'possession', perhaps specificity, in Dakotan, and that at least some a-grades seem to be conditioning by enclitics in Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca, but I'm sure not everyone would agree with this. Even if 'specificity' marking accounts for the e-grades in, say, Ioway-Otoe, it's interesting, but maybe less useful, to be able to say that most e-final nouns in Dhegiha reflect 'specific' forms, while most a-final nouns in Dakotan reflect 'generic' forms. The real benefit in comparative terms may be to save us from looking for a specious phonological basis for the difference in final vowels. Nominal ablaut is probably an internal development of Mississippi Valley, originating in Proto-Mississippi Valley. I think the conditioning enclitics in this case were just vowels, though morphemes none-the-less. It looks superficially like verbal ablaut as an abstract morphological phenomenon, and has a similar source. It interacts with it because the morphemes in question were nominalizers and appear with nominalized verbs, and because the morphemic basis for it are homophonous with the phonological grades of verbal ablaut. But it is not as old as verbal ablaut and has an independent source. If the nominalizers in question have been, say, i and o, then things would have looked quite different. Nominal ablaut is not productive, primarily because in each of the branches the renewal of article and/or nominalizing systems has replaced the relevant morphological systems, and because in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago the merger of final *a and *e after velars and the subsequent loss of *e in final light syllables in Winnebago has eliminated much of the phonological material of the system. Ironically, I think that the Winnebago =ra (and maybe =re) nominal markers and maybe Ioway-Otoe are 'that' may be the best remininants of the system as articles, though they seem to be post-vocalic allomorphs. JEK From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Sun Sep 2 22:25:22 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 17:25:22 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: BARudes at aol.com wrote: > If the changes occurred in pre-Proto-Siouan, one would expect to find some > trace of the phenomenon in Catawba, but there is none. One could argue that > Catawba has leveled out the phenomenon, but then the argument becomes > circular. So, the change must have occurred in Proto-Siouan or later. Indeed, the alternation of final e and a, so common in other Siouan languages, is not only absent from Catawba, but moreover, there is no Catawban cognate support that I know of for most of the proposed predecessors of ablaut. But maybe Catawba is so distantly related to most of the rest of the Siouan languages that there was plenty of time for the one group to develop ablaut while Catawba lost all trace of the factors that caused it. Koontz John E wrote: > .... Perhaps the main ones > that are reconstructable for earlier stages of the language are *ktE or > (?) iNktE, the irrealis marker, and maybe something like *krE as a kind > of third person plural. The future marker in Catawba is part of the clause-final marking system (like Dakota do, ye, he, wo, 7, or Winnebago -(Sa)na, -re, -gi.). Maybe ka:te7 'indeed' or even ka:te(:)se 'the next time', the latter attested only once, are cognates with *ktE. No sign of *iNktE though. > .... Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', > > .... It's true that at least 'go' may come from something > like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as > secondary. Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. > .... > What does seem clear is that there is a very good chance that ablaut is > some of its primary specific examples (with pi or ktE) can be accounted > for nicely by assuming that the vowel preceding the enclitic is actually > an historical part of the enclitic. ... It looks very reasonable to see > the plural as *api (across much of the family) and the irrealis as iNkt(e) (in at least some Dakotan dialects). The future marker was discussed above. As for the plural, there is a noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), apparently meaning 'more than one', found in the published texts, whose pronunciation is probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a possible cognate with the pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good evidence that it had an initial vowel. > .... > To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, I think John is using the term Proto-Siouan to mean the ancestor of all the Siouan languages after the separation of the Catawban group. I know that is also what I was thinking of when I first used the term, but of course there's also an ancestor of Catawban and the rest of Siouan further back in time that I think we all, or just I (?), usually also refer to as Proto-Siouan. > .... > Turning to nominal ablaut ... most e-final nouns in Dhegiha reflect > 'specific' forms, while most a-final nouns in Dakotan reflect 'generic' > forms. The real benefit in comparative terms may be to save us from > looking for a specious phonological basis for the difference in final > vowels. > > Nominal ablaut is probably an internal development of Mississippi Valley, > originating in Proto-Mississippi Valley. I think the conditioning > enclitics in this case were just vowels, though morphemes none-the-less. > ... the > morphemes in question were nominalizers and appear with nominalized verbs, ... > Nominal ablaut is not productive, primarily because in each of the > branches the renewal of article and/or nominalizing systems has replaced > the relevant morphological systems, and because in Ioway-Otoe and > Winnebago the merger of final *a and *e after velars and the subsequent > loss of *e in final light syllables in Winnebago has eliminated much of > the phonological material of the system. Ironically, I think that the > Winnebago =ra (and maybe =re) nominal markers and maybe Ioway-Otoe are > 'that' may be the best remininants of the system as articles, though they > seem to be post-vocalic allomorphs. There are no probable cognates in Catawba for putative articles or demonstratives *a or *e, as far as I know. Blair has more extensive and accurate material to work with, though, and may be able to suggest something for these and the other Siouan forms discussed here. Likewise, I'll count on him to correct my transcriptions since the material I work with is rather unreliable, especially in the marking of vowel length. Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 00:28:08 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 18:28:08 -0600 Subject: Ablaut In-Reply-To: <3B92B1D2.D1DFFB6E@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Sep 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > The future marker in Catawba is part of the clause-final marking system > (like Dakota do, ye, he, wo, 7, or Winnebago -(Sa)na, -re, -gi.). Maybe > ka:te7 'indeed' or even ka:te(:)se 'the next time', the latter attested > only once, are cognates with *ktE. No sign of *iNktE though. I'm pretty certain that iNktE is a compound of two morphemes, one the more or less widely attested *kte irrealis or future, which takes the e-grade in Dakotan (where it doesn't take the iN grade) and Dhegiha, the other the *iN that leads to the iN grade and which I suspect provides the iN in OP (e)=iN=the 'perhaps'. I have a notion that the iN may also show up with the future in Ioway-Otoe and/or Winnebago. I'll try to look that up. > > .... Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', > > > > .... It's true that at least 'go' may come from something > > like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as > > secondary. > > Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, > certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. My idea of the h final comes from the form in Crow-Hidatsa, but I am weak on verbs of motion outside of Mississippi Valley and maybe instead of trying to look them all up I'll wait for comments from the CH contigent (Randy Graczyk and John Boyle) or maybe Bob Rankin. Giulia Oliverio, who's had some things to say on the subject for Southeastern is in Mexico and off the list for the time being. There's certainly no trace of -hV in Mississippi Valley. > The future marker was discussed above. As for the plural, there is a > noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), apparently meaning 'more > than one', found in the published texts, whose pronunciation is probably > wi: or wi. That seems to be a possible cognate with the pluralizer > *-pi, but there is no good evidence that it had an initial vowel. How interesting and somewhat awkward! So, like the iN in the iNkte future, the a in the api plural would have to have a secondary origin. I believe it is true that all Siouan plurals or whatever formation take the a-grade where ablaut enters into their formation. > > To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, > > I think John is using the term Proto-Siouan to mean the ancestor of all > the Siouan languages after the separation of the Catawban group. I know > that is also what I was thinking of when I first used the term, but of > course there's also an ancestor of Catawban and the rest of Siouan > further back in time that I think we all, or just I (?), usually also > refer to as Proto-Siouan. Yes, I meant Proto-Siouan as the source of Crow-Hidatsa, Mandan, Mississippi Valley and Southeastern. I use the expression Proto-Siouan-Catawban for the larger entity, following the underlying practice of referring to Siouan and Siouan-Catawban in place of earlier (Western) Siouan and Eastern Siouan. This is something of an innovation, but I think it's sound and fairly deeply embedded in the thinking of the CSD group, though perhaps I should be careful not to put words in their mouth! In one sense it is nothing new at all, since only recently has much been known about Catawba(n), and information on it has had essentially no impact on the development of the concept of Proto-Siouan in the sense of Proto-Siouan-Catawban. As a matter of fact, Proto-Siouan as reconstructed tends to be even more restricted. It is largely Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan, though CH, Mandan and SE have had some influence on our conception of it. > There are no probable cognates in Catawba for putative articles or > demonstratives *a or *e, as far as I know. ... The *e is pretty universal in Siouan (as opposed to Catawban), but I'm less sure of *(h)a. I should say frankly that as far as deriving nominal ablaut from demonstratives or articles, that I have never received any particular encouragement in that regard from other Siouanists so nobody else needs to take it very seriously. In fact, I should admit that there is a strong precedent for not taking it very seriously. Everybody has their views on the awkward final vowels of nouns across Siouan, of course. When the typical vowel development rule in Siouan is V[alpha features] => V[alpha features], with only the occasional raising of e and o to i and u, you know something is up, and students have not failed to notice the problem. I have noticed different approaches or attempts at summarization by Ken Miner, Dick Carter, and Bob Rankin in the past. I have to confess that I'm not sure at the moment what the views of Wolff and Matthews and Kaufman have been, but I'm sure they puzzled over it, too. Incidentally, to give credit where it's due, the whole conception of deriving thematic (and thus often gender markers) on nouns from absorbed articles (in the larger sense) derives from a paper by Greenberg. This may tend to make Americanists bridle, influenced by his ideas on classification, but I think in this instance his conclusions are sound. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 07:18:28 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 01:18:28 -0600 Subject: Ablaut In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > I'm pretty certain that iNktE is a compound of two morphemes, one the more > or less widely attested *kte irrealis or future, which takes the e-grade > in Dakotan (where it doesn't take the iN grade) and Dhegiha, the other the > *iN that leads to the iN grade and which I suspect provides the iN in OP > (e)=iN=the 'perhaps'. I have a notion that the iN may also show up with > the future in Ioway-Otoe and/or Winnebago. I'll try to look that up. Winnebago has the intentive kj^e < *kte, and the future kj^ane < *kte + ???. If the latter is added to a consonant final stem a vowel i is inserted between the stem and kj^ane. It is also possible to insert the i into the last syllable of the stem and delete the k: rac^oop 'to chew' > rac^oobikj^ane' ~ rac^oipjane See Lipkind, section 17, p. 10. For a discussion of the two suffixes meanings, see sections 48 & 49, p. 36. Note that the declarative takes the form naN after kje (kjenaN), so clearly -ne is not the declarative. In Mandan, per Kennard p. 18, the future is -kt, usually ktoc (declarative suffix addressing men added) or ktore (dec. suffix addressing women added). In subordinate clauses the form is ktek. The k of the future is lost, reducing it to -t... if it is added to a consonant final stem. Compare the second pattern in Winnebago. The reduction of the cluster is natural enough, so we need not assume this represents any inherited pattern. (Note that Hollow corrects the phonology of the declarative to males to o?s^.) It's not entirely clear if the epenthetic or intrusive i of the Winnebago future has anything to do with the iN of the Dakotan future, but it seems likely that it does, in spite of the lack of nasalization. It's noteworthy that it is separate from ablaut. For what it's worth, the Ioway-Otoe future is -hne ~ hna (the n is palatalized before e). The usual assumption is that it this is related somehow to *kte, but the details are obscure. It looks more like the extra ne on the end of the Winnebago affix. Something like hje ~ hda would be more regular for *kte. JEK From BARudes at aol.com Mon Sep 3 16:56:04 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 12:56:04 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: Paul Voorhis wrote: >The future marker in Catawba is part of the clause-final marking system >(like Dakota do, ye, he, wo, 7, or Winnebago -(Sa)na, -re, -gi.). Maybe >ka:te7 'indeed' or even ka:te(:)se 'the next time', the latter attested >only once, are cognates with *ktE. No sign of *iNktE though. Catawbas today use the particle kate (with accent on the last vowel) both as an adverb meaning and as the word for . The semantics of relating this to -ktE or the related forms in other Siouan languages seem difficult. Paul Voorhis wrote: >Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, >certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. I agree. Incidentally, Catawba da: is underllyingly , with automatic shift of morphophonemic /r/ to /d/ when word-initial. Paul Voorhis wrote: >As for the plural, there is a noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), >apparently meaning 'more than one', found in the published texts, >whose pronunciation is probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a >possible cognate with the pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good >evidence that it had an initial vowel. Although Siebert also analyzed wi as general pluralizer, all of the data I have show it to be the non-first person, plural object proclitic on verbs (i.e., it means or ). It forms a set of object proclitics with ni , yi , and nu . Third person singular objects are not marked by a proclitic. There is also another object proclitic, pa , which is used for indefinite objects. I think Catawba pa may be a better candidate for being cognate with Siouan *-(a)pi than is wi. Paul Voorhis wrote: >I think John is using the term Proto-Siouan to mean the ancestor of all >the Siouan languages after the separation of the Catawban group. I know >that is also what I was thinking of when I first used the term, but of >course there's also an ancestor of Catawban and the rest of Siouan >further back in time that I think we all, or just I (?), usually also >refer to as Proto-Siouan. I assumed the same think, and I concur with John's usage (in a subsequent email) of the term Proto-Siouan-Catawban for the ancestor of the Siouan and Catawban languages. My quibble is with how we use the term pre-Proto-Siouan. Since the only well documented Catawban language (at the moment, but see below) is Catawba, in both its dialects, unless a feature is attested both in the Siouan languages and Catawban languages, it cannot be ascribed to Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Since Catawba is the only language that we are sure is distantly related to Siouan (although Yuchi may someday be proven to be in the same boat), for something to be securely pre-Proto-Siouan, it must be attested in Catawba, and therefore belong to Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Anything ascribed to a purported pre-Proto-Siouan that is not attested in Catawba is presumably an internal reconstruction within Proto-Siouan. While internal reconstruction within Proto-Siouan is fine, the results must be viewed with great caution when they cannot be confirmed with data from Catawba. Now for the possibility of data on other Catawban languages. To make a long story short, back in 1567, Juan Pardo left his chaplain, Father Montero, behind in the Carolinas to set up a mission to the Wateree Indians in the heart of Catawban-speaking territory. After about 5 years, Montero left and no knew what had become of his records. Last fall, I met Claudia Heinemann-Priest's mother, Professor Barbara Heinemann, who teachers in the Modern and Classical Languages Department at Winthrop University. She mentioned that she was going to be chaperoning a group of students to Havana this summer, and I asked her to look in the archives there to see if there were any manuscripts from Spanish missions to the Southeast. Barbara and I have only spoken briefly since she got back, but she reports that she found the records from a number of Spanish missions in the Southeast, including the records of the mission to the Wateree by Father Montero. The records are currently being copied through support form Winthrop University, and it may be some time before they are catalogued and available for research. However, since Father Montero was reportedly a Jesuit, and we know that he missionized to not only the Wateree, but the surrounding villages as well, there is every reason to believe that new data on Catawban languages (as well as data on other little known languages of the Southeast such as Guale, Yamassee, Cusabo and Calusa) will become available in the not too distant future. Paul Voorhis wrote: >There are no probable cognates in Catawba for putative articles or >demonstratives *a or *e, as far as I know. Blair has more extensive and >accurate material to work with, though, and may be able to suggest >something for these and the other Siouan forms discussed here. >Likewise, I'll count on him to correct my transcriptions since the >material I work with is rather unreliable, especially in the marking of >vowel length. Catawba has numerous demonstratives that differentiate fine degrees of proximity, but Paul is correct that none of them bear any resemblance to *a or *e. (Paul, your transcriptions were fine.) Blair From rankin at ku.edu Mon Sep 3 17:48:48 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 12:48:48 -0500 Subject: PL and 'future' Message-ID: >I'm pretty certain that iNktE is a compound of two morphemes, one the more or less widely attested *kte irrealis or future, which takes the e-grade in Dakotan (where it doesn't take the iN grade) and Dhegiha, the other the *iN that leads to the iN grade and which I suspect provides the iN in OP(e)=iN=the 'perhaps'. There's more on this in the archives of the list. I recall discussing it last year. > The future marker was discussed above. As for the plural, there is a > noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), apparently meaning 'more > than one', found in the published texts, whose pronunciation is > probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a possible cognate with the > pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good evidence that it had an initial > vowel. > How interesting and somewhat awkward! So, like the iN in the iNkte > future, the a in the api plural would have to have a secondary origin. While that's always possible, w/p correspondences between Siouan and Catawba are not established. The for the most part the only ones that are established are one to one with allowances for the d~r alternations, etc. It seems premature to claim an irregular Catawba cognate for a morpheme that doesn't even occur in Crow/Hidatsa, Mandan (?) or OVS. The overall meaning of kte is much closer to 'irrealis' than 'future'. I tend to agree w/ Blair that the semantics is a bit dicey here. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 19:58:46 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 13:58:46 -0600 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <155.6113bb.28c51024@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > Paul Voorhis wrote: > > >As for the plural, there is a noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), > >apparently meaning 'more than one', found in the published texts, > >whose pronunciation is probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a > >possible cognate with the pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good > >evidence that it had an initial vowel. > > Although Siebert also analyzed wi as general pluralizer, all of the data I > have show it to be the non-first person, plural object proclitic on verbs > (i.e., it means or ). It forms a set of object > proclitics with ni , yi , and nu . Third person > singular objects are not marked by a proclitic. There is also another object > proclitic, pa , which is used for indefinite objects. I think Catawba > pa may be a better candidate for being cognate with Siouan *-(a)pi than is wi. It's interesting that wi covers both second person and third. Not that Siouan-Catawban doesn't have some other interesting concatenations of person. It appears that Winnebago may use ne (phonologically odd, too) as an independent pronominal of both the first and second persons (Lipkind, p. 29). Actually, it is usually accompanied by an enclitic with a sense like 'only', and proclitic to a form that that does distinguish person, but the use of a cover form seems unusual. But what I was thinking of is that at least some Siouan languages use different plurals for different persons, e..g, Mandan has nothing for the first (but does have ruN- as a special first person plural pronominal), riNt for the second, and kere (< *kre) for the third. Tutelo has nothing for the first person again, but pu' for the second person and helE' for the third (perhaps again from *kre, though the development would probably be phonologically irregular). So there is some precedent in Siouan for plural marking categorizing or correlating with persons, and in cases of categorizing first is usually opposed to second plus third. Mandan has the a-grade before riNt (which also inserts an i if it follows a consonant), but, apparently, the e-grade before kere. Tutelo had the a-grade before helE', but it looks pu, doesn't cause ablaut, and, if anything, may delete some of the stem final. Tutelo does have a potential marker tE (no initial k), and this conditions the ablaut grade i (or sometimes e). Tutelo uses the a-grade in citation forms. (Manda information from Kennard in IJAL, and Hollow's dissertation. Tutelo information from Oliverio's dissertation.) From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 20:20:38 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:20:38 -0600 Subject: Pre and Proto- (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <155.6113bb.28c51024@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > My quibble is with how we use the term pre-Proto-Siouan. Since the > only well documented Catawban language (at the moment, but see below) > is Catawba, in both its dialects, unless a feature is attested both in > the Siouan languages and Catawban languages, it cannot be ascribed to > Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Since Catawba is the only language that we are > sure is distantly related to Siouan (although Yuchi may someday be > proven to be in the same boat), for something to be securely > pre-Proto-Siouan, it must be attested in Catawba, and therefore belong > to Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Anything ascribed to a purported > pre-Proto-Siouan that is not attested in Catawba is presumably an > internal reconstruction within Proto-Siouan. While internal > reconstruction within Proto-Siouan is fine, the results must be viewed > with great caution when they cannot be confirmed with data from > Catawba. I had always understood proto-X to refer to a language (or some details of it) reconstructed across a family of languages X, while pre-X referred to internal reconstructions within a language X. So, pre-Mandan would refer to internal reconstruction within Mandan, and pre-proto-Siouan to internal reconstruction within proto-Siouan, not to a proto-langauge at one remove from proto-Siouan. Hence, pre-proto-Siouan would not need to reflect anything from Catawban or to equate with pre-proto-Siouan-Catawban. Naturally, anyone looking at pre-proto-Siouan, or even wondering about proto-Siouan per se would feel free to be influenced by knowledge of Catawban. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 20:24:55 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:24:55 -0600 Subject: Go (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <155.6113bb.28c51024@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > Paul Voorhis wrote: > >Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, > >certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. > > I agree. Incidentally, Catawba da: is underllyingly , with > automatic shift of morphophonemic /r/ to /d/ when word-initial. As far as I know, Mississippi Valley and Southeastern all suggest *rE. But Mandan has the abstract stem reh, or re when nothing follows, but reh- when something relevant does, e.g., the third person singular declarative reho?s^. Crow has dEE, but Hidatsa has rEEhE, with the second syllable manifesting in the plural only. So Siouan has some evidence for a longer form. Perhaps the hE is some additional morpheme or analogical extension that is shared by Mandan and Hidatsa, which greatly influence each other, though they are not that closely related. That is, Crow and Hisatsa are clearly closely related, and Mandan is at least at a further remove from them, perhaps belonging with Mississippi Valley. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 20:35:06 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:35:06 -0600 Subject: bows (and arrows) In-Reply-To: <133F43D1B91@soas.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Aug 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote: > 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 seems > like a very superfluous derivation. Any ideas ... I've been meaning to say that 'arrow' like wiNyaN 'woman' seems to include a final h a number of the languages and that this may have something to do with the failure of w to nasalize m in these two words. WiNyaN seems to be wiN and wi in compounds and I assume that the yaN is an "epenthetic" a, separated from the stem by epenthetic y and nasalized across the y, cf. he- ~ heya, etc. It is not clear that the -h- in waNhiNkpe is derived from this PS h. OP has just maN or moN, but would, of course, lose the final h. I suspect the root is just waN in Dakotan and that the h is secondary, though it might as well be from hu as hi. Also, isn't huNkpa also 'end'? JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Mon Sep 3 22:58:49 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 18:58:49 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: In Crow, noun stems ending in i and a have an e-grade that occurs as the citation form and when the the noun occurs with no further suffixation. E.g., bili' 'water' (stem), bile' (citation form). When the definite article is added to a noun, it is always added to the e-grade, eg, bile'e-sh 'the water'. This would support some kind of connection between e-grade and definiteness. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Sep 4 03:59:18 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 21:59:18 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: <108.4ed4d1a.28c56529@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > In Crow, noun stems ending in i and a have an e-grade that occurs as the > citation form and when the the noun occurs with no further suffixation. > E.g., bili' 'water' (stem), bile' (citation form). When the definite article > is added to a noun, it is always added to the e-grade, eg, bile'e-sh 'the > water'. This would support some kind of connection between e-grade and > definiteness. It occurs to me to mention that Mandan has a kind of noun-marker e that is omitted in some contexts, e.g., in compounding, but also some independent contexts. Hollow treats it as an epenthetic vowel, if I remember, but Kennard thought it was morphological. Nouns often display a final -r- or -h- or -?- when the e is added, e.g., ko ~ kore. The -r- could be something of a default, as -r- is the usual separator of two vowels, one of them high in Plains languages where y ands r have merged or for some other reason there is no y. This would be my assumption. However, is is also not inconceivable that some Proto-Siouan nouns ended in -r (*-r or (*-y) and some Siouanists have favored this analysis at least at time. I don't think anyone would claim that e is an article. In fact, Mandan has an enclitic or suffix -s (matches Crow s^) that is the definite article. The Mandan e is somewhat reminsicent of the Winnebago -ra, though I don't know that anyone has looked at their functions in any detail. From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Tue Sep 4 16:07:51 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 11:07:51 -0500 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) Message-ID: Koontz John E wrote: > It appears that Winnebago may use ne (phonologically odd, too) as > an independent pronominal of both the first and second persons (Lipkind, > p. 29). Actually, it is usually accompanied by an enclitic with a sense > like 'only', and proclitic to a form that that does distinguish person, > but the use of a cover form seems unusual. Winnebago not only uses /nee/ in addition to either first or second person affixes to express emphasis or contrast, but with third person forms, /ee/ is used for the same purpose. Historians, is the latter another example of the demonstrative *e, implicated in the development of Siouan ablaut, and surviving in Winnebago as an independent word without affixes? Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Sep 4 16:50:56 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:50:56 -0600 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <3B94FC57.18217808@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Sep 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > Winnebago not only uses /nee/ in addition to either first or second > person affixes to express emphasis or contrast, but with third person > forms, /ee/ is used for the same purpose. Historians, is the latter > another example of the demonstrative *e, implicated in the development > of Siouan ablaut, and surviving in Winnebago as an independent word > without affixes? Lipkind mentions the ee for the third person, too. I just didn't pass that along. In answer to the question, I believe so. Actually, the demonstrative e(e) 'the aforesaid' is essentially the third person independent pronominal throughout Mississippi Siouan. Its involvement in ablaut isn't universally recognized, but the use of ee as a sort of discourse-based demonstative, i.e., a third person pronominal, is recognized and generally reported. Of course, like other independent pronominals in Siouan it has an inherently emphatic or contrastive sense, and this affects its behavior in various ways that may perhaps make it seem less pronominal to English observers. Recently I've begun to suspect that use of e after clauses and demonstratives, etc., in OP might amount to the equivalent of a cleft in English: blah-blah e ... = it is blah blah that ... But this isn't really anything new, since e is emphatic-contrastive in Siouan, and that's basically what a cleft does in English. All I'm really suggesting is that in various cases e follows some larger entity to lend its contrastive strength to it. I suspect others have had the same thought, perhaps for other languages. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 4 20:40:15 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:40:15 -0500 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) Message-ID: >Winnebago not only uses /nee/ in addition to either first or second person affixes to express emphasis or contrast, but with third person forms, /ee/ is used for the same purpose. Historians, is the latter another example of the demonstrative *e, implicated in the development of Siouan ablaut, and surviving in Winnebago as an independent word without affixes? /?ee/ seems to be the least marked of the demonstratives and it fits in the same slots as /ree/, /s^ee/ and /ka/. It would *seem* to be the same particle that compounds with stative pronominal prefixes to form the contrastive pronoun set, /*wiN-?e/, /*yiN-?e/, etc., although the /e/ here could possibly be one of the elusive 'be' verbs. In some languages /e-/ seems to have replaced the 3rd person /i-/ of the possessive prefix paradigms. It also appears as an attached "preverb" in verbs like /ee-he/ 'to say this/that'. I've never seen any convincing evidence that there is, or ever was, an e/a "article" pair, but this is something John and I have disagreed about early and often. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 4 20:50:19 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:50:19 -0500 Subject: Demonstrative /7ee/ again. Message-ID: As I work my thru my email I see that John and I have substantially the same answer to Paul's query. I hope that's a good sign; there is much about Siouan morphological history yet to be worked out. >Recently I've begun to suspect that use of e after clauses and demonstratives, etc., in OP might amount to the equivalent of a cleft in English: blah-blah e ... = it is blah blah that ... But this isn't really anything new, since e is emphatic-contrastive in Siouan, and that's basically what a cleft does in English. All I'm really suggesting is that in various cases e follows some larger entity to lend its contrastive strength to it. I suspect others have had the same thought, perhaps for other languages. The only thing I might add is that we need to be mindful of the problem of homophony here. There are postverbal particles of the shape /?e/ and /he/ in different subgroups that seem to be the 'be' of location. (The glottal stop in the former variant is presumably epenthetic and a 'Grenzsignal' as ?/h is not an equation within MVS as far as I know.) Demonstrative /?ee/ and ontological /(h)e/ may both occur after clauses. This could lead to reinterpretation of syntactic functions by speakers. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 4 21:43:12 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 16:43:12 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: >> In Crow, noun stems ending in i and a have an e-grade that occurs as the citation form and when the the noun occurs with no further suffixation. E.g., bili' 'water' (stem), bile' (citation form). When the definite article is added to a noun, it is always added to the e-grade, eg, bile'e-sh 'the water'. This would support some kind of connection between e-grade and definiteness. I suspect this is a sound change. Short e and o raise in final position but are retained preceding the suffix/enclitic. I suspect that's the source of Paul's Winnebago -i before affixes too. >It occurs to me to mention that Mandan has a kind of noun-marker e that is omitted in some contexts, e.g., in compounding, but also some independent contexts. Hollow treats it as an epenthetic vowel, if I remember, but Kennard thought it was morphological. Nouns often display a final -r- or -h- or -?- when the e is added, e.g., ko ~ kore. The -r- could be something of a default, as -r- is the usual separator of two vowels, one of them high in Plains languages where y ands r have merged or for some other reason there is no y. This would be my assumption. However, s is also not inconceivable that some Proto-Siouan nouns ended in -r (*-r or (*-y) and some Siouanists have favored this analysis at least at time. I don't have time to summarize all the discussion Dick, Wes, John and I have had over Mandan -re. It is extensive. Suffice it to say that some like a phonological solution by which -e is epenthetic and then -r- is epenthetic to break up the VV cluster (if I remember correctly). My own analysis is more in line with Kennards and is morphological and looks upon -re as meaning something like "it's a X", where X is the noun. There are also verbal suffixes -re and -he that recur often but without easily specifiable meaning at this point. Bob From BARudes at aol.com Wed Sep 5 01:00:34 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 21:00:34 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: Bob Rankin wrote: I don't have time to summarize all the discussion Dick, Wes, John and I have had over Mandan -re. It is extensive. Suffice it to say that some like a phonological solution by which -e is epenthetic and then -r- is epenthetic to break up the VV cluster (if I remember correctly). My own analysis is more in line with Kennards and is morphological and looks upon -re as meaning something like "it's a X", where X is the noun. There are also verbal suffixes -re and -he that recur often but without easily specifiable meaning at this point. As possible support for Bob's analysis, the Catawba indiciative modal suffix (-re:) means basically '(it) is X', and can occur with any part of speech to create a predicate. Blair From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 5 06:07:38 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 00:07:38 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: Kennard's view of -e on Mandan nouns is: p. 26, "The indefinite article is the suffix -[eta] (i.e., a short e)." p. 6, "Whenever a suffix beginning with a vowel is used with a stem ending in a vowel, an r is inserted between the two vowels." I don't see any sign of a -re verbal suffix. I think Catawba has one. And Biloxi has a -di on verbs and I think nouns that would match. === As far as e vs. a demonstratives, I think that the e form is clear and reconstructable for Proto-Siouan, if evidently not Proto-Siouan-Catawban. The a or ha form (?*Ha) is more obscure, but here's the data, including the initials of 'day' to show the *H correspondence. I'm not sure what *H represents. I don't mean to imply it's a new proto-phoneme. It seems to be an h that's there is some languages and not in others. I think that Chafe reconstructed *rh for this set ('day' that is), though it's not the same *rh that Allan Taylor reconstructed for quite a different kind of set (like 'arrive here'). The r comes from reflexes in Southeastern. It's not absolutely clear whether the *Ha demonstrative is the same set as *HaNp- 'day', because it has more restricted distribution. Some sort of grammatical alternation may be at work in 'day', perhaps one of Bob's obsolete classifier prefixes. The *Ha demonstrative is primarily found active in Dhegiha, though perhaps it also occurs in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago. Dakotan - I'm not really sure of anything for the *Ha demonstrative. The usual interrogative root is tV. For the initial correspondence cf. aNpe'=tu 'day', aNb=wa's^te 'pleasant day'. Omaha-Ponca - a'=gu=di 'where', a'=thaN 'when, how far, how long', a'=na(N)ska 'of what size, how big', a'=na(N) 'how many', a'=xt(i)=aN 'how possibly' = 'how on earth' (?), e=a'=thaN ~ e=a'=c^haN 'how', a'=daN 'therefore'. All these forms are indefinite as well as interrogative. Some of them have parallels with e= as the demonstrative root, like e=na(N) 'that many'. Some do not and some seem to have both e and a, interestingly enough. For the initial correspondence in OP cf. aN'ba 'day'. There is also a form a'wa- that seems to mean something like 'which of two (or several?)' that can serve as a demonstrative base that might be connected. This has a variant or maybe just a resemblant alternative wiaNwa that is better distributed in the rest of Dhegiha. Dorsey claims that a=the=di, a=khe=di, etc., exist as '(some)where' forms, but I've only seen a'wa=the=di, etc., in the texts. I'll skip Osage in favor of Kaw, since they're fairly similar. Kaw - hago'j^idaN 'when', hago'ha 'where, whither', hakhaN' 'when, how far, how long', ha'yoNska 'how big', ha'naN 'how many, how much', hago', ha'go 'why', hago'daN 'why, how come'. For the initial correspondence haN'ba 'day'. I've omitted boundaries here and in Quapaw, though they're probably quite analogous with OP. I'm not absolutely positive about an analysis like ha=go=j^i=daN, especially given the Quapaw form ha'kidede (modified from ha'kudidaN?), but I make the analysis of OP a'gudi in internal terms 'something' = gu 'yonder' = di LOCATIVE or something like 'where away'. Quapaw - ha'kidede- 'where', haki'ttaN 'whence', hathaN'- 'when', ha'naska 'how big/small, what size', hana(N)' iNke 'some' ~ hana (h)itte (or hide) 'how many', hanaN' 'how much'. For the intial correspondence haN'ba 'day', haNba' 'light'. Ioway-Otoe - JGT lists ha, ha?e 'that', but the indefinite demonstrative is ta(N) and I'm not at all sure of the status or usage of ha. For the initial correspondence, cf. haN'we 'day'. Winnebago - The usual interrogative demonstrative is j^aa. There are a few possiblities for ha in the form of hac^aNga' 'which one', hac^iNiNj^a (< hac^aNiNj^a, per Lipkind) 'where', haga' 'time, occurrence, intance'. For the correspondence, cf. haN'aNp 'day'. Hawa?uN' 'that's why' looks like hawa + uN. These could be fossils of *Ha and *Hawa, but maybe not. By way of a demonstration that the initial of 'day' is not the usual h, compare it with 'night', which is consistently haN(he). So there's definitely a Proto-Siouan demonstrative e, and there's definitely a Dhegiha, possibly a Proto-Mississippi Valley, "demonstrative" (indefinite/interogative root) *Ha. The real issue is whether they have anything to do with the finals of nouns - or in some restricted ways - of verbs. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 5 06:24:31 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 00:24:31 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I don't have time to summarize all the discussion Dick, Wes, John and I have > had over Mandan -re. Ah yes, the R-Wars. I'd try to summarize them, but (a) I'm not sure everyone stuck to one point of view throughout, which makes them rather complex to summarize. I think everyone's views altered in some ways from one year to the next. Also (b), I'm not sure I remember precisely what each person thought. Not well enough to do them each justice, anyway, and that makes things impossible to summarize. I have a hard enough time remembering what I think about the subject. Finally, (c) heaven forbid that the Third R-War should break out. Even the knowledge that the Romans built a new Carthage shortly after they won the third Punic war and sowed the site of Carthage with salt isn't all that encouraging. Et Carthago delenda est, anyone? Just kidding. From rankin at ku.edu Wed Sep 5 14:46:13 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 09:46:13 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: >As far as e vs. a demonstratives, I think that the e form is clear and reconstructable for Proto-Siouan, if evidently not Proto-Siouan-Catawban. I assume this is what we've been reconstructing as *7ee? It is an unmarked demonstrative in most or all Siouan languages as far as I know. Both length and the glottal stop are clearly present in some forms and need to be reconstructed. >The a or ha form (?*Ha) is more obscure, but here's the data, I see what John is talking about here. I'm familiar with the Dhegiha data on these, but I've always thought of ha- as equivalent to WH-forms, not TH-forms to use the English analog. I guess I've just never called these demonstratives. >Kaw - hago'j^idaN 'when', hago'ha 'where, whither', hakhaN' 'when, how far, how long', ha'yoNska 'how big', ha'naN 'how many, how much', hago', ha'go 'why', hago'daN 'why, how come'. >So there's definitely a Proto-Siouan demonstrative e, and there's definitely a Dhegiha, possibly a Proto-Mississippi Valley, "demonstrative" (indefinite/interogative root) *Ha. The real issue is whether they have anything to do with the finals of nouns - or in some restricted ways - of verbs. I think I would generally resist the notion that we have derivational affixes that can be either preposed or postposed. It's not out of the question if resegmentation/reassociation can be demonstrated, but it is far too permissive for me to accept as a general principle of reconstruction. In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share neither function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any discernable sense. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 5 15:47:20 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 09:47:20 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I assume this is what we've been reconstructing as *7ee? It is an unmarked > demonstrative in most or all Siouan languages as far as I know. Both length > and the glottal stop are clearly present in some forms and need to be > reconstructed. Yes. I've neglected the length because it seems to come and go and the glottalization because I'm mainly aware of it where e(e) follows another demonstrative and take it for a boundary phenomenon as Bob mentioned earlier. > I see what John is talking about here. I'm familiar with the Dhegiha data on > these, but I've always thought of ha- as equivalent to WH-forms, not > TH-forms to use the English analog. I guess I've just never called these > demonstratives. It's somewhat moot to call them demonstratives, but I'm using the term as a sort of cover term for the morphemes that can combine with the set of postpositions and things like *ra(N) 'number', *raNska 'size', etc., plus *(k)uN 'manner'. (What do we call these last few things, anyway?) > >Kaw - hago'j^idaN 'when', hago'ha 'where, whither', hakhaN' 'when, how > far, how long', ha'yoNska 'how big', ha'naN 'how many, how much', hago', > ha'go 'why', hago'daN 'why, how come'. Incidentally, I think -go here in 'why' is a denasalized version of OP -goN (or -gaN) as in the problematic egoN (or *-kuN), but in hago'j^idaN it looks like it matches OP -gu- as in agudi 'where'. > >So there's definitely a Proto-Siouan demonstrative e, and there's > definitely a Dhegiha, possibly a Proto-Mississippi Valley, "demonstrative" > (indefinite/interogative root) *Ha. The real issue is whether they have > anything to do with the finals of nouns - or in some restricted ways - > of verbs. > > I think I would generally resist the notion that we have derivational > affixes that can be either preposed or postposed. It's not out of the > question if resegmentation/reassociation can be demonstrated, but it is far > too permissive for me to accept as a general principle of reconstruction. I would probably resist a derivational morpheme that was both prefixal and suffixal myself, at least in a general way ,but I don't have any problem with a prefix and a suffix coming from the same historical source, say a demonstrtative. It's clear that there's nothing problematical about both ga=tta 'to(ward) yon' and s^aNge=ga 'yon canine/horse' (emphasizing enclisis of the demonstrative with intent). And e=tta 'to it' or 'to the aforesaid' is also not a problem. I think s^aNge e would be 'it is the horse that', but I'd have to look for examples to be fully confident of exact parallels in current OP. However, I'm not at all worried about the potential for something like *s^unk(...) e 'the aforesaid canine' existing in Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan. If what is later an affix starts as an independent syntactic element, it's ability to occur before some things and after others depends on the syntax of the language. > In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share neither > function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any discernable > sense. They do occur in oppositions like e=na(N) 'that many, so many' and a=na(N) 'some quantity' or 'how many', which willy nilly yokes them into a pair. Of course, it's a pair that's part of a larger set, including also dhe=na(N), s^e=na(N), and ga=na(N), though I think that the potential of all the demonstratives (and fellow travelers) to occur with all the "post-demonstrative elements" is not equal. I don't know that any of the last three, for example, are attested except in Dorsey's manuscript tables, which may overgeneralize. What I can definitely say I have never seen is a free-floating Dhegiha (h)a "demonstrative" following a noun or clause. Of course, that's just what I'm assuming may have existed at any earlier PMV date. As far as indefinites following nouns generally, I'd say that du'ba 'some' definitely looks like it might have the *tV-stem in it, but, of course, that interrogative/indefinite stem is indefinite enough in form that I can't be very definite about that. Du'ba does definitely follow nouns, though, as in s^aNge duba 'some horses'. I do think it's only a coincidence that that du'ba 'some' falls together with du'ba 'four' in Omaha-Ponca. === Not that I've found Indo-Europeanists are any more thrilled about the possibility than Siouanists, but it's interesting note that the noun thematic suffixes e/o and aa in PIE bear a strong resemblance to the third person/demonstrative elements of PIE, too. Interestingly, however, I think that at least some Indo-Europeanists (Shields?) do think that the e/o thematic affix in PIE verbs might reflect a (definite) third person object concord verb paradigm, on the analogy of similar patterns in Uralic languages. Presumably athematic verbs would be the paradigm without object concord. (I don't mean to imply that I think such an explanation would account for verbal ablaut in Siouan.) From rankin at ku.edu Wed Sep 5 20:45:06 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 15:45:06 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: >I've neglected the length because it seems to come and go ... This is because Siouanists apart from Crow and Hidatsa have so desperately tried to ignore it. In fact, we have no idea what the length alternations are in any Siouan language outside of those two. >and the glottalization because I'm mainly aware of it where e(e) follows another demonstrative and take it for a boundary phenomenon as Bob mentioned earlier. Two things: (1) this is a glottal that is retained even word-internally in Kaw, so I tend to think it is organic, and (2) the one I mentioned earlier was not the demonstrative but rather *he 'be' (probably locative, certainly so in Dhegiha) that shows up in Dakotan (if my memory of these discussions is right) as ?e. >I would probably resist a derivational morpheme that was both prefixal and suffixal myself, at least in a general way ,but I don't have any problem with a prefix and a suffix coming from the same historical source, say a demonstrtative. Maybe I haven't understood, but that seems to be assuming what you're trying to prove. I think, though, that we may have reached our usual impass where I assume homophony where John assumes polysemy. This has happened many times over the past 15 years or so. >...ga=tta 'to(ward) yon' and s^aNge=ga 'yon canine/horse' (emphasizing enclisis of the demonstrative with intent). I've never been able to elicit demonstratives optionally following their head like shonge-ga. Maybe something where both shonge and ga were heads like shonge=akha ga=akha or the like, not the former. If both ga shonge and shonge ga occur as constituents below the S level, then I stand corrected. >And e=tta 'to it' or 'to the aforesaid' is also not a problem. I think s^aNge e would be 'it is the horse that', but I'd have to look for examples to be fully confident of exact parallels in current OP. To me it might possibly mean 'that one is a horse', but again here, both would be heads. E would be a predicate. Intonation and accent in such cases tends to preclude enclisis. > However, I'm not at all worried about the potential for something like *s^unk(...) e 'the aforesaid canine' existing in Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan. That's what I do worry about. I think that any such grammaticalization clines we assume have to be demonstrated very carefully, and hopefully with different extant languages showing different stages. It's easy to say "oh, demonstratives, they can be grammaticalized anywhere...". It might even be true in some languages, but I'd want to spend a lot of time looking at lots of data before I'd want to accept it. >> In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share neither function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any discernable sense. >They do occur in oppositions like e=na(N) 'that many, so many' and a=na(N) 'some quantity' or 'how many', which willy nilly yokes them into a pair. It's true they occur consistently in Dhegiha in WH/TH pairs, but not as members of the same class of objects. They are all WHich one/THis one, how many/this many, how long/that long, etc. pairs. >Of course, it's a pair that's part of a larger set, including also dhe=na(N), s^e=na(N), and ga=na(N),... These only occur in a paradigm with the TH pair of the set. None occurs in the WH set. It is the TH group, namely, ?ee, *ree, *shee, *ga that form a set. Ha- is not a member of that set. But we're losing track of what we're being asked to believe. Personally, I just think it extremely unlikely that the Ha that forms WH questions in Dhegiha (and sometimes maybe Winn./Chiwere too) and is always a root turns up as a suffix -a on a few nouns, has nothing to do with Q-formation, is some sort of demonstrative and explains noun ablaut. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Fri Sep 7 01:47:44 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 20:47:44 -0500 Subject: OP e'iNte Message-ID: John, >> 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. There is no breve over the final -e in the examples of e'iNte I've looked at since reading this post, and the potentiality marker tte seemed to me like a better candidate for the end of this "whatever" word than the "vertical", "stacked", "bundled" positional the. So I ran it by our three native speakers in class yesterday. It took some coaxing, and Mark's excellent solicitation skills, to get them to come around to this question, but in the end they agreed firmly that the final syllable of e'iNte is aspirated -the, not -tte as in buffalo. So I think we've confirmed that your phonological analysis of e'iNte as e=iN=the is correct! Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Sep 8 00:51:40 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 19:51:40 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: >> 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. > John: > 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. > 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. I think we substantially agree on conditions (b) and (c), in which the old *(a)pi with its normal use-value is clearly fossilized as =bi. Of course, even here there is an issue of whether the shift from =bi to =i was conditioned phonologically or semantically. If it was conditioned phonologically, then we should rather expect the change to occur in the names and songs anyway, no matter how much lack of change was prized, since the change would be gradual and in the absence of writing it would be difficult to know what was original. If it was conditioned semantically, however, then =i would have appeared in productive form as a quantum jump. In that case, the preservation of the old forms within previously established "texts" would be only natural, without even having to assume any special effort to keep them. Regarding condition (a), I don't think the pattern you're trying to extract will be very helpful. I think we've identified just two common words that fit that pattern here: ama' and egaN'. Of these, ama' does show signs of partially fusing with the preceding =bi, and if it were the only case of =bi in productive speech, then you could certainly make a good argument that the bi- in biama' was simply a fossil relic preserved by its fusion with ama'. With egaN', however, there is no sign of fusion that I can see in Dorsey, and it can be preceded equally well by =bi or by =i. Another important word you need to consider is the conjunction ki, "when". This word does not fit the phonological pattern, but it does share with egaN' the status of being a conjunction normally governing entire statement clauses. In general, ki implies that the foregoing clause sets the scene for the following clause, while egaN' means that the foregoing cause offers some sort of explanation or prerequisite for the following clause. Like egaN', ki can be preceded indifferently by =bi or =i, or for that matter, by biama', or ama', or none of the above. The =bi or =i, or biama' or ama', simply belong to the preceding clause and have nothing to do with the conjunction that follows them. They are terminators of statements. If we want to understand what distinguishes them, we need to look in the other direction, to the statement they belong to. The material in Dorsey that I have seen so far consists of myths-- traditional stories to which the narrator cannot personally attest. The material can be divided into narration statements, in which the narrator is describing what happened, and dialogue, in which characters in the story are directly quoted. The narration comprises the bulk of the text, probably at least 70%, but there is still a substantial amount of dialogue. In the dialogue, =bi hardly ever occurs, and when it does it is associated with irrealis conditions. I pointed out a couple of examples about a month ago, in which =bi was tacked onto the end of a noun or stative verb to indicate that the previous was an assumption based on what had been heard, rather than a fact grounded in direct experience. In both of these cases, Dorsey had a note explaining that that was what was going on. In the narrative, however, =bi is overwhelmingly common as a statement terminator. This is most notably the case with the incessant "biama"s that complete almost every sentence, but it is also in those same "biama" sentences that we can expect to find a =bi terminating the statement clauses that precede the conjunctions ki and egaN'. In the dialogue, we generally find an =i after the final verb of a third-person statement, in the same position that we would usually find a =bi in the narrative. The presence of =i or =bi in either case seems to have nothing to do with plurality; they will appear in the singular as well as the plural. (I believe John has pointed this out long ago.) The =i seems to be a declarative particle used to terminate active statements, at least in the third person. The =bi particle functions the same way grammatically, except that it indicates that the preceding statement is a supposition, or an inference based on hearsay, and hence to be doubted. All narrative statements in the myths are third person and based on hearsay, and hence properly should be qualified with =bi. Most of them are. There is a significant minority of them, however, that use the standard declarative =i form. In these cases, the sentence usually seems to be short. I think these cases are probably lapses from the proper but tedious =bi form into standard declarative form for a momentary wake-up effect. This may be similar to a narrator in English telling a story set in the past, but shifting into present tense now and then for dramatic effect. One more use of =bi can be found in its alternation with =i after tta. X tta=i means X _will_ happen, but X tta=bi means that X was supposed to happen (but didn't). This usage can be found several times in the story "The Chief's Son and the Thunders", pages 177 - 179. The chief's son tells his scouts: Ni'khawasaN', e'gidhe dhiti'gaN wiN ... t?e'dhadhe ttai' ha. Warriors, beware lest you kill one of your grandfathers! The scouts go out and make an attempt to kill some ferocious totemic animal, and lose one of their own as a result. When they report back to their war leader in shame, he chews them out for having disobeyed his orders: Ni'khawasaN', dhiti'gaN t?e'dhadha-ba'zhi tta'-bi, ehe' dhaN'shti. Warriors, I said before you were not to kill your grandfather! Actually, when understood this way, even the contrast of =bi with =i in the song and story, respectively, of "The Lament of the Fawn for its Mother", page 358, makes sense without having to attribute conservatism to the song. In the story, the two characters are assertively arguing with each other over whether the beings they perceive are men or crows. They both use =i to emphasize their respective claims as facts. In the song, the Fawn reflects on their past argument in the format of nia'shiNga'-bi ehe', kaxa'-bi eshe' ... I said they were men, you said they were crows ... thereby casting their former claims in the subjunctive, just as we do in English. In sum, I think that the existence of an active particle =bi, used to indicate supposition, hearsay and the subjunctive, in semantic contradistinction to another particle =i that is used as a factual declarative, and both of these distinct from the historical pluralizing particle =i, is quite clear in the Dorsey texts. I can't speak for the etymology of these particles, but their semantically distinct usage in historical OP seems to me to be absolutely plain. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 8 23:53:29 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 17:53:29 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > >I would probably resist a derivational morpheme that was both prefixal > >and suffixal myself, at least in a general way ,but I don't have any > >problem with a prefix and a suffix coming from the same historical > >source, say a demonstrative. > > Maybe I haven't understood, but that seems to be assuming what you're trying > to prove. I think, though, that we may have reached our usual impass where I > assume homophony where John assumes polysemy. This has happened many times > over the past 15 years or so. I agree that I often see multiple uses of a single morpheme where Bob sees two homophonous morphemes, but I'm not sure I see any circularity in the enterprise at hand. Am I missing something? > >...ga=tta 'to(ward) yon' and s^aNge=ga 'yon canine/horse' (emphasizing > enclisis of the demonstrative with intent). > > I've never been able to elicit demonstratives optionally following their > head like shonge-ga. Maybe something where both shonge and ga were heads > like shonge=akha ga=akha or the like, not the former. If both ga shonge and > shonge ga occur as constituents below the S level, then I stand corrected. I've collected some instances of the relevant patterns from the Dorsey texts. It is true that demonstrative alone tend more often to precede the noun (in OP), and that when they follow there is usually an article after following the demonstrative. It is also the case that OP often produces situations like NOUN=ART DEM=ART, but it is possible to have NOUN DEM. It is even possible to have "NOUN e." There are, as I said, no examples of a= (*Ha) following or preceding nouns, though it occurs with all the enclitics that can attach to e. This is the more common alternative with a single demonstrative and a noun. DEM NOUN 90:28.12 dhe' nikkas^iNga 'this person' 90:704.8 s^e' ni'kkas^iNga 'that fellow' 90:713.2 ga' waxiN'ha 'that paper [letter]' 90:25.5 e maN'ghe 'that sky' DEM=NOUN (fused example of foregoing) 90:54.1 eaN'ba 'that day' More elaborate possibilities: DEM [NOUN VERB] DEM [NOUN QUANT] 90:87.12-13 dhe' aN'xtiegaN u'z^u 'these principle head-men' 90:85.14 dhe' nu'z^iNga naN'ba 'these two boys' This pattern seems to be pretty unusual: DEM=ART NOUN 90:96.2 dhe'=khe s^aN'ge 'this horse' 90:57.9 s^e'=khe ttas^niN'gdhis^kaha 'that fawnskin bag' More normal is: DEM NOUN ART (QUANT) 90:86.7 dhe' us^te' ama 'these remaining ones' 90:149.4 dhe' tte'wa?u dhiNkhe 'this buffalo woman' 90:147.5-6 dhe' tti' ama' bdhu'ga 'all these lodges (of people)' Demonstrative after noun also occurs, though I'm not sure what the difference is. NOUN DEM 90:85.2 a(N)'ma dhe 'this one' 90:330.1 niN' dhe' 'this water' 90:109.9 maN'zewethiN dhe(') 'this sword' 90:194.6 wadha'ha dhe' 'this clothing' 90:109.6 s^i'nudaN dhe=dhaNkhe=i=kki, maN'zewethiN dhe(') 'these dogs and this sword' 90:721.3-5 ni'kkas^iNga s^e' 'those people' 90:295.15 xdhabe' s^e', zaNde' s^e' 'those trees, that thicket' 90:83.1 ttaN'waNgdhaN e 'that tribe' Note the absence of ablaut in 109.6. There =kki is 'when'. NOUN=DEM (fused example of foregoing) aN'ba=dhe 'today' More common than just a demonstrative: NOUN DEM=ART(=POST) 90:124.14 wa'xesabe dhe'=ama 'this blackman' 90:80.2 maN' dhe=the 'this arrow' 90:140.3 u'?e dhe'=khe 'this field' 90:213.11 z^aN" dhe'=the 'this wood' 90:109.6 s^i'nudaN dhe=dhaNkhe=i=kki, maN'zewethiN dhe 'these dogs and this sword' 90:54.1 dhe'ghegakku s^e'=the 'that drum' 90:134.19 ppahe' s^e'=hi=dhe=khe 'that hill yonder' 90:... ppa'he s^e'=hi=dhe=dhaN=di 'at that distant hill' 90:109.17 z^aN' s^e'=the 'that tree' 90:117.19 s^iu s^e'=thaN 'that prairie chicken' 90:167/2 s^i'nudaN s^e'=dhiNkhe 'that dog' 90:154.20 wa?u'zhiNga ga'=dhiN 'that old woman' 90:190.11 naN'b=udhixdhaN ga'=dhaN 'that ring' The ... example is one that lacks a page number in the computer file and I'm too lazy to look it up. NOUN DEM=ART=ENC 90:221.14 ni'kkagahi dhe'=akha=s^ti 'this chief, too' More elaborate structures: [NOUN NOUN] DEM(=ART) [NOUN VERB] DEM=ART [NOUN QUANT] DEM (QUANT) 90:278.12 ni'as^iNga wahi' dhe' 'these human bones' 90:52.5 maNs^c^iN'ge iz^iN'ge e'=akha 'that Son of the Rabbit' 90:231.19 maN'ze na'=z^ide dhe'=khe 'this redhot iron' 90:278.5 wathaN'zi j^u'ba dhe'=dhiN 'a bit of corn like this' 90:107.13 we'?uhi e=s^naN dhe he'be 'this piece of a mere hide scraper' (available in lieu of the desired metal blade) Instances with DEM=naN 'that many' and DEM=dhaNska 'that large' NOUN DEM=Q-THING NOUN DEM=Q-THING(=ENC) [NOUN QUANT] DEM=Q-THING 90:107.11 u?u'de dhe'=dhaNska '(a) hole this size' 90:27.12 ttez^iN'hiNde e'=dhaNska 'a yarn turban of that size' 90:149.19 tta' he'be dhe'=dhaNska 'a piece of jerked meat this size' 90:249.14 iN'?e ga'=dhaNska=xti dhe'=na=xti 'just this many stones of just that size' I included this as one example of an interesting idiom for 'this ... behind'. NOUN dhe'=tta ART (idiom: 'this X behind') 90:40.10 iNs^?a'ge dhe=tta dhiN 'this venerable man behind' It is normal to have e after a noun if the following verb is 'mean, intend'. This looks like an incipient case of e= preverb, though Dorsey doesn't write the e as a preverb. NOUN DEM mean 90:181.12 he' e' wakhe'=akha=ama 'he meant those lice' 90:35.3 uc^hi'z^e e' wakha'=i 'he meant that thicket' JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 9 00:47:09 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 18:47:09 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > > However, I'm not at all worried about the potential for something like > *s^unk(...) e 'the aforesaid canine' existing in Proto-Mississippi Valley > Siouan. > > That's what I do worry about. I think that any such grammaticalization > clines we assume have to be demonstrated very carefully, and hopefully with > different extant languages showing different stages. It's easy to say "oh, > demonstratives, they can be grammaticalized anywhere...". It might even be > true in some languages, but I'd want to spend a lot of time looking at lots > of data before I'd want to accept it. The paper by Greenberg that first led me to consider articles as a source of noun theme formants and gender markers is: Greenberg, Joseph H. 1978. How does a language acquire gender markers? pp. 47-82 in Universals of Human Language, Vol. 3. Joseph H. Greenberg, Charles Ferguson, and Edith Moravcsik, eds. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. Greenberg had the advantage over us of working especially (for this paper) with Niger-Congo, especially the Bantu subfamily, which has a great many more languages than the Siouan family. He didn't restrict himself to NC. He also considered various other language families, mostly African, but including Uto-Aztecan, with respect to the absolute markers used with nouns there, and Indo-European, with respect to the long forms of the adjectives in Slavic. One of my favorite examples is Berber, since the feminine marker, especially, shows up clearly fore-and-aft, as in amazigh 'Berber man' vs. tamazight 'the Berber language', for example. In most of the Moroccan dialects the t is actually theta, and the prefix is ta- for the feminine, and a- for the masculine. > >> In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share > neither function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any > discernable sense. > > >They do occur in oppositions like e=na(N) 'that many, so many' and a=na(N) > 'some quantity' or 'how many', which willy nilly yokes them into a pair. > > It's true they occur consistently in Dhegiha in WH/TH pairs, but not as > members of the same class of objects. They are all WHich one/THis one, how > many/this many, how long/that long, etc. pairs. The boundary between demonstratives and interrogatives is particularly weak in Siouan languages. In particular, the interrogatives consistently serve as indefinites, e.g., 'what' = 'something', 'who' = 'somebody', 'where' = 'somewhere', 'what quantity' = 'some quantity', etc. This is the only reason I allowed myself to consider these WH-forms in this light. That, of course, and the form being right. I do consider the h-initial in Kaw, Osage and Quapaw to be a potentially serious problem, which is why I'm interested in that initial correspondence. > >Of course, it's a pair that's part of a larger set, including also > dhe=na(N), s^e=na(N), and ga=na(N),... > > These only occur in a paradigm with the TH pair of the set. None occurs in > the WH set. It is the TH group, namely, ?ee, *ree, *shee, *ga that form a > set. Ha- is not a member of that set. When every enclitic pattern that occurs with the dhe/she/ga and e demonstratives occurs with the (h)a interrogative/indefinite it is difficult to see a major barrier within the paradigm of TH/WH + enclitic forms. All of dhe=naN, e=naN, and a=naN, for example, occur. I think I may be misunderstanding the application of paradigm here. There is, of course, a major barrier with the bare forms, for though the TH members of the set do occur post-nominally, the WH members do not, except perhaps in the case of duba/juba 'some', if that is connected with the *tV interrogative/indefinite. In fact, as far as I know, the (h)a "element," never occurs as a bare stem in Dhegiha or elsewhere, and so it does not occur either prenominally or postnominally. I suppose we could wonder about the a-question particle that appears sentence finally, but let's agree not to, since that's not clearly demonstrative, even though there is some parallel with e occurring sentence finally. I agree that it would be very helpful to have an instance of, say OP "a NOUN" or "NOUN a" in the sense of 'some NOUN' or 'is it a NOUN'. I'm pretty sure that the question particle is as close as I'm going to get on that and I don't see that as strong enough to press. Ironically, an example of "a NOUN" would be more helpful here, even though I'm trying to place a in a postnominal context. > But we're losing track of what we're being asked to believe. Personally, I > just think it extremely unlikely that the Ha that forms WH questions in > Dhegiha (and sometimes maybe Winn./Chiwere too) and is always a root turns > up as a suffix -a on a few nouns, has nothing to do with Q-formation, is > some sort of demonstrative and explains noun ablaut. I read this as: "where it has nothing to do with Q-formation," right? From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 9 04:46:41 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 22:46:41 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Long, but quite synchronic and more or less syntactic. JEK On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > >and the glottalization because I'm mainly aware of it where e(e) follows > another demonstrative and take it for a boundary phenomenon as Bob mentioned > earlier. > > Two things: (1) this is a glottal that is retained even word-internally in > Kaw, so I tend to think it is organic, and (2) the one I mentioned earlier > was not the demonstrative but rather *he 'be' (probably locative, certainly > so in Dhegiha) that shows up in Dakotan (if my memory of these discussions > is right) as ?e. ... > >And e=tta 'to it' or 'to the aforesaid' is also not a problem. I think > s^aNge e would be 'it is the horse that', but I'd have to look for examples > to be fully confident of exact parallels in current OP. > > To me it might possibly mean 'that one is a horse', but again here, both > would be heads. E would be a predicate. Intonation and accent in such cases > tends to preclude enclisis. I thought it might be interesting to track down cases of -e (or ?e) with a sort of predicative sense. I've stayed with OP, though I think Dakotan and Winnebago have similar things. In OP there is a final e that attaches to demonstratives and verbs. There is never any glottal stop with this in OP that I can see, though there is plainly a rearticulated vowel. I've never heard this construction in a live elicitation, but I've had very little live exposure to OP, to be honest. I have heard glottal stops live, of course, but clear glottal stops in OP seem to be from *k? and *x? reduced to ?. Anyway, I'm pretty sure these are the ?e that Bob speaks of, and that they all match (all the clause final and post-demonstrative e's in Mississippi Valley Siouan), rather than some (Dakotan cases?) coming (only) from Dhegiha he. Undeniably Dh verbal he should match a Dakotan verbal e, and undeniably Dh verbal he has matches in Winnebago, so maybe some Dakotan (?)e's come from *he. Returnign now to OP, it's pretty clear what the (?)e is doing with demonstratives, even when there's a noun preceding the demonstrative, or anarticle following. (Note that these e-forms seems to be almost always followed by a declarative.) 90:126.14 dhe'e he 'this is he (w spkg)' 90:136.16 dhe'e ha 'this is he (m spkg)' 90:17.1 s^e'e ha 'that is it (m spkg)' 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' 90:246.19 he'ga=am=e'e ha 'it is the Buzzard' 90:143.14 wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e 'my wife, that one lying, is she' 90:153.17 ga'=thaN e'e ha 'that one is she' 90:17.1 s^aN'de=dhaN s^e'e ha 'that is the (his) scrotum' As soon as the e gets attached to a verb, it gets a lot less clear to me what is going on. 90:17.6 a'=gu=di=the=di t?e'=dha=i=the ttaN'be=t[t?]=egaN where- the-at they killed him I will see it HAVING ua'ne bdhe'e he I seek I go E DECL I go seeking in order to see the place where they killed him (Maybe, '(Here) *I* am the one who is ...' with the understood sense that the looker (Rabbit's Grandmother) might have been saved a good deal of trouble if *only* the lookee (Rabbit) had heeded the *excellent* advice that she gave him and *avoided* those consarned blackbears in the first place ... JEK) In the next the e'e is merged with the front of the ede (e=de?) that Dorsey translates "but." I tend to wonder if this ede (or the de, anyway) might be something like the Dakotan c^ha particle used with indefinite relatives, but I haven't really looked at this. Dorsey renders the form "but" and cha is said to imply unexpectedness, but mainly =de seems to occur at the end of clauses with obscure import (to me). So, naturally I think of =cha, which is also fairly obscure (to me). And I haven't actually noticed any indefinite relative clauses, either, otherwise. Observationally, an ede can be pretty much substituted for e in many grammatical particles, like egaN the general subordinator (conjunct?) clause conjunction, which alternates with an infrequent edegaN. Add an e'e and you have the proverbial enigma wrapped in a riddle, etc. (Conjunctions follow the clause, of course.) I guess you could say that ede can substitute for e, for that matter. Have fun. Except for clear 'DEM is' glosses the e doesn't seem to get glossed by Dorsey and I've not tried to gloss it either except parenthetically here and there. 90:23.5-6 e'=gaN=i e'ede=gaN they are so E "but" HAVING Tta'xtigikkidabi=ama wi'aNnappa=i ha the Deertakers we fear them DECL these things having "but" been so, we fear the Deertakers 90:133.19 dhiNge'e 'there is none' (Perhaps 'it is that it lacks' or 'it is a lack'? JEK) This next may perhaps not be the same thing? 90:154.5 sa'ttaN waaN=dha=ama e' we'sappe e=d=uathaN e' ha five they deserted that sixth next to that DECL he is the sixth by those who are the five who left (Uttered in specifying which of several calves is the son the speaker had just claimed to recognize.) I'm not sure the first dhe in this next doesn't refer ahead to the last one, rather than applying (directly) to tti. 90:194.17 dhe' tti' witti'gaN udha'= dhaN'=s^ti dhe'e ha this house my gfa he spoke of heretofore this E DECL this is the dwelling of which my grandfather always spoke 90:221.9-10 wi'gdhaN dhaNz^a uaga's^aN bdhe'e ha I marry you though I travelling I go E DECL though I am marrying you, I go travelling 90:331.17 dhe'=dhu=thaN z^u=a'wagdhe=hnaN agdhe'e he here from I with them usually I go E DECL I went homeward thence usually with them 90:362.2 kki dhe' s^aaN' tti=ma' and this Sioux the dwellers e=di=thaN wiN uga's^aN dhe'= the'e ha thence one he travelled he went EVID E DECL one (man, just mentioned as of a wandering disposition) went off travelling from this Dakota camp (Perhaps, "it was this one who went off from the Dakota camp"? That is, a focus, like English cleft. JEK) 90:369.1 dhe'ghegakku uthiN'=bi= am= e'e ha drum(s) they struck it they CONTIN that E DECL it is they who are striking the drum(s) (Here I've just translated with a cleft. This is a conclusion about some enemies previously seen by a war party. JEK) Incidentally, one of Rory's bi's. 90:487.10-11 AN'ska, Frank wa?u' miN'=gdhaN e'=de t?e'e ha, by the by F woman he married her "but" she died E DECL nu'geadi last summer By the way, (the) woman whom Frank married died, last summer. The preceding has an example of ablaut (actually, an intrusive a) before a postposition =di. The next is similar with t?e'e. 90:512.4 I'kkuhabi=s^ti t?e'e ha 'Ikkuhabi, too, is dead.' 90:567.4 A'wathe'e a? 'Where is it?' (perhaps "Ou est-ce que c'est?" Just a'wa=the is 'where', or, apparently, an interrogative reading of 'some place or another', from a'wa 'indefinite alternative' + the 'the (upright)'. JEK) 90:591.1-2 Xdhabe' dhe'=the ma'ghe idha'bat?u=tte ehe'e ha tree this the sky it will extend I said E DECL 'Let that tree extend to the sky' I said (Perhaps "I am the one who said ..." JEK) This is definitely not all the examples of e'e in the texts, but it is good starting sample, with many similar examples suppressed. === With the simplest as clearest examples like dhe'e "this is it" we can see where this morpheme gets the predicative analysis. But I think that with a little examination of the context most of these simple cases can be read as clefts ("it is this that is the one") or at least stress focusses ("*this* is the one"). And when the examples get more complex, that approach seems to be the only one that works or makes any sense, as I hope some of my parenthetical analyses will have helped suggest. So, the e is not really 'is' but just 'it/he/that' or 'the one that', with the predicative 'be' being implied by the context. And, if this e is really a demonstrative, then why not regard it as an instance of the usual e demonstrative? While this approach does perhaps erode some of the foundations of Bob's objections to my nominal ablaut analyis, I don't think it discommodes the relevant ones to a point where agreeing with this would entail agreeing with ablaut analysis. I intend this only as an expose of one small factor in my analysis of demonstratives and Siouan syntax that eventually led to my being comfortable with my assessment of ablaut. I suspect that in a synchronic context this anlaysis is more interesting then the nominal ablaut thing anyway. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 9 04:53:40 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 22:53:40 -0600 Subject: OP e'iNte In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > He tends to put a breve over e in the vs. e in tte. ... > There is no breve over the final -e in the examples of e'iNte > I've looked at since reading this post, ... Sadly, he seems to have only done this with the in other contexts, like just plain the. This is why I'm somewhat grieved at Dorsey's breves. Anyway, I'm relieved to be confirmed. I'm pretty sure I had managed to confirm it one way or another in the past. However, the "double future" (I think this may be Boas's term) in =tte=the or =tta=i=the has given me a great deal of grief over the years. I'm pretty sure the second morpheme is aspirated, however, not another future. This is one reason why marking aspiration properly is so important. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 10 05:15:02 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 23:15:02 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I see John's examples with DEM N as ordinary modified nouns. > > The instances of N DEM (ART) I've always looked upon as two distinct > constituents, the DEM part of which I would translate mostly as predicates > (translation is one of the big imponderables here, as Dorsey's understanding > was not always 100%). > > 90:124.14 wa'xesabe dhe'=ama 'this blackman' > My analysis: 'this one, the black guy' > > 90:80.2 maN' dhe=the 'this arrow' > My analysis: 'the arrow, this one' > > In other words I think the bracketing is [N [DEM ART]]. A lot of these are > possibly copular constructions. The few cases of N DEM alone are less clear > and less common, but only field elicitation and careful comparison of > semantics will elucidate the situation, and none of us wants to do that. But > these are the only cases where reanalysis would realistically yield N DEM in > a single syntactic constituent. I think that the preposed demonstrative is the more marked possibilty. In Dakotan demonstatives can only precede the noun if the noun is followed by an article. If the demonstrative follows the noun the intervening article can be omitted. Demonstratives follow and are written as enclitic in Mandan. A posiitonal can follow the demonstrative. Demonstratives follow in Winnebago, but, interestingly, can be preceded by the positional. Demonstratives also seem to follow in Biloxi and Tutelo. I'm not sure about the situation in Ofo, or in Crow or Hidatsa. In Dhegiha demonstratives can precede or follow. The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. I think Omaha-Ponca is pretty typical of Dhegiha as far as the syntax of article and demonstratives. Note that the articles, however, are essentially what pass for positionals elsewhere, and that they follow the demonstrative. My analysis of the syntax of NPs: N'' => [N' (DEM)] (ART) (QUANT) N'' => DEM (ART) N' => N (QUANT) So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of extraction. This is consistent with the hypothesis of the development of articles from posiitonal verbs, but, of course, there's no reason why constituents might not have been reorganized. Again, though this analysis is certainly convenient for the nominal ablaut ex-article analysis, I don't believe that accepting it need commit one to the hypothesis that nominal ablaut comes from old articles. From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Mon Sep 10 15:00:11 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 15:00:11 GMT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Saad You deserved it. I hope all goes well Bruce Date sent: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 19:51:41 -0600 (MDT) Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: Koontz John E To: Subject: Re: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > A question: What time relative to Proto-Siouan are we talking about > here? The ablaut patterns in Dakota/Lakota, Winnebago, and Omaha-Ponca > seem to be similar enough in most details to warrant simply > reconstructing ablaut in the ancestor of these languages, at least. ... It's clear that similar forms of verb ablaut are attested right across Siouan. I think that pretty much the only constants are e ~ a. The conditioning contexts are always following enclitics and a set of additional factors like nominalization. Some specific enclitics are subject to ablaut themselves in the same contexts. Perhaps the main ones that are reconstructable for earlier stages of the language are *ktE or (?) iNktE, the irrealis marker, and maybe something like *krE as a kind of third person plural. The specific grades associated with particular enclitics are not very constant. I think perhaps plural stems are always a-grades, but things like negatives and the irrealis vary wuite a bit, even within particular dialect continuums. Ablaut may or may not be associated with something like unaccented final vowels. Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', yA 'cause' in Teton. It's true that at least 'go' may come from something like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as secondary. Verbal ablaut is by its nature a constant, productive factor in Siouan morphology, since the conditioning enclitics are in constant use. It can only disappear by an active change in the morphology or phonology of the languages. What does seem clear is that there is a very good chance that ablaut is some of its primary specific examples (with pi or ktE) can be accounted for nicely by assuming that the vowel preceding the enclitic is actually an historical part of the enclitic. I think this was proposed first (that I'm aware of) by Wes Jones, and taken up by David Rood, and subsequently Bob Rankin. It looks very reasonable to see the plural as *api (across much of the family) and the irrealis as iNkt(e) (in at least some Dakotan dialects). This doesn't account for all of verbal ablaut in any cut and dried way, because there are so many enclitics, many of them not clearly cognate, and varying from dialect to dialect, let alone language to language. Furthermore, in some cases apparently cognate enclitics condition different ablaut grades in different languages. I'm think here of the negative, which is an e-grade in dakotan, but an a-grade in Dhegiha. It's true that this particular set is quite complex, and seems to involve a group of associated morphemes *s^(i) ~ *z^(i), *niN*, etc. I'd say that ablaut as an abstract phenomenon is somewhat self-renewing. Once you have any situation that results in a common pattern of e ~ a alternation, any chance circumstance that produces a new e ~ a alternation gets dragged into the complex. Probably something like the plural *api in connection with a rule that merges some V1 + V2 as V2 across enclitic boundaries and syllabifies the initial vowel of the enclitic with a final consonant of a host seeded the situation, and additional fuel has been added to the fire since then by other enclitics at intervals. I'm also inclined to feel that there is an additional common source of final vowel alternations in Proto-Siouan verbs that we haven't yet recognized. It seems to me that the additional of aN-finals to ablaut and the inclusion of iN as an ablaut grade are specific to Dakotan and involve analogical extensions of ablaut in the abstract, albiet fueled in the case of iN by a new instance of something like the original source of ablaut. To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, but not as morphologized and lexicalized ablaut (vowel alternations) per se. I suppose you could call the stage at which it was still an unpatterned collection of vowel elicisions or combinations and resyllabifications at enclitic boundaries Pre-Proto-Siouan, and the stage at which it was more abstract and arbitrary Proto-Siouan, though I'm not sure that this phase of the development hasn't occurred more or less independently in the ealy stages of development of the several branches of Siouan. Certainly the system continues to evolve in the various contemporary languages. Turning to nominal ablaut, either in the form of not very productive internal relicts, as in Dakotan or Omaha-Ponca, or cross-branch alternations, as between, say, Dakotan and Ioway-Otoe, it is more restricted, and may only occur in Mississippi Valley. It, too, involves e ~ a alternations, but it is usually fairly obscure in conditioning. I'd say that the e-grade could be attributed to 'possession', perhaps specificity, in Dakotan, and that at least some a-grades seem to be conditioning by enclitics in Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca, but I'm sure not everyone would agree with this. Even if 'specificity' marking accounts for the e-grades in, say, Ioway-Otoe, it's interesting, but maybe less useful, to be able to say that most e-final nouns in Dhegiha reflect 'specific' forms, while most a-final nouns in Dakotan reflect 'generic' forms. The real benefit in comparative terms may be to save us from looking for a specious phonological basis for the difference in final vowels. Nominal ablaut is probably an internal development of Mississippi Valley, originating in Proto-Mississippi Valley. I think the conditioning enclitics in this case were just vowels, though morphemes none-the-less. It looks superficially like verbal ablaut as an abstract morphological phenomenon, and has a similar source. It interacts with it because the morphemes in question were nominalizers and appear with nominalized verbs, and because the morphemic basis for it are homophonous with the phonological grades of verbal ablaut. But it is not as old as verbal ablaut and has an independent source. If the nominalizers in question have been, say, i and o, then things would have looked quite different. Nominal ablaut is not productive, primarily because in each of the branches the renewal of article and/or nominalizing systems has replaced the relevant morphological systems, and because in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago the merger of final *a and *e after velars and the subsequent loss of *e in final light syllables in Winnebago has eliminated much of the phonological material of the system. Ironically, I think that the Winnebago =ra (and maybe =re) nominal markers and maybe Ioway-Otoe are 'that' may be the best remininants of the system as articles, though they seem to be post-vocalic allomorphs. JEK Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From rankin at ku.edu Mon Sep 10 18:45:39 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:45:39 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: > > I see John's examples with DEM N as ordinary modified nouns. In my own data, a single demonstrative precedes the N. If it follows a demonstrative, it's normally paired with a verb root (i.e., positional) or other constituent. > I think that the preposed demonstrative is the more marked > possibilty. In Dakotan demonstatives can only precede the noun if the noun > is followed by an article. If the demonstrative follows the noun the > intervening article can be omitted. Dhegiha looks to me to have the opposite pattern; the DEM tends to follow the N only if there IS an article (which is always deverbal). >Demonstratives follow and are written as enclitic in Mandan. A posiitonal >can follow the demonstrative. Oddly positionals tend to follow 'this' but not 'that' in Kennard. >The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. I think in every one of my Kaw examples of this construction, the DEM-ART is a predicate. > So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of > extraction. The pattern is so prevalent in my data that I have a hard time looking upon it as an extraction. Unless the DEM follows the N and forms an NP distinct from the N, DEM-N looks normal to me in Kaw and, I expect, in Dhegiha generally. This sort of thing can happen in languages. In Romanian you can say either "omul acesta" or "acest om" 'this man' but in Spanish "este hombre" is the rule and I can't get speakers to accept *"hombre este" as an NP. Again, does any Siouan language have anything resembling a consistent noun "ablaut"? Or, are what little there is in the way of rules/alternations in the extant languages found in matching environments? (the sort of thing one might expect of relic forms.) If not, then for now at least the article theory of ablaut is still DOA for me. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 10 20:02:44 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 14:02:44 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > Dhegiha looks to me to have the opposite pattern; the DEM tends to follow > the N only if there IS an article (which is always deverbal). Without having done any statistics on this, I'd say that was consistent with the numbers of examples I was noticing. I'd say that the numbers were something like NOUN DEM=ART > DEM NOUN > NOUN DEM. I'm not sure where things like DEM NOUN=ART fall in this, but I think near DEM NOUN, i.e., fairly common. In regard to the choice of demonstrative, ga, of course, was fairly rare are we noticed earlier, with dhe and s^e (and e) accounting for most the demonstratives. Some of the more prominent examples fo ga involve cases of explicit pointing to remote objects. > >Demonstratives follow and are written as enclitic in Mandan. A posiitonal > >can follow the demonstrative. > > Oddly positionals tend to follow 'this' but not 'that' in Kennard. I hadn't noticed that. I thought it particularly interesting that positional precede demonstratives in Winnebago. That tends to suggest to me that the historical processes leading to grammaticalization of positionals have been fairly independent across the family. > >The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of > things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. > > I think in every one of my Kaw examples of this construction, the DEM-ART is > a predicate. I think Catherine Rudin had numerous non-predicative examples of this sort of thing. > > So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of > > extraction. > > The pattern is so prevalent in my data that I have a hard time looking upon > it as an extraction. Unless the DEM follows the N and forms an NP distinct > from the N, DEM-N looks normal to me in Kaw and, I expect, in Dhegiha > generally. This sort of thing can happen in languages. In Romanian you can > say either "omul acesta" or "acest om" 'this man' but in Spanish "este > hombre" is the rule and I can't get speakers to accept *"hombre este" as an > NP. I'd think that even if extraction is a marked or additional sort of thing processually, it might come to be the more common (less marked) alternative over time. However, I don't know which order is considered historically primary in Romance! I do have the impression that DEM > NOUN is normal in most of the older IE languages. > Again, does any Siouan language have anything resembling a consistent noun > "ablaut"? Or, are what little there is in the way of rules/alternations in > the extant languages found in matching environments? (the sort of thing one > might expect of relic forms.) If not, then for now at least the article > theory of ablaut is still DOA for me. I'd be interested in this, too, of course. The only cases I'm aware of without appealing to comparative data (Da s^uNka vs. OP s^aNge, e.g.) or to extensions matching *-ra (e.g., Da -ya) are: - Dakotan, fairly well discussed in Boas & Deloria and in Shaw's diss. (Maybe in Carter's diss., too?) - OP, not in the literature, involving cases like ppahe' :: ppaha'=di - Crow citation forms in e for -i and -a nouns. I think the Dakotan cases are considered to be somewhat non-productive (earlier) to non-productive (contemporary), though, in fact, the conditioning environments are rather specialized and derivational, e.g., tha=NOUN conditions the e-grade, vs. NOUN, the a-grade as with s^uNka, so that it would be difficult to imagine the process as every being productive in these specific terms, by comparison with verb ablaut, which comes on on nearly a clause by clause basis. The OP cases are clearly somewhat moribund, too, as exceptions occur for the same nouns in Dorsey's texts of the 1890s. The OP data tend to firmly link the pattern with the intrusive -a- some postpositions, whereas intrusive -ya- before postpositions falls under the heading of *-ra extensions in Dakotan. The OP data are one reason why I associate the two phenomena in Dakotan. (Though I developed that tendency before I noticed the ablaut in OP nouns!) My impression from Randy Graczyk's discussion of the Crow phenomena are that they are fully productive. I don't know if Hidatsa has anything like the Crow pattern. With a slight loosening of criteria one could include cases like: - Mandan's -e suffix that comes and goes and gets different analyses from different linguists - Dakotan final -a and -e in alternation with C-final form - Dakotan -ya(N) extensions on some nouns (bound vs. free instances) - Dakotan -ya- extensions on some nouns before some postpositions - Dhegiha (OP only?) -a- extensions on some nouns before some postpositions - Winnebago -ra article - Winnebago was^c^iNiNk vs. was^c^iNge'ga ('rabbit' vs. 'the Rabbit') - Perhaps some cases of noun :: noun-ka variation in Mandan - Perhaps some cases of noun :: noun-ke (or ge) variation in Winnebago I'm restricting alternations to synchronic (if sometimes fossilized) alternations in particular languages, so I am omitting cases of final alternations of *a :: *e, 0 :: *ra, 0 :: *ka across languages, though, as a matter of fact, it's the same roots that participate in both the within-language and cross-family sets. Again, I'd again like to point out that recognizing some of the individual alternations as patterns has nothing to do with seeing them as old articles. The patterns just there. You don't have to make articles of them. You do have to recognize them, even if you then regard them as chance or analogies of form, etc. Even associating some or all of the various patterns in a greater pattern doesn't entail seeing the greater pattern as due to old articles. But, obviously, as you do extend the set of patterns you are willing to attribute to a greater pattern you approach at least a possibility of a morphological analysis. You might consider the extensions to be theme formants of the form -a ~ -e ~ -ra ~ -ka (~ -re?), for example. I guess you could consider them to be old parts of the root analyzed off by analogy, but then the awkward question arises, by analogy to what? That approach actually seems to presuppose the existence of suffixed morphemes to analogize with. If we are looking for a non-articular - inarticulate doesn't quite work! - solution we don't need to look any further than Indo-European. Indo-Europeanists, of course, are quite happy talking about noun and verb thematic affixes without passing to any issue of functional origins. In fact, traditionally the issue of functional origins is more or less explicitly denied - a thematic affix is simply a semantically empty gesture - though even the same sources consider PIE *-ske/o- to be inceptive, -ye/o- causative, and so on. (I'm thinking of Meillet, but my recollections are rather vague at this point.) Anyway, it's clear to me than a non-articular analysis of the phenomena is possible. It seems to me that it may omit the obvious, but I can see that there are steps to take from seeing the individual patterns, to integrating them, to deducing a source for the integrated pattern. At any point (after recognizing the individual patterns), you can stop or take a different turning. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 11 02:58:42 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 21:58:42 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: John's discussion of predicative (?)e brings out the dimensions of a problem in OP that I struggled with, thought I found an explanation for, and then failed to observe the counter-evidence that made that explanation untenable. > Returnign now to OP, it's pretty clear what the (?)e is doing with > demonstratives, even when there's a noun preceding the demonstrative, or > anarticle following. (Note that these e-forms seems to be almost always > followed by a declarative.) > 90:126.14 dhe'e he 'this is he (w spkg)' > 90:136.16 dhe'e ha 'this is he (m spkg)' > 90:17.1 s^e'e ha 'that is it (m spkg)' > 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' > 90:246.19 he'ga=am=e'e ha 'it is the Buzzard' [snip] > 90:153.17 ga'=thaN e'e ha 'that one is she' > 90:17.1 s^aN'de=dhaN s^e'e ha 'that is the (his) scrotum' Actually, although the meaning of the sentences were plain, it was anything but clear to me what the (?)e was actually doing. I see three possibilities: 1) The (?)e is a verb, equivalent here to English "is". This option feels very good to an Indo-European speaker-- the (?)e even sounds like a derivative of "est"! By this understanding, we might read, for example: dhe' (?)e he this-one [it] is DECL 2) The (?)e is the generic deiktic e, meaning "the foregoing". In this case, it takes the place of a noun. The "is" is implied, and we assume a rule in OP, as, I think, in Semitic, in which [Noun 1] [Noun 2] means [Noun 1] is [Noun 2]. With this understanding, we would read: dhe' (?)e he this-one the foregoing DECL (is) After wrestling with a few sentences of this type last year while trying to hack into Dorsey, I decided in favor of option 2, for reasons I no longer remember. Now John hands us a sentence like this: > 90:17.6 a'=gu=di=the=di t?e'=dha=i=the ttaN'be=t[t?]=egaN > where- the-at they killed him I will see it HAVING > ua'ne bdhe'e he > I seek I go E DECL > I go seeking in order to see the place where they killed him The operative part is "ua'ne bdhe'e he", and in all the times I've read that story, the (?)e after that bdhe somehow never sunk in. John gives other examples of (?)e after verbs and positionals as well, including another "bdhe'e he" example, so this cannot be brushed aside as an anomaly. This pattern defies both the above understandings of (?)e: 1) bdhe' (?)e he I go [it] is DECL (??) and 2) bdhe' (?)e he I go the foregoing DECL (is) (??) despite John's heroic efforts to make it work within option 2: > (Maybe, '(Here) *I* am the one who is ...' with the understood > sense that the looker (Rabbit's Grandmother) might have been > saved a good deal of trouble if *only* the lookee (Rabbit) had > heeded the *excellent* advice that she gave him and *avoided* > those consarned blackbears in the first place ... JEK) I think there is one more possibility for (?)e: 3) The (?)e is a modal particle (or whatever we properly call all those little morphemes like -ga, -a, -ha, -he, -bi and -i that usually come at the end of a sentence or clause), which acts as a declarative. In this view, our readings would be: dhe' (?)e he this-one DECL (it is) EMPH and bdhe' (?)e he I go DECL EMPH (The particles -ha and -he are not so much declaratives as emphatics, though they may sometimes assume the declarative role. They commonly occur after the command particles -ga and -a when a speaker clearly wants to emphasize a command. In formal speech, -ha is replaced by -adha'.) Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. However, we already have a declarative modal particle -i, which can fit in much the same paradigms as (?)e under option 3: 289:11 wiz^aN'dhe MaNtc^u' i he my sister Bear DECL (she is) EMPH and 288:12 Edha! e' hnaN i he Alas! she says only DECL EMPH What struck me about the numerous examples John gave is that, barring just two cases that don't really fit the pattern he is generally describing, every single case of postfixed (?)e is immediately preceded by a word that ends in accented -e. On the other hand, while declarative -i is fairly common after -a, -u and -aN, I'm not sure I ever see it after -i or -iN words, and I'm sure I've never seen it after non-ablautable -e stem words. I believe the (?)e morpheme that John presents here fills the gap for the -e stems nicely. The original sequence [Statement]-e' i must have become [Statement]-e' e by simply lowering the original *i to match the preceding -e'. Since both are front vowels, they would have been hard to distinguish in quick succession anyway. Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of this type appended to roots that are clearly not -e stems, especially -a, aN, -A and -u stems. John and I should both be on the lookout for this. Rory From CaRudin1 at wsc.edu Tue Sep 11 14:09:19 2001 From: CaRudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 09:09:19 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: > >The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of > things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. > > I think in every one of my Kaw examples of this construction, the DEM-ART is > a predicate. >I think Catherine Rudin had numerous non-predicative examples of this sort >of thing. OK -- since my name's been mentioned, I guess I'll jump in. (I've been reading or at least skimming this thread with interest, but I'm so totally snowed under this fall that I've been resisting even trying to contribute to it -- and this one will just be a quick note.) Yes, NOUN-ART DEM-ART is extremely common in my data, and I don't recall even seeing any reason to think it was predicative. DEM-ART NOUN-ART is I guess equally common, and longer strings of nominals with articles (DEM-ART Modifier-ART NOUN-ART, eg.) also occur. I have a paper that fusses over whether to analyze these as noun phrases with multiple definiteness etc. marking (some kind of agreement on components of the NP) or as appositive constructions; the arguments weren't entirely conclusive. > > So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of > > extraction. > > The pattern is so prevalent in my data that I have a hard time looking upon > it as an extraction. Unless the DEM follows the N and forms an NP distinct > from the N, DEM-N looks normal to me in Kaw and, I expect, in Dhegiha > generally. This sort of thing can happen in languages. In Romanian you can > say either "omul acesta" or "acest om" 'this man' but in Spanish "este > hombre" is the rule and I can't get speakers to accept *"hombre este" as an > NP. >I'd think that even if extraction is a marked or additional sort of thing >processually, it might come to be the more common (less marked) >alternative over time. However, I don't know which order is considered >historically primary in Romance! I do have the impression that DEM > NOUN >is normal in most of the older IE languages. I'm mystified here. Just because something is extraction does not mean it should be unusual or marked or anything, does it??? ... For instance, questions in English ALWAYS involve extraction, except in highly marked echo question constructions. I realize we're probably using the term differently (and certainly in the context of different theoretical assumptions, diachronic vs. synchronic orientation, etc. -- maybe I've completely misunderstood Bob's (and John's) point -- but I still don't see why extraction should be anything other than common and normal. Catherine From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 11 18:24:54 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:24:54 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: > Yes, NOUN-ART DEM-ART is extremely common in my data, and I don't recall even seeing any reason to think it was predicative. DEM-ART NOUN-ART is I guess equally common, and longer strings of nominals with articles (DEM-ART Modifier-ART NOUN-ART, eg.) also occur. I have a paper that fusses over whether to analyze these as noun phrases with multiple definiteness etc. marking (some kind of agreement on components of the NP) or as appositive constructions; the arguments weren't entirely conclusive. I think what you're calling "appositive" is what I'm thinking of as predicative usage. I the absence of a copula it might not be easy to tell the difference. > I'm mystified here. Just because something is extraction does not mean it should be unusual or marked or anything, does it??? ... For instance, questions in English ALWAYS involve extraction, except in highly marked echo question constructions. I realize we're probably using the term differently (and certainly in the context of different theoretical assumptions, diachronic vs. synchronic orientation, etc. -- maybe I've completely misunderstood Bob's (and John's) point -- but I still don't see why extraction should be anything other than common and normal. I think we're just using a term we shouldn't be using for this. I was thinking of "movement" and assuming that unnecessary movement probably signals some sort of pragmatic marking. That is, I doubt very much that both DEM-N and N-DEM in Dhegiha are equally marked/unmarked. I'm assuming that the less common is the marked one, though field work may show that not to be the case. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 04:10:25 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 22:10:25 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC wrote: > >I'd think that even if extraction is a marked or additional sort of thing > >processually, it might come to be the more common (less marked) > >alternative over time. However, I don't know which order is considered > >historically primary in Romance! I do have the impression that DEM > NOUN > >is normal in most of the older IE languages. > > I'm mystified here. Just because something is extraction does not > mean it should be unusual or marked or anything, does it??? ... Marked in the sense of "additional," i.e., adding some feature to the construction. > For instance, questions in English ALWAYS involve extraction, except > in highly marked echo question constructions. I realize we're > probably using the term differently (and certainly in the context of > different theoretical assumptions, diachronic vs. synchronic > orientation, etc. -- maybe I've completely misunderstood Bob's (and > John's) point -- but I still don't see why extraction should be > anything other than common and normal. Relatively so. Questions are surely less common than statements, and their syntax serves to focus what is being questioned, focus being the additonal feature. Very likely I am using the word in a different way. What I was thinking was that demonstratives must ordinarily have a contrastive focus (this not that, that not this), and that extraction is often used to signify focus. I think there is a tendency for the sense of focus marking strategies to bleach, resulting in their replacement by newer, more emphatic strategies. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 05:02:23 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 23:02:23 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > Returnign now to OP, it's pretty clear what the (?)e is doing with > > demonstratives, even when there's a noun preceding the demonstrative, or > > anarticle following. (Note that these e-forms seems to be almost always > > followed by a declarative.) > > > 90:126.14 dhe'e he 'this is he (w spkg)' > > 90:136.16 dhe'e ha 'this is he (m spkg)' > > 90:17.1 s^e'e ha 'that is it (m spkg)' > > 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' > > 90:246.19 he'ga=am=e'e ha 'it is the Buzzard' > [snip] > > 90:153.17 ga'=thaN e'e ha 'that one is she' > > 90:17.1 s^aN'de=dhaN s^e'e ha 'that is the (his) scrotum' > > Actually, although the meaning of the sentences were plain, > it was anything but clear to me what the (?)e was actually doing. > I see three possibilities: > > 1) The (?)e is a verb, equivalent here to English "is". This > option feels very good to an Indo-European speaker-- > the (?)e even sounds like a derivative of "est"! By this > understanding, we might read, for example: > > dhe' (?)e he > this-one [it] is DECL I think this is the usual analysis in Mississippi Valley languages at present. > 2) The (?)e is the generic deiktic e, meaning "the foregoing". > In this case, it takes the place of a noun. The "is" is implied, > and we assume a rule in OP, as, I think, in Semitic, in which > [Noun 1] [Noun 2] means [Noun 1] is [Noun 2]. With this > understanding, we would read: > > dhe' (?)e he > this-one the foregoing DECL (is) Or, 'this one(dhe) [is] the one(e) [I meant]' or 'it(e) [is] this(dhe)' or 'it(e) is this(dhe) [that is] the one(e).' It is this that is the analysis I currently prefer. > After wrestling with a few sentences of this type last year while > trying to hack into Dorsey, I decided in favor of option 2, for > reasons I no longer remember. > > Now John hands us a sentence like this: > > > 90:17.6 a'=gu=di=the=di t?e'=dha=i=the ttaN'be=t[t?]=egaN > > where- the-at they killed him I will see it HAVING > > ua'ne bdhe'e he > > I seek I go E DECL > > > I go seeking in order to see the place where they killed him > > The operative part is "ua'ne bdhe'e he", and in all the > times I've read that story, the (?)e after that bdhe somehow > never sunk in. I've noticed examples like this from time to time, but I've always tabled them in favor of some other matter. > John gives other examples of (?)e after > verbs and positionals as well, including another "bdhe'e he" > example, so this cannot be brushed aside as an anomaly. > This pattern defies both the above understandings of (?)e: > > 1) bdhe' (?)e he > I go [it] is DECL (??) > > and > > 2) bdhe' (?)e he > I go the foregoing DECL (is) (??) I make 'I am the one(e) who is going', an approach which actually works in some of the cases, but seems obscure with this particular example. However, the approacj I take in applying it here, though it does seem a stretch, does take away some of the bland narrative quality of the utterance, which otherwise seems more or less a sort of descriptive monolog: "Now I'm doing this, now I'm doing that, etc." > despite John's heroic efforts to make it work within option 2: The stretch. > > (Maybe, '(Here) *I* am the one who is ...' with the understood > > sense that the looker (Rabbit's Grandmother) might have been > > saved a good deal of trouble if *only* the lookee (Rabbit) had > > heeded the *excellent* advice that she gave him and *avoided* > > those consarned blackbears in the first place ... JEK) > > I think there is one more possibility for (?)e: > > 3) The (?)e is a modal particle (or whatever we properly call > all those little morphemes like -ga, -a, -ha, -he, -bi and -i that > usually come at the end of a sentence or clause), which acts > as a declarative. In this view, our readings would be: > > dhe' (?)e he > this-one DECL (it is) EMPH > > and > > bdhe' (?)e he > I go DECL EMPH > > (The particles -ha and -he are not so much declaratives as > emphatics, though they may sometimes assume the > declarative role. They commonly occur after the command > particles -ga and -a when a speaker clearly wants to > emphasize a command. In formal speech, -ha is replaced > by -adha'.) The adha(u) is what I've referred to from time to time as the hortative. It is commonly used by heralds announcing the decisions of the chief or hunt leader, etc. It occurs in some kinds of songs, and I used to hear Clifford Wolfe use it in announcing Powwows. > Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. > However, we already have a declarative modal particle -i, > which can fit in much the same paradigms as (?)e under > option 3: > > 289:11 wiz^aN'dhe MaNtc^u' i he > my sister Bear DECL (she is) EMPH > > and > > 288:12 Edha! e' hnaN i he > Alas! she says only DECL EMPH > > What struck me about the numerous examples John gave is > that, barring just two cases that don't really fit the pattern he is > generally describing, every single case of postfixed (?)e is > immediately preceded by a word that ends in accented -e. I gather this would take us away from the i = 'plural' analysis entirely. > On the other hand, while declarative -i is fairly common after > -a, -u and -aN, I'm not sure I ever see it after -i or -iN words, > and I'm sure I've never seen it after non-ablautable -e stem > words. It definitely occurs after verbs of motion in final i (i, hi, thi), after agdhiN 'sit' in iN, and after tti 'dwell' in i. And, of course, if i is a plural in origin, we wouldn't expect to find it after a first person verb (bdhe) or after any singular -e final, since these all ablaut to a in the plural. True, it is used with the third person singular. > I believe the (?)e morpheme that John presents here fills the > gap for the -e stems nicely. The original sequence > > [Statement]-e' i > > must have become > > [Statement]-e' e > > by simply lowering the original *i to match the preceding -e'. > Since both are front vowels, they would have been hard to > distinguish in quick succession anyway. I'm afraid I don't think that's what happened. > Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of > accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of Which would theoretically never happen, though we have examples like 90:110.6 s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i 'they are the children' 90:149.8 tte=i=the 'she was a buffalo' These are among the few examples of e-stems that don't ablaut. I'd be tempted to say that nominal stems in fian e don't ablaut, but there's 90:358.3 kkagha=i 'they are crows' < kka'ghe > this type appended to roots that are clearly not -e stems, > especially -a, aN, -A and -u stems. John and I should both > be on the lookout for this. This kind of example might also help clarify matters here. Looking at the paradigm of dhiN 'to be' shows that when it occurs with a focussed pronoun it requires an e. 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) 90:75.17 Is^ti'niNkhe am=e=daN 'it is (the) Ishtinikhe who is (moving)' ama = 'the moving', so I'd revise this to 'it is (he,) Ishtinikhe =daN occurs as a sort of 'contingent' marker, as 'during', and with some declaratives, which is what I think is going on here. 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' The closest to an inclusive I know is: 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' As far as I know there are no cases in which the third person stem dhiN of 'to be' occurs with a focussed pronominal, so this paradigm is rather defective. And since e occurs alone in the third person in such cases, it's open to being interpreted as the verb 'to be' in that person. However, the other persons have dhiN in an ordinary dh-stem inflectional pattern. And the third person does occur without the focussed pronouns. 90:148.17 tte'wa?u dhiN 'she is a buffalo woman' (not to be mistaken for a buffalo gal, unless that actually explains the old song) 90:148.18 wathaN'ziwa?u dhiN 'she is a corn woman' On the other hand, you also get: 90:247.18 He'ga akh=e 'he is (the) Buzzard', with akha 'the single, not moving proximate' And then there's 90:385.8 Is^i'baz^i akha=e akha ha 'I. is the one' I have no idea what's up there. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 05:07:33 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 23:07:33 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I've been pondering the conditioning of bi vs. i as the plural/proximate marker and I'm beginning to wonder if bi doesn't occur in mainly irrealis contexts or something like that, which is not far in some ways from what Rory claims. It occurs with ama, with negatives, with at least some clause markers variably - and I have to check that), and with clauses under 'to think'. It does also occur in songs and names, which seems a separate case or cases. I do think that bi and i are otherwise synonymous and "interchangeable." (Subject to bi having an additional feature.) From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 14:46:04 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 08:46:04 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' It's interesting to note that this shows how -e-can at once look like the 'be' or 'emphatic' e suffix and the e-demonstrative prefix on verbs. (I'm using prefix and suffix fairly loosely here.) From rankin at ku.edu Wed Sep 12 18:43:01 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:43:01 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) > > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' I think we have rather different analyses here. For me, wie bdhiN is NP VP. I don't look upon dhiN as an enclitic. Biloxi has re/ri in some peculiar places like your de here. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 19:40:18 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:40:18 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > > > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > > > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) > > > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > > > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' > > I think we have rather different analyses here. For me, wie bdhiN is NP VP. > I don't look upon dhiN as an enclitic. The use of = as opposed to dashes or lack of spacing is mine, but the decision to write the forms as one word is Dorsey's. Of course, it's not always clear what his practices might mean, but they're consistent with the one example of this that I recall from elicitation (umaN'haN=bdhiN). From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 19:41:42 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:41:42 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) (fwd) Message-ID: Bob says he meant to post this. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 11:48:01 -0500 From: "Rankin, Robert L" To: 'Koontz John E ' Subject: RE: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) There is a lot here to digest; thanks for the really interesting data. Actually, I think most of what you have here agrees with what I have been saying, but there are probably still matters of homophony/polysemy to be dealt with. The laryngeals 7 and h/H are problematic too. We need to be especially careful sorting out reflexes of demonstrative *7e: and locative *he in languages that have tended to lose one or both laryngeals. They are clearly not a single Proto-Siouan etymon, but that doesn't mean they couldn't syncretize in some languages. These copular and locative 'be' verbs are not covered very well in the Siouan literature. It is clear that we have to reconstruct at least *he 'be in a place' and *7u:N 'be' overlapping with 'do' (homophony or polysemy??) and that both have tended to fuse to preceding lexemes to form auxiliary verb constructions of one kind or another. Biloxi is full of reflexes of *7u:N in this capacity, and Dhegiha AUXs all have -he. I haven't even begun to sort them out in Dakotan. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 04:11:25 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:11:25 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > John: > Or, 'this one(dhe) [is] the one(e) [I meant]' or 'it(e) [is] this(dhe)' or > 'it(e) is this(dhe) [that is] the one(e).' It is this that is the > analysis I currently prefer. Or in OP: [Analysis]=the [I currently prefer]=the dhe'e ha. :) >> Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. > This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be > particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. I'm confused, but interested. Could you elaborate your argument here? Why are you seeing this (putative) declarative as particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences? >> However, we already have a declarative modal particle -i, >> which can fit in much the same paradigms as (?)e under >> option 3: >> >> 289:11 wiz^aN'dhe MaNtc^u' i he >> my sister Bear DECL (she is) EMPH >> >> and >> >> 288:12 Edha! e' hnaN i he >> Alas! she says only DECL EMPH >> >> What struck me about the numerous examples John gave is >> that, barring just two cases that don't really fit the pattern he is >> generally describing, every single case of postfixed (?)e is >> immediately preceded by a word that ends in accented -e. > I gather this would take us away from the i = 'plural' analysis entirely. That's the view I would favor. >> On the other hand, while declarative -i is fairly common after >> -a, -u and -aN, I'm not sure I ever see it after -i or -iN words, >> and I'm sure I've never seen it after non-ablautable -e stem >> words. > It definitely occurs after verbs of motion in final i (i, hi, thi), after > agdhiN 'sit' in iN, and after tti 'dwell' in i. Oops! I stand corrected. >> I believe the (?)e morpheme that John presents here fills the >> gap for the -e stems nicely. The original sequence >> >> [Statement]-e' i >> >> must have become >> >> [Statement]-e' e >> >> by simply lowering the original *i to match the preceding -e'. >> Since both are front vowels, they would have been hard to >> distinguish in quick succession anyway. > I'm afraid I don't think that's what happened. >> Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of >> accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of > Which would theoretically never happen, though we have examples like > 90:110.6 s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i 'they are the children' > 90:149.8 tte=i=the 'she was a buffalo' > These are among the few examples of e-stems that don't ablaut. Alright, these are both fair counter-evidence by the first clause of the criteria I stipulated. I don't think this clause is very strong, however. It's likely that the shift I postulated above was still in progress in Dorsey's time, and that the declarative -i after -e could appear as either -i or -e depending on the speaker, the transcriber, the surrounding words, and the rapidity of the utterance. One might pronounce the -i more carefully after an unlikely declaration like "she was a buffalo", while one would never utter it any way but -e in the common expression "I am going." And for your first example, would we recognize any semantic difference between s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i and s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=e ? The second clause of my criteria is stronger. Can we find any examples of this (?)e following any other type of stem than -e ? >> this type appended to roots that are clearly not -e stems, >> especially -a, aN, -A and -u stems. John and I should both >> be on the lookout for this. > This kind of example might also help clarify matters here. Looking at the > paradigm of dhiN 'to be' shows that when it occurs with a focussed pronoun > it requires an e. > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) [snip] > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > The closest to an inclusive I know is: > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' > As far as I know there are no cases in which the third person stem dhiN of > 'to be' occurs with a focussed pronominal, so this paradigm is rather > defective. And since e occurs alone in the third person in such cases, > it's open to being interpreted as the verb 'to be' in that person. > However, the other persons have dhiN in an ordinary dh-stem inflectional > pattern. > And the third person does occur without the focussed pronouns. > 90:148.17 tte'wa?u dhiN 'she is a buffalo woman' (not to be mistaken for a > buffalo gal, unless that actually explains the old song) > 90:148.18 wathaN'ziwa?u dhiN 'she is a corn woman' Could you define what you mean by a "focussed pronoun"? I gather that this is your term for the pronouns wi, dhi, aNgu' and e, which stand as nominals independent of the verb. Correct? If so, wouldn't e dhiN he/she/it is be about the only possible third person example of dhiN occurring with a focussed pronominal? This construction would clash with the somewhat common form e'dhiN, which I think means "have for him/her". > On the other hand, you also get: > 90:247.18 He'ga akh=e 'he is (the) Buzzard', with akha 'the single, not > moving proximate' I've been conceiving of akhe' as an e-grade ablaut form of akha', "s/he is the one", where something one has experienced or discussed is identified as a specific entity. This would be in contradistinction to bdhiN', which identifies the subject as a member of a set. Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. When these are used as articles, we get the a-grade ablaut form, and the sense is that X is the specific known entity that committed the action or that we are talking about. How does that sound to you? > And then there's > 90:385.8 Is^i'baz^i akha=e akha ha 'I. is the one' > I have no idea what's up there. Nor I. We'll have to work on that! Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 04:16:55 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:16:55 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > Bob: > I think we have rather different analyses here. For me, wie bdhiN is NP VP. > I don't look upon dhiN as an enclitic. So are you considering wie to be all one word, as the independent pronoun form of "I"? Do you parse this as: wie bdhiN I am ? Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 04:47:39 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:47:39 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > John: > I've been pondering the conditioning of bi vs. i as the plural/proximate > marker and I'm beginning to wonder if bi doesn't occur in mainly irrealis > contexts or something like that, which is not far in some ways from what > Rory claims. It occurs with ama, with negatives, with at least some > clause markers variably - and I have to check that), and with clauses > under 'to think'. It does also occur in songs and names, which seems a > separate case or cases. I do think that bi and i are otherwise synonymous > and "interchangeable." (Subject to bi having an additional feature.) It sounds like our views are starting to converge a bit here. I agree with John that bi and i are very parallel in function and probably syntactically interchangeable. Hence, their semantic difference should not constitute a problem to any other paradigm built on the assumption of their grammatical equivalence. I would hold that both of these particles are functionally distinct (though not always distinguishable!) from the plural marker i. I would also claim that bi is not merely conditioned by, but actively signals, the irrealis condition. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 13 15:16:16 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 09:16:16 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > >> Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. > > > This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be > > particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. > > I'm confused, but interested. Could you elaborate your argument > here? Why are you seeing this (putative) declarative as particularly > associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences? If e was simply a declarative, why would it occur especially frequently with sentences of the form DEMONSTRATIVE e DECL (where DECL is the he/ha you decided you might prefer to gloss as emphatic). I think clearly something about the e added to the demonstrative produces the sense 'this/that is it/she/he', where the 'is it/she/he' of the English must be the sense added by e. The question seems to be how the e works to produce that 'is it/she/he'. I think that understanding that will help explain cases of VERB e. I don't think we need to jump from the initial difficulties of explaining some VERB e examples to an explanation that seems to me to make it harder to explain how DEM e ha/he means 'DEM is it/she/he'. > > I gather this would take us away from the i = 'plural' analysis entirely. > > That's the view I would favor. I'm afraid I'm still not convinced on that. > >> Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of > >> accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of > > > Which would theoretically never happen, though we have examples like > > > 90:110.6 s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i 'they are the children' > > 90:149.8 tte=i=the 'she was a buffalo' > > > These are among the few examples of e-stems that don't ablaut. > > Alright, these are both fair counter-evidence by the first clause > of the criteria I stipulated. I don't think this clause is very > strong, however. It's likely that the shift I postulated above > was still in progress in Dorsey's time, and that the declarative > -i after -e could appear as either -i or -e depending on the > speaker, the transcriber, the surrounding words, and the rapidity > of the utterance. One might pronounce the -i more carefully > after an unlikely declaration like "she was a buffalo", while one > would never utter it any way but -e in the common expression > "I am going." And for your first example, would we recognize any > semantic difference between > > s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i > > and > > s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=e ? If I understand matters, we wouldn't normally get the latter construction. We'd expect: s^iN'gaz^iNga e. In short, the first is: s^iN'gaz^iNga e=i 'they are the children' and the third is s^iN'gaz^iNga e 's/he is the child'. It might be possible to read the second possibility as 's/he is that child'. The closest we have to an example like that is, I think, something like: 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' I'll have to check to make sure the first e wasn't actually part of the article. I think not, because the plural of dhiNkhe is usually dhaNkha, hence any e there seems like it must be due to contraction. > The second clause of my criteria is stronger. Can we find any > examples of this (?)e following any other type of stem than -e ? Sure, see s^iN'gaz^iNga e=i. Also, all cases of akh=e or am=e or probably the dhaNkh=e just cited. In these last there have been a contraction. As far as I can see, all contractions across = or word boundaries result in loss of the first vowel. Another sort of interaction one gets preserves both vowels but inserts dh, and those are all in rather special pre-verbal contexts. There are also some preverbal examples of a + i => e, or aN + i => iN. I will, however, see if I can find some examples of verb-final non-e followed by e. > Could you define what you mean by a "focussed pronoun"? I gather > that this is your term for the pronouns wi, dhi, aNgu' and e, which > stand as nominals independent of the verb. Correct? Yes, that's correct. Focussed however is more than adjective qualifying independent pronouns. It means something like 'selected for attention or comment in contrast to other possibilities. English independent pronouns are not focussed. If you say 'I ate it' with normal intonation, the 'I' is, in effect, the personal inflection of the verb (or the clause). But in some languages, like Spanish, the independent pronoun emphasizes the participation of the referent in contrast to others. So, just 'yo lo comi' in Spanish means 'it was specifically me, and not someone else, who ate it'. In English you get this sense by stressing the pronoun: '*I* ate it' or by using a cleft construction like 'it was I (or me) who ate it'. Something like the contrastive (focussed) interpretation seems to apply to independent pronouns in Siouan languages. This is fairly typical of languages that have inflected verbs, but not always, e.g., not in French (where most inflection is written only) or in Russian (where inflection is real enough in the present/future forms). Focus is not restricted to pronouns. It can be applied to arbitrary noun phrases in indicative sentences. It's usually considered that wh-questions automatically focus the wh-noun phrase. If anyone else wants to jump in and offer a better explanation of this, which must surely be possible, I'd really appreciate it. Surely someone out there must be itching to do this! > If so, wouldn't > > e dhiN he/she/it is > > be about the only possible third person example of dhiN occurring > with a focussed pronominal? This construction would clash with the > somewhat common form e'dhiN, which I think means "have for him/her". It might clash with it, but it needn't preclude it. In fact, it's e'=dhiN 'that is the one' that doesn't seem to exist. Incidentally, the 'have for him or her' is the dative of adhiN 's/he has it'. The dative involves in very unmarked cases the insertion of the prefix gi- before the stem. In OP this gi contracts with lots of things, so that, in simple historical terms e'dhiN is from *a-(g)i-dhiN. In contemporary terms the contraction explanation doesn't work very well, because (a) the cases where contraction occurs are somewhat arbitrary, (b) in some cases the appearence of contraction affects several syllables in a row, and (c) in some cases the contraction affects a non-adjacent syllable. For that matter, (d) in some cases the gi manages to appear before the pronouns as gi. It's all very interesting, but let's not get into it further right here! > > On the other hand, you also get: > > > 90:247.18 He'ga akh=e 'he is (the) Buzzard', with akha 'the single, not > > moving proximate' > > I've been conceiving of akhe' as an e-grade ablaut form of akha', > "s/he is the one", where something one has experienced or discussed is > identified as a specific entity. I think it's just contraction of akha + e or ama + e, though, of course, in general terms this is the explanation that Bob has argued underlies most ablaut anyway, at least historically. As usual in OP and SIouan in general, faced with something like akhe you have to look at everything else and arrive at some balance that leads you to decide if it's (in this case) akha=e or akhe from akhE, etc. One factor that leads me to the first analysis is that normally in Dhegiha the e-grade is clearly the more basic in analytic terms, and that is not the case with akha. I assume that reading akhe as you want to arises just recently, from deciding that the extra e in things like dhee or bdhee is the same as i and means 'witnessed'? > This would be in contradistinction to bdhiN', which identifies the > subject as a member of a set. I do agree that dhiN (the third person of this verb) identifies the subject as a member or a set, whereas constructions with just demonstratives or articles are existential or non-set pointing. > Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. > When these are used as articles, we get the a-grade ablaut form, and > the sense is that X is the specific known entity that committed the > action or that we are talking about. How does that sound to you? The definite articles do indicate specific references, usually previously mentioned or contextually predictable entities. However, I don't see akhe as being a verbal instance in an e-grade and the articles as being articles in the a-grade. Instead akha + e => akhe is a predicative use of the article + demonstrative, or, to be more precise of the demonstrative. The article is just there because the noun phrase being predicated is definite. So the structure of Hega akhe is [Hega=akha] e, [buzzard the] that (or he), pronounced He'ga=akh=e and meaning 'it (or that or he) is the Buzzard'. From rankin at ku.edu Thu Sep 13 21:05:39 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:05:39 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. > Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. I'm sure someone in this exchange has said it already somewhere, but let me reiterate: Sentence-final /V/ and /Ve/ or just /e/ variants are most often the women's speech forms. And in more recent times one gets /-e/ variants in male speech too because of learning contexts. This used to cause great mirth among the elderly Osage women I worked with back about 1980. In Quapaw the /-e/ variant simply substituted for the -V in women's speech. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 13 23:27:21 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:27:21 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > > > Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. > > > Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. > > I'm sure someone in this exchange has said it already somewhere, but let me > reiterate: Sentence-final /V/ and /Ve/ or just /e/ variants are most often > the women's speech forms. And in more recent times one gets /-e/ variants in > male speech too because of learning contexts. This used to cause great > mirth among the elderly Osage women I worked with back about 1980. > > In Quapaw the /-e/ variant simply substituted for the -V in women's speech. Yes, but I'm pretty sure that's not what's up here, since the female declarative is he in OP (and male is ha), or was before the realignment that's occurred since Dorsey's time. It appears that it might now be ha (and male is hau). I will check to see if I can identify a counter example. Dorsey was alert to male vs. female usage and though he looked at the ART + e alternates at several points, he never suggested this. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 23:58:42 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:58:42 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > Bob: >>> Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. >> Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. > I'm sure someone in this exchange has said it already somewhere, but let me > reiterate: Sentence-final /V/ and /Ve/ or just /e/ variants are most often > the women's speech forms. And in more recent times one gets /-e/ variants in > male speech too because of learning contexts. This used to cause great > mirth among the elderly Osage women I worked with back about 1980. > In Quapaw the /-e/ variant simply substituted for the -V in women's speech. Some things I have said in class with sentence-final -e have caused great mirth among our Omaha ladies as well. I'm confused by your symbolism above. Doesn't /V/ just mean any vowel? If so, aren't you saying that any sentence that ends in a vowel is a women's speech form? In that case, why mention /e/ separately? In the Dorsey texts, akha' is regularly used as an article, while akhe' is placed after a nominal to indicate that that nominal is what the foregoing is. It has seemed to me to function as a third-person copula of identity, though John views it as the contraction of a normal akha' article with the third-person demonstrative 7e. (He may be right; I need to think about this.) Though akhe' is generally sentence-final, I don't see any indication that the speaker in these cases is apt to be female. The difference here seems to be grammatical, not a gender marker. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 05:12:06 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 23:12:06 -0600 Subject: akhe (was RE: Predicative (?)e ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Examples that tend to show that akhe isn't a female speech form. I'm using Dorsey's glosses. I've retranscribed but kept his word divisions, though I've inserted = in them. Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. 90:63.11 Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama I. is the one said they they say Here the akhe isn't final. The repeated akha is a pattern that does occur with 'there is' sentences. I suppose the second akha is imperfective, though I'm not sure why. 90:143.14 wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama my wife that one lying is she said he, they say This is definitely a masculine speaker. 90:311.4 wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo Here Dorsey seems to be considering that akhe might be 'the two', but I doubt this is correct per se, though he is no doubt noticing that there are two racoons, but the article form is what he considers singular. The adha u is the "herald's declarative" (or formal declarative as Rory suggests) in the (modern) male form (I'm pretty sure!), though spoken by two crayfish maidens. I make it "There are two dead racoons (we announce)." I'm wondering if the story didn't originally feature two male crayfish scouts. 90:335.6 e'gidhe dhe'=akh=e akha ha, a'=bi=ama wa'xe ama at length this one reclining is he . said, they say whiteman the Again, a male speaker, plus the male declarative ha, plus internal position. There are various other examples of "... akh=e akha ha." 90:666.5 ppaN'kka akh=e waxiN'ha wiN thi=aNkhidha=i, ... Ponca it is he paper one he has sent it to me I make this 'it was a Ponca who sent me the letter ...'. [In fact, it was Standing Bear, as the sentence goes on to say.] Here the example is internal and the speaker is male. ==== As far as the gender of a'dha 'indeed', here are female forms: 90:124.1 e'gaN ghage' am=e'dhe so they cry indeed 90:143.2 a'dhagaz^ade tte e'dhe you stride over will indeed 90:211.17 wabdha'skabe e'dhe I stick indeed I've omitted the 'she said' parts that follow. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 16:20:23 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:20:23 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: I don't know how you guys find the time to keep this correspondence up and get any work done. :-) It's late morning and I still haven't done anything but email.... >Examples that tend to show that akhe isn't a female speech form. I'm using Dorsey's glosses. I've retranscribed but kept his word divisions, though I've inserted = in them. I ran across a number of the forms you list below when I was in Melbourne researching positionals. I'll have to check, but in some instances it looked like akhe was simply a verb. >Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. 90:63.11 Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama I. is the one said they they say >Here the akhe isn't final. The repeated akha is a pattern that does occur with 'there is' sentences. I agree both these are akha, but I certainly wouldn't segment it this way. To me, this is [[[ishtiniNkhe akha] [e akha]] abiama] the /e/ brackets with the second akha. >90:143.14 wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama my wife that one lying is she said he, they say >This is definitely a masculine speaker. I'm not saying that ALL the sequences of /akhe/ are female speakers. To me this is simply mis-segmented. the /khe/ is your 'lying' article or AUX. /ga/ is the part that means 'that one'. You figure out what the extra -a- is between ga and khe, but where are you going to get 'lying' from if not from khe? >90:311.4 wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo >Here Dorsey seems to be considering that akhe might be 'the two', but I doubt this is correct per se, though he is no doubt noticing that there are two racoons, but the article form is what he considers singular. Again, this is not akh+e but rather a+khe. Khe is where you get your 'lying' semantics from. Where else? Khe is both singular and plural for lying (unless a-khe is somehow plural). this is just a perverse segmentation to me. You have several other instances of /khe/ 'the lying' that you've broken up into /akh/ (which you think is what? Akha?) and /-e/, which you seem to feel is demonstrative 7e. But the translation refers to horizontal (lying, reclining) beings or objects. Semantics plays a role in these puzzles too! Why not start off by segmenting the obvious (!) /khe/ and they try to analyze the remainder. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 17:05:38 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:05:38 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I ran across a number of the forms you list below when I was in Melbourne > researching positionals. I'll have to check, but in some instances it looked > like akhe was simply a verb. As Dorsey almost always glosses it as a verb, it's easy to see it as one. Furthermore articles generally pattern as verbs in several ways in Omaha-Ponca: morphologically (for obviative animates) and syntactically (post demonstrative, clause final). And they serve as or bind pretty closely with (as here) existential predicates. > >Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. > > 90:63.11 > Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama > I. is the one said they they say > > >Here the akhe isn't final. The repeated akha is a pattern that does > occur with 'there is' sentences. > > I agree both these are akha, but I certainly wouldn't segment it this way. > To me, this is [[[ishtiniNkhe akha] [e akha]] abiama] the /e/ brackets with > the second akha. Well, as I indicated, the segmenting into words is Dorsey's. I do agree that syntactically the e is outside [Is^ti'niNkhe(=)akha], serving as the "clefting" predicate (and so marking the NP as focussed). The second akha is an imperfective auxiliary on e. The whole is embedded under a'=bi=ama. However, the e is clearly strongly enclitic to the final element of Is^ti'niNkhe akha, and, I'd add, from exposure to spoken Omaha and to Dorsey's manuscript comments on his orthographic "aka'" being promounced "ak" that the first akha, like all Omaha articles, I think, is an enclitic of the preceding noun. Left to my own devices, I'd have written: Is^ti'niNkhe=akh=e akha a'=bi=ama I didn't because I knew the segmenting would be an issue. I'd analyse this as: [[[[Is^ti'niNkhe=akh]=e] akha] a'=bi]=ama > >90:143.14 > wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama > my wife that one lying is she said he, they say > > >This is definitely a masculine speaker. > > I'm not saying that ALL the sequences of /akhe/ are female speakers. To me > this is simply mis-segmented. the /khe/ is your 'lying' article or AUX. /ga/ > is the part that means 'that one'. You figure out what the extra -a- is > between ga and khe, but where are you going to get 'lying' from if not from > khe? There's no trace of gaa in Omaha except in cases like this. I'm certain Dorsey has simply misunderstood the form. > >90:311.4 > wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u > racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo > > >Here Dorsey seems to be considering that akhe might be 'the two', but I > doubt this is correct per se, though he is no doubt noticing that there > are two racoons, but the article form is what he considers singular. > > Again, this is not akh+e but rather a+khe. Khe is where you get your 'lying' > semantics from. Where else? Khe is both singular and plural for lying > (unless a-khe is somehow plural). this is just a perverse segmentation to > me. > > You have several other instances of /khe/ 'the lying' that you've broken up > into /akh/ (which you think is what? Akha?) and /-e/, which you seem to feel The breaking up into words, as I emphasized in the original posting is strictly Dorsey's. The akh is just akha=e as pronounced. It is never akhae. The strong parallel with ame < ama=e, as well as the majority of Dorsey's glosses of =e (his e, I insert the =) shows that we're not dealing with khe preceded by a mysterious extra a. > is demonstrative 7e. But the translation refers to horizontal (lying, > reclining) beings or objects. Semantics plays a role in these puzzles too! > Why not start off by segmenting the obvious (!) /khe/ and they try to > analyze the remainder. I did. I came back to akh=e. Dorsey has various comments here and there in his materials on akhe and ame showing that they puzzled him. He, however, never looked at akhe as (some a) khe. As much anything, I think that ame was his beacon. As =e is (I think) only now being understood, it's not surprising he had some problems with these two. He had problems with all kinds of things, especially in the post-verbal and/or clause final strings, though in general he was impressively insightful. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 19:05:50 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:05:50 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >Furthermore articles generally pattern as verbs in several ways in Omaha-Ponca: morphologically (for obviative animates) and syntactically (post demonstrative, clause final). And they serve as or bind pretty closely with (as here) existential predicates. I guess I'm shocked and surprised to find that my analysis of these constructions is actually more abstract than other Siouanists. :-) To me the so-called articular verbs (the conjugated 'progressives') are always AUX's and not main verbs. In existential cases the real verb however is most often "zero", and the de-article AUX is all that is left overt. I think essentially that we're saying the same thing here though. > >Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. > > 90:63.11 > Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama > I. is the one said they they say >Well, as I indicated, the segmenting into words is Dorsey's. I do agree that syntactically the e is outside [Is^ti'niNkhe(=)akha], serving as the "clefting" predicate (and so marking the NP as focussed). The second akha is an imperfective auxiliary on e. The whole is embedded under a'=bi=ama. ... the e is clearly strongly enclitic to the final element of Is^ti'niNkhe akha, and, I'd add, from exposure to spoken Omaha and to Dorsey's manuscript comments on his orthographic "aka'" being promounced "ak" that the first akha, like all Omaha articles, I think, is an enclitic of the preceding noun. OK, you're just marking a phonological boundary where I wouldn't. In Kaw I had lots of examples where I'd have actually written a pause (comma) between the subject and the /e/, which was part of the predicate. If Omaha speakers drop the final V of akha and appear to cliticize the following /e/, I'd consider that a fast-speech phenomenon and let it go as that. [[[[Is^ti'niNkhe=akh]=e] akha] a'=bi]=ama It looks from this as though you're basing your syntactic parsing on your phonological parsing. Grammatically, /e/ just doesn't go with the 1st NP except maybe in the surface phonology. > >90:143.14 > wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama > my wife that one lying is she said he, they say >There's no trace of gaa in Omaha except in cases like this. I'm certain Dorsey has simply misunderstood the form. I tend to doubt that. I haven't looked up the context, but IF there is any evidence at all that the wife was in a horizontal position, then you just can't escape having /khe/ as the morpheme. Ga is the third member of the deictic trio, dhee, shee, gaa, and it should probably have a long V if it was accented (although as we've noted many times, we don't understand the length alternations). The next example is even clearer in favor of /khe/, because here both subjects are dead (i.e., lying down). > >90:311.4 > wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u > racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo >The breaking up into words, as I emphasized in the original posting is strictly Dorsey's. The akh is just akha=e as pronounced. It is never akhae. OK, that's just the usual Siouan V1V2 > V2, but it isn't the issue. Nor, I think is Dorsey's word boundaries, which I agree are often problematic. I still see the problem as being your enclitic boundary (=) between kh and e in the horizontal positional. I guess the semantics is primary to me; if reclining is a part of the translation, then khe is clearly a unit. The only way to contradict Dorsey on the semantics is to check it with speakers (and even then folk analyses are possible, unfortunately). > Why not start off by segmenting the obvious (!) /khe/ and they try to > analyze the remainder. >I did. I came back to akh=e. Well, at least in the examples I've seen that still looks perverse. I'm unconvinced that this is contributing to our understanding of the several 7ee's. I guess time and work will sort them out.... bob From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 19:32:52 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:32:52 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: >> So are you considering wie to be all one word, as the independent >> pronoun form of "I"? Do you parse this as: >> wie bdhiN >> I am ? > Exactly. In Proto-Siouan, maybe 3000 years ago, wie, yie, ie, etc. were presumably the patient pronominals compounded with or prefixed to *7e, the demonstrative, I think. But the glottal stop has been replaced by zero or a glide (y) in most languages and these are best thought of as disjunctive, contrastive pronouns and single words. The first person is "echoed" here by the b- of b-thiN. (thiN, 'be of class membership') > kkaNze bliN 'I'm a Kaw' Alright... Now a "patient pronominal" is what? The basic, original pronoun that can either be incorporated into a verb in a non-intensified way, or be combined with some other particle, likely demonstrative, to produce a stand-alone, disjunctive pronoun? The patient pronominal prefix set is used to mark the object of a transitive and the subject of a stative verb. It also combines with a number of particles to produce various emphatic/contrastive disjunctive pronouns. (I am the one who..., me too, etc.) So you would reconstruct the Proto-Siouan state roughly as follows: *wi - I (MORE LIKE 'ME' ACTUALLY RLR) *7e - that, a demonstrative *yiN - to be (a member) (PROBABLY *riN RLR) Then *wi=7e ==> *wie meaning "I - that" (OK RLR) *wi=yiN ==> *bliN meaning "I - be-a-member" Here the pronoun would be a variant of the active pronoun /a-/. Proto-Siouan for this was probably something like *wa-. Wi- was the corresponding patient. >In this case, where is the demonstrative *7e pointing? Does it indicate the *wi, or does it reference something else that is being linked to the *wi? It is simply a part of the independent pronominal set. Whether the 7e is/was a copular verb of some kind or whether it was a demonstrative particle begs the questions that we've been trying to answer, i.e., is it a case of homophony or polysemy? Now you say that you've never heard the verb bliN used with a contrastive pronoun. I take it this means that you have never heard wie bliN in Kaw? No, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. What's it mean? It's me (rather than someone else)? >If so, that surprises me. In Dorsey's OP collection, the statement wiebdhiN is actually somewhat common. However, in Dorsey, the contrastive, disjunctive personal pronoun set seems to me to be clearly wi - I dhi - you oNgu' - we I've heard the final -e of these forms elided or semi-elided, so I look upon the Omaha-Ponca versions without a clear [e] as just fast speech forms. It seems clear that the forms WITH the 7e underlie these throughout Mississippi Valley Siouan. It might pay to listen for a long V here. in hopes of surviving.... The righteous cub in the end states his own claim: Wi'-hnaN s^te edue'ha-ma'z^i the. I alone did not follow them (in their wickedness). 'I alone' may compound wi- with a different particle. Or this may again have an underlying -e. I don't know. Ask for it in slow speech (understanding of course that the request "please speak more slowly" is usually interpreted as "please speak more loudly" :-) ). >Elsewhere, forms like wi s^ti, "I also", are not uncommon. Again, a different compound and different meaning. >It seems to me (and I think to John also, no?) that these basic pronouns still exist independently of following 7e in OP, though they may be fused in other Siouan languages. My sense of the wiebdhiN sequence is: Wi e bdhiN I s/he am I am s/he, the one just spoken of. >In this interpretation, of course, bdhiN would be a copula of identity, not of set membership, but I think that is required by the context in any case. I don't think so. I think the complement "s/he" here is an artifact of English. Also, this is one of those cases where 'identity' and 'class membership' overlap somewhat. Nonetheless, I certainly wouldn't be dogmatic about insisting that dhiN can ONLY be set membership. It's just that virtually all my cases are that way. I'd bet that the forms wie (or wii), dhie (or dhii), oNgu, etc. are Gestalts for speakers. I'd be very surprised if they can still decompose them into two morphemes. The compounds date back many centuries (I can't recall if they're Proto-Siouan or not, but I think they occur in Ohio Valley Siouan also.) Bob From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 19:48:05 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:48:05 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e Message-ID: >Some things I have said in class with sentence-final -e have caused great mirth among our Omaha ladies as well. John is probably right that, classically, the fem. particle was -he, with an /h/, but I think those h's are gone in speech for the most part. I never heard a single one in Kaw, Quapaw or Osage. They are a possible source of ANY sentence-final [e], even with male speakers. >I'm confused by your symbolism above. Doesn't /V/ just mean any vowel? yes, sorry about that. My fingers get ahead of my brain. >If so, aren't you saying that any sentence that ends in a vowel is a women's speech form? In that case, why mention /e/ separately? No, that's just my little way of trying to confuse everybody. I think what I was probably trying to say here badly was that, whatever V ends the last word in the sentence, it can be completely replaced by /-e/ in female declaratives. >In the Dorsey texts, akha' is regularly used as an article, while akhe' is placed after a nominal to indicate that that nominal is what the foregoing is. It has seemed to me to function as a third-person copula of identity, though John views it as the contraction of a normal akha' article with the third-person demonstrative 7e. Hmmm, somehow I don't see these as different analyses. I think you're both right. EXCEPT that if the 'reclining' article, khe, is a semantic part of the discourse, then [akhe] is a+khe, not akh(a)+e. That is the topic of the other thread that John and I have been carrying on. >Though akhe' is generally sentence-final, I don't see any indication that the speaker in these cases is apt to be female. The difference here seems to be grammatical, not a gender marker. That may well be. I think my point is that there are SEVERAL potential ambiguities possible in such cases. That's why they all really need to be checked with fluent speakers. Bob From Rgraczyk at aol.com Fri Sep 14 21:42:23 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:42:23 EDT Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow Message-ID: It's about time to add some Crow data to the discussion, lest the Siouan list become the Dhegiha list! Crow does have some traces of nominal ablaut, although I am not sure how significant they are from a diachronic standpoint, except to emphasize the fact that ablaut is a persistent pattern in Siouan languages. 1) Stems ending in short a or i ablaut to e in the citation form, the form that occurs as an independent word, e.g. bili' 'water' (stem) bile' (citation form) bili-shpi'te 'coffee' (+ shipi'te 'black') bili-chiku'a 'pop' (+ chiku'a 'sweet') Wes Jones claims in his article on the Hidatsa approximative that short e is raised to i in Hidatsa. This may have been the case also in Crow, although it is no longer a synchronic rule. Actually the reverse is true in Crow: i -- > ee word-finally. I write ee, because there is evidence that short e and o have been lost in Crow, so that even words like bile' that we write with a short e actually have phonemic ee. Perhaps all the short e's went to i. Because all stems ending in i and a have citation forms in e, it can actually be difficult at times to find out what the stem-final vowel is. When you ask a Crow speaker for a word, you invariably get the citation form. The simplest way to discover the stem vowel is to ask for the word with a sentence-final declarative marker -k, i.e., 'it's an X'. However speakers tend to rebel at saying things like 'it's a pancreas', so I don't actually have stem forms for some of the body parts. (Note that many of the stem forms for body parts cannot be found in the Dictionary of Everyday Crow.) 2) Generally, word-formation processes involve the nominal stem rather than the citation form: compounding, derivational affixation, etc. However there are four suffixes that are added to the citation form rather than to the stem: -sh (definite article), -m (indefinite non-specific article), -taa (path postposition), and -n (locative postposition), e.g. bile'e-sh 'the water' bile'e-m 'some water' a'aka 'top, roof' (stem) a'ake (citation form) a'aka-ss 'to the top' (+ goal postposition; no ablaut) a'akee-n 'on top' (+ locative pp; ablaut) a'akee-taa 'along the top' (+ path pp; ablaut) I consider these true examples of ablaut, since the change is conditioned only by certain suffixes. There are also a handful of stems in Crow that end in short u: these ablaut to oo, e.g. baalu' 'bead' (stem) baalo' (citation form) baalu-sho'oshuwatchi 'medium blue' (no ablaut) baalo'o-sh 'the beads (+ definite article; ablaut) The first solution for this pattern that leaps to mind is that the four suffixes are actually --eesh, -eem, -eetaa and -een. However then we have the difficulty of explaining what happens with the u-stems, where the vowel is oo rather than ee. 3) In addition to these, there are some nouns that ablaut before plural -u and before other suffixes beginning with -a: b'itchii 'knife' (stem) bi'tchiia (citation form) bi'ttaa-u 'knives' (+ plural; ablaut) iskoochi'i 'enemy' (stem) iskoochi'ia (citation form) iskoota'a-u (+plural; ablaut) This variety of ablaut is lexically conditioned; there are many more nouns ending in -ii that do not ablaut. This same ablaut pattern is found in a number of verbs ending in -ii: du'ushii 'set down, put down, bury' (stem) du'usaa-u (+ plural; ablaut) du'usaa-(a)k (+ SS marker; ablaut) du'usaa-h (+ imperative; ablaut) I have a paper on Crow ablaut which goes into these matters in considerably more detail. I'll bring it along to Boulder to add to the collection. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 22:47:08 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:47:08 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow In-Reply-To: <98.1a4f6772.28d3d3bf@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Sep 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > It's about time to add some Crow data to the discussion, lest the > Siouan list become the Dhegiha list! I'm sorry. I really do very much regret that tendency. It makes for a dry and rather exhausting list. > 1) Stems ending in short a or i ablaut to e in the citation form, the form > that occurs as an independent word, e.g. > > bili' 'water' (stem) > bile' (citation form) Based on the following, some nouns (in -ii?) form their citation form by adding -a? > 3) In addition to these, there are some nouns that ablaut before plural -u > and before other suffixes beginning with -a: > > b'itchii 'knife' (stem) > bi'tchiia (citation form) > bi'ttaa-u 'knives' (+ plural; ablaut) > > iskoochi'i 'enemy' (stem) > iskoochi'ia (citation form) > iskoota'a-u (+plural; ablaut) From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 23:21:15 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:21:15 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > Rory: In this case, where is the demonstrative *7e pointing? Does it > indicate the *wi, or does it reference something else that is being > linked to the *wi? Just in case I haven't made myself clear, I'd argue that it was pointing at the pronominal or demonstrative or clause it was following, or, perhaps better, that both (7)e and the thing before it are pointing at the same thing. It ((7)e) is essentially the 'it' of 'it is X' or 'X is it/she/he'. > Bob: It is simply a part of the independent pronominal set. Whether > the 7e is/was a copular verb of some kind or whether it was a > demonstrative particle begs the questions that we've been trying to > answer, i.e., is it a case of homophony or polysemy? Well, if it's a demonstrative particle, it seems much more likely to be something like polysemy (i.e., of (7)e serving as both a demonstrative pronoun and an appendage to personal pronouns, focus particle, etc.), unless we want to argue that there are two different demonstratives of the shape (7)e. On the other hand, I can see where if it's a copular verb it might be better characterized as homophony. (Except that I think some historical linguists think that demonstratives are a major source of copulas.) > Rory: Now you say that you've never heard the verb bliN used with a > contrastive pronoun. I take it this means that you have never > heard > > wie bliN > > in Kaw? > > Bob: No, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. What's it mean? It's > me (rather than someone else)? Yes. > Rory: If so, that surprises me. In Dorsey's OP collection, the > statement wiebdhiN is actually somewhat common. However, in > Dorsey, the contrastive, disjunctive personal pronoun set > seems to me to be clearly > > wi - I > > dhi - you > > oNgu' - we > > Bob (?): I've heard the final -e of these forms elided or semi-elided, > so I look upon the Omaha-Ponca versions without a clear [e] as just > fast speech forms. It seems clear that the forms WITH the 7e underlie > these throughout Mississippi Valley Siouan. It might pay to listen for > a long V here. In OP the e is always present when dhiN 'to be' follows the pronoun, and only e, without dhiN, or dhiN without e, seem to occur as third persons. On the other hand, in Dorsey there is never e after just wi or dhi without (inflected) dhiN following it. I do recall wi in elicitation, and I'd say it was long. However, I concur with Rory that there's just no e with wi and dhi if dhiN doesn't follow, and the forms he cites (not to mention witta 'my', now usually wiwitta, etc.) would be the ones I'd cite. Different languages, different forms. I'm always shocked at how "devient" from the Dhegiha norm Kaw and Osage and Quapaw can be. :-) Sometimes I doubt they're even really underlyingly Omaha-Ponca ... > >It seems to me (and I think to John also, no?) that these > basic pronouns still exist independently of following 7e > in OP, though they may be fused in other Siouan languages. Precisely. > My sense of the wiebdhiN sequence is: > > Wi e bdhiN > I s/he am > I am s/he, the one just spoken of. > > >In this interpretation, of course, bdhiN would be a > copula of identity, not of set membership, but I think > that is required by the context in any case. > > I don't think so. I do agree on this, but also with the fuzziness of membership vs. identity. > I think the complement "s/he" here is an artifact of > English. Also, this is one of those cases where 'identity' and 'class > membership' overlap somewhat. Nonetheless, I certainly wouldn't be dogmatic > about insisting that dhiN can ONLY be set membership. It's just that > virtually all my cases are that way. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Sep 15 01:06:03 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 20:06:03 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: >> >> Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. >> > This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be >> > particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. >> I'm confused, but interested. Could you elaborate your argument >> here? Why are you seeing this (putative) declarative as particularly >> associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences? > If e was simply a declarative, why would it occur especially frequently > with sentences of the form DEMONSTRATIVE e DECL (where DECL is the he/ha > you decided you might prefer to gloss as emphatic). The model I was suggesting (and I don't claim to be married to it) is as follows. The particle e that appears after the verb or nominal in almost all the example sentences you gave a few days ago occurs only after (accented?) -e and fits the position and meaning of the (non-pluralizing) particle -i, which I have considered to be declarative. Hence, e is an allomorph of declarative -i. Its only particular association with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences is that "this", dhe, and "that", she, both happen to be non-ablautable -e stems, and hence condition the -e rather than the -i form of the declarative. Regarding the he/ha particles, I also originally supposed them to be declaratives. This view became untenable to me, at least as an absolute, when I found out that they frequently followed the command particles a/ga in commands. Since then, I've preferred to consider them emphatics, though I grant that they may function as declaratives as well. > I think clearly > something about the e added to the demonstrative produces the sense > 'this/that is it/she/he', where the 'is it/she/he' of the English must be > the sense added by e. The question seems to be how the e works to produce > that 'is it/she/he'. I think that understanding that will help explain > cases of VERB e. I don't think we need to jump from the initial > difficulties of explaining some VERB e examples to an explanation that > seems to me to make it harder to explain how DEM e ha/he means 'DEM is > it/she/he'. I don't think it makes it any harder to explain at all. But I think your objection here segues into a larger issue I had been wanting to bring up. When we make what we regard as a complete sentence, two things are involved. First, we are invoking a subset model of our shared conceptual world. This involves words of reference and their logical relationships. Second, we are making a demand on the listener. If our utterance involves only that structural model of a conception alone, without the demand, then we have spoken only what seems like a noun phrase to us English speakers; the utterance seems vain unless it simply fills in information requested by prior speech. In English and other Indo-European languages, the demand generally rides on the finite verb. If I say: The Siamese cat with the screechy voice that my grandmother in Oregon gave me last Christmas ran out the open door to the tree in my cranky neighbor's back yard last night... no demand has been made on the listener's credulity until we hit the word "ran". At that point, a claim of fact is made along with the imagery of running. After that word, we are simply filling in more details. Because of this Indo-European characteristic, I think that we Western linguists tend to harbor the prejudice that a finite verb is always needed to make a complete sentence. In Siouan, however, I think we're dealing with a different linguistic pattern. Here, the demand rides on a particle that follows the final verb, or noun if there is no verb, of the sentence or clause. In this kind of language, a verb may augment the subset model by describing an action or relation, but it makes no more demand on the listener than a noun, and hence is equally dispensable. A string of nouns and verbs build the conception, but they do not make a complete sentence. That doesn't happen until we hit the "demand" particle at the end. (I don't mean to be too absolutist about the above paradigm of Siouan. I recognize that languages are necessarily gradient, and that some sentences in Siouan may lack any "demand" particle. Also, when I say "Siouan", it should be understood that my own experience is with OP and Lakhota.) A demand might be: Accept this as an addition to your knowledge base! Give me the information I request! Do this! Consider this as a hypothesis! A few weeks ago, we discussed e'gaN. I would suggest the following analysis for its use with "demand" particles: e - the foregoing gaN - so, thus, in such manner e'gaN - in the manner of the foregoing "Demand" particles -0 - zero, perhaps DECL for generalities -i - DECL, perhaps only for entities -bi - hypothetical, irrealis -ga/a - command -a - inquiry E'gaN. It is so. / Okay. / As you say. E'gaN i. He/She/It is that way. E'gaN bi=ama. It is supposedly that way. E'gaN a? Is it/he/she that way? E'gaN ga! Do accordingly! / Do what has just been described! Note that in the last example, I believe that the "do" has nothing to do with the gaN; the English "do!" is implicit in the command particle ga. In this view, the declarative particle -i can be used equally well for nouns or verbs. If used after a verb, it means that the verb took place. If used after a noun, it simply implies the existence or identity of the noun, in a way that we would handle with the verb "is". VERB i. VERB happened/happens. NOUN i. NOUN exists. / He/She/It is NOUN. Since DEMONSTRATIVE references a noun phrase, your objectionable sentence DEM e ha/he can simply be understood as a case of the last sentence type: NOUN i EMPH ==> DEM e ha/he ==> 'this/that is it/she/he' Rory From Rgraczyk at aol.com Sat Sep 15 19:31:42 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 15:31:42 EDT Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow Message-ID: In a message dated 9/14/2001 4:48:10 PM Mountain Daylight Time, John.Koontz at colorado.edu writes: > Based on the following, some nouns (in -ii?) form their citation form by > adding -a? > > That's right; nouns ending in -uu also add -a in the citation form. The generalization seems to be that Crow does not like words that end in a high vowel. The only exceptions that I can think of are vocative forms, e.g., baashi'i 'brother-in-law!', and a few adverbs. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 15 19:46:43 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:46:43 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow In-Reply-To: <6d.1a62e8a4.28d5069e@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Sep 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > That's right; nouns ending in -uu also add -a in the citation form. The > generalization seems to be that Crow does not like words that end in a high > vowel. The only exceptions that I can think of are vocative forms, e.g., > baashi'i 'brother-in-law!', and a few adverbs. How do the Crow final patterns for nouns match up with Hidatsa, Mandan, and Siouan at large? I always think that when there are patterns, it's useful to compare the whole pattern instead of just a particular form within it. I know that at least some ia and ua patterns in Crow (not sure about length) turn out to suggest -h finals when compared with, say Dakotan, though that might be for verb. From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Mon Sep 17 13:00:54 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:00:54 GMT Subject: early loans in Dakotan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Siouanists >>From a recent discussion on bows and arrows, I gathered that it was thought that a number of basic lexemes may be borrowings into Dakotan from neighbouring languages, Indian or European. Do any of you have any good examples. Ones that I know of include khunkhunla 'pickle' presumably French 'cocombre', khukhus^e 'pig' French 'cochon', bebela 'baby' Fr bebe or Engl baby. Are there any anyone knows of from Indian languages. ??? Bruce Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 17 15:19:33 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:19:33 -0600 Subject: early loans in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <94774764F6@soas.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote: > From a recent discussion on bows and arrows, I gathered that it > was thought that a number of basic lexemes may be borrowings > into Dakotan from neighbouring languages, Indian or European. Do > any of you have any good examples. Ones that I know of include > khunkhunla 'pickle' presumably French 'cocombre', khukhus^e 'pig' > French 'cochon', bebela 'baby' Fr bebe or Engl baby. Are there any > anyone knows of from Indian languages. ??? You can add S^aglas^a to the list of European loans, from les Anglais (but with the Algonquian diminutive). Siebert suggested that an Algonquian term for tamarack was borrowed into Dakota. It's slipping my mind at the moment, but in Buechel it occurs compounded with a color term (blue/green?) in the name of a color of loin cloth. In the other direction, I suspect OP iNdakkudha is a loan from Da dakhota/khola. We've mentioned 'bow'. Other possible loans include wagmuN (and hence wagmeza < wagmuN heza) and igmuN, also c^haNli, -thuNwaN, and -khota/khola, though the sources are obscure. In most cases the clue is an unusual cluster or a very irregular correspondence set, combined with the existence of look-alikes in other families. These don't always allow us to be sure what the source for the terms is, as the lookalikes are fairly widespread. Another very irregular set is 'dance', cf. OP wac^hi(gaghe). Lookalikes for 'nine' cf. OP s^aNkka (-e?) are also pretty widespread in the East, but I don't remember if Dakotan participates in this set. 'Horse' from something like kawara from caballo is fairly widespread. I think the intermediate source here is Wichita. 'Kkawa' is the normal term for 'horse' in Osage, and I've seen Kkawaha 'horsehide' (?) as a name im OP, even though it uses the old 'dog' term normally. I once saw a Mandan name in kawa- I thought might have the same explanation, but I forget the details. for 'horse' in Osage, and I've seen Kkawaha 'horsehide' (?) as a name im OP, even though it uses the old 'dog' term normally. I once saw a Mandan name in kawa- I thought might have the same explanation, but I forget the details. I'd argue that any band names with waz^az^a in them were loans from Dhegiha, and there are some. One might also wonder about forms like 'Saones' (cf. OP sa^aN 'Sioux') for which there are widespread lookalikes. In general, many - though not all - ethnonyms are borrowed. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Mon Sep 17 23:02:38 2001 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:02:38 -0500 Subject: early loans in Dakotan Message-ID: > Siebert suggested that an Algonquian term for tamarack was borrowed into > Dakota. It's slipping my mind at the moment Dakota (Riggs) s^iNtá 'tamarack' < Algonquian (cf. Proto-Alg. s^enta 'evergreen tree') (Siebert 1967 p. 27) From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 18 03:37:35 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:37:35 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> I've been conceiving of akhe' as an e-grade ablaut form of akha', >> "s/he is the one", where something one has experienced or discussed is >> identified as a specific entity. > John: > I think it's just contraction of akha + e or ama + e, though, of course, > in general terms this is the explanation that Bob has argued underlies > most ablaut anyway, at least historically. As usual in OP and SIouan in > general, faced with something like akhe you have to look at everything > else and arrive at some balance that leads you to decide if it's (in this > case) akha=e or akhe from akhE, etc. One factor that leads me to the > first analysis is that normally in Dhegiha the e-grade is clearly the more > basic in analytic terms, and that is not the case with akha. I still don't see that it's that clear that the e-grade is more basic than the a-grade. You've effectively shot down the argument from Dakotan -AN stems for the a-grade being the stem by pointing out that the -AN stems are an analogic derivation within the Dakotan branch, but you still haven't given what I see as a strong argument for the converse position that the e-grade is the basic stem form. I believe the only reason you've given for this view is that the e-grade is the usual citation form. Yet I think we've all agreed that the citation form may well be marked with an additional morpheme. Certainly in English, we might be inclined to use "to run" as the citation form, although the stem would certainly be "run". In German, we'd use the infinitive as the citation form, though there would be an "-en" tacked onto what is actually the stem. In Latin, we might also use the infinitive as the citation form, in which case we would have a "-re" or something appended to the stem. In the Siouan case, we simply have an alternation between -a and -e endings, with the -e ending form commonly being chosen for citation. If this is the only argument we have for the basicness of the e-grade form, then I think we have to regard the issue of which one is the stem form as an open question. > I assume that reading akhe as you want to arises just recently, from > deciding that the extra e in things like dhee or bdhee is the same as i > and means 'witnessed'? No, actually I've been reading it, and akha, that way for quite a while. You may be right in your view that it is simply a contraction of akha=e; I just didn't think of that possibility at the time I discovered akhe. Another possibility, perhaps, is that it is a merging of akha=i. Yet a fourth possibility might be found in the phrase you and Bob have been disputing: >>> 90:63.11 >>> Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama >>> I. is the one said they they say I would be tempted to parse this as Bob does: [[Is^ti'niNkhe akha] [e akha]] ... If this is what it took to say "Is^ti'niNkhe is the one", is it not likely that the entire sentence would be radically reduced in daily unelevated speech? The accented e might have contracted backwards with the preceding akha, while the final longwinded akha was simply truncated away. Thus: X akha', e' akha' ==> X akh=e' where both variants mean "X is the one", but with the latter version saving three syllables of speech time. This fourth explanation would not support the interpretation of [[X akha'] [e]] necessarily being a complete sentence. In any case, though, I can say I've been quite comfortable in reading akha'/akhe' as having the verbal sense of "to exist" or "to be the one", even where it appears as an article. As a subject marker, X akha' simply means that X is the one (who committed the action). It also makes it much easier to understand the force of occasional sentences in which akha' is used for the plural, e.g. 43:6 Khi MaNtc^u z^iN'ga akha' du'ba-biama'. "And there were four young Grizzly bears." (Dorsey's tr.) Or as I would read it: And [young Grizzly bear] there-was, four of them. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 19 05:12:20 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:12:20 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > No, actually I've been reading it, and akha, that way for quite a while. > You may be right in your view that it is simply a contraction of akha=e; > I just didn't think of that possibility at the time I discovered akhe. > Another possibility, perhaps, is that it is a merging of akha=i. ... Actually, it appears that akh(=)e=bi=ama and akh(=)e=i both occur in the texts - search for AKE*-BIAMA AKE*I in the Siouan Archives version. This tends to militate against seeing akhe as from akha=i, though you could try to rescue matters by appealing to analogy or error or assuming two separate i morphemes. However, I think it's just an akha at the end of an NP followed by e'=i 'it is' or e=bi=ama 'it is they say'. Treated as a verb e 'that; it is' doesn't ablaut. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 19 05:36:17 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:36:17 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > I still don't see that it's that clear that the e-grade is more basic > than the a-grade. > You've effectively shot down the argument from Dakotan -AN stems for > the a-grade being the stem by pointing out that the -AN stems are an > analogic derivation within the Dakotan branch, I think this argument originates with the Dakotanists, though I'm not enough of a historian of the matte to recall which. > but you still haven't given what I see as a strong argument for the > converse position that the e-grade is the basic stem form. Omitting the citation form argument in its operation sense, i.e., what do speakers use as citation forms, which you recall, one could approach the matter from the point of view of which form seemed simplest in various senses. The a-grade occurs with the third person singular as the most common variant, of course, but only with following =i or =bi, albeit the former is often lost in modern Omaha speech. There are forms - the ones I call obviative - in which the e occurs with nothing following it. 90:345.9 wadhi'xdhe dhe=the 'he went chasing (buffalo)' This is also the form that occurs when an article follows (forming a relative clause or indicating the imperfective), or kki 'if', or another verb embedding the e-grade under it as a complement, etc. When cases occur, as they do, in which dhe=kki is opposed to dha=i=kki, it seems logical to see the a-variant as derived from the e-variant under the conditioning of the presence of i. There are also Siouan languages - Ioway-Otoe, for example - in which e is the usual grade for the third person singular, because the unique Dhegiha pattern with the plural as proximate doesn't occur. This needn't imply anything for Omaha-Ponca, of course, but it does show that Siouan languages can work either way. In the end, of course, it probably doesn't make much difference which grade is basic except for linguistic purposes (in writing the stem). I do, think, however, that considering the logic of akhe vs. akha and ame vs. ama without insisting on a particular analysis of akhe and ame, it is still clear that the alternation of e vs. a works differently for these than it does for (more typical) verbs, and that this is apparent even without addressing cases like akh(=)e=i where it works in quite the opposite way from, say, (a)dha=i. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 20 00:26:47 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:26:47 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: >> No, actually I've been reading it, and akha, that way for quite a while. >> You may be right in your view that it is simply a contraction of akha=e; >> I just didn't think of that possibility at the time I discovered akhe. >> Another possibility, perhaps, is that it is a merging of akha=i. ... > John: > Actually, it appears that akh(=)e=bi=ama and akh(=)e=i both occur in the > texts - search for AKE*-BIAMA AKE*I in the Siouan Archives version. This > tends to militate against seeing akhe as from akha=i, though you could try > to rescue matters by appealing to analogy or error or assuming two > separate i morphemes. However, I think it's just an akha at the end of an > NP followed by e'=i 'it is' or e=bi=ama 'it is they say'. Treated as a > verb e 'that; it is' doesn't ablaut. Actually, I agree with you that akhe' as derived from akha=i is not likely. I had included that as one possibility among several, but I wasn't really plumping for it. Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. [snip] > I do, think, however, that considering the logic of akhe vs. akha and ame > vs. ama without insisting on a particular analysis of akhe and ame, it is > still clear that the alternation of e vs. a works differently for these > than it does for (more typical) verbs, and that this is apparent even > without addressing cases like akh(=)e=i where it works in quite the > opposite way from, say, (a)dha=i. Again, I agree. The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? Rory From rankin at ku.edu Thu Sep 20 14:42:30 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:42:30 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: > Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. 1. "as 'the' does in ... frequent form" Actually, this is the "the" that is not historically a positional I think. It's the one that some linguists have translated 'narrative' and which has the cognate in Hidatsa "rahe" 'rumored'. John's 2000 Siouan Conf. paper was on synchronic aspects of this particle and my ICHL paper last month was on diachronic aspects of it. 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. > The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? 3. In those instances where 'lying/horizontal' persons/objects are involved I think the identity of the /khe/ part of akhe is clearly the reclining positional, not a derivation from akha. In dealing with form and meaning, meaning is of equal or greater importance. Other than those 3 points, I don't have anything to add to the discussion because the languages I've worked on just don't have /akhe/ apparently. Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) does not mean that they are semantically or morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he didn't always understand everything. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 20 15:00:34 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:00:34 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to > come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the > sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] > bi=the'=ama. This is a good point that I had overlooked. In analyzing akhe=i as akh[a]=e=i, you have to assume that the [... akha] is embedded under the e=i. This would be a Siouan case of enclitics not respecting the phrase structure of the sentence. The e=i is attached phonologically to the "... akh[a]" but the akha forms a constituent with the preceding NP, not with the e=i. > This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X > akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? I didn't specifically address 4, but I think that any additional akha after akhe is functional, so that "... akhe" and "... akhe akha" are separate cases. I think Bob was arguing at least that at least some akhe were a-khe, where khe was the 'horizontal definite article' khe used with inanimates and some animates (typically, ex-animates). I'm not sure I buy that for most akhe, but the two examples he suggested this for at least deserve another look on my part. Actually, at the risk of confusing matters, let me add that historically I do actually think that akha might well be from a + khe and ama from a + ma. I can't account for the final vowel shift in the first case. I assume the initial a is another instance of the *(r)a that occurs so widely after nouns or between then and other things. However, there is no sign of initial h with this a in Osage, Kaw or Quapaw, e.g., the Osage articles are akha and apa. The lack of h poses a problem in associating these various post-nominal/pre-articlar/etc. a's with the forms that serve as the indefinite demonstrative stem in Osage, etc. In OP the indefinite stem is is a, too, but in Osage, etc., it's ha as I've mentioned before. One possibility is that there is no such association, of course. From rankin at ku.edu Thu Sep 20 15:16:39 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:16:39 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha -akhe. Message-ID: > Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. 1. "as 'the' does in ... frequent form" Actually, this is the "the" that is not historically a positional I think. It's the one that some linguists have translated 'narrative' and which has the cognate in Hidatsa "rahe" 'rumored'. John's 2000 Siouan Conf. paper was on synchronic aspects of this particle and my ICHL paper last month was on diachronic aspects of it. 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. > The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? 3. Yes, in those instances where 'lying/horizontal' persons/objects are involved I think the identity of the /khe/ part of akhe is clearly the reclining positional, not a derivation from akha. In dealing with form and meaning, meaning is of equal or greater importance. Other than those 3 points, I don't have anything to add to the discussion because the languages I've worked on just don't have /akhe/ apparently. Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) does not mean that they are semantically or morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he didn't always understand everything. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 20 19:43:10 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:43:10 -0600 Subject: Dhegiha -akhe. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > Rory: Another argument against it is that akha', as a > positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) > particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as > "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] > bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above > indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e > stem verb, however it was derived. > > Bob: 1. "as 'the' does in ... frequent form" Actually, this > is the "the" that is not historically a positional I > think. It's the one that some linguists have translated > 'narrative' and which has the cognate in Hidatsa "rahe" > 'rumored'. John's 2000 Siouan Conf. paper was on > synchronic aspects of this particle and my ICHL paper > last month was on diachronic aspects of it. I was thinking of the general positioning of the articles as imperfect auxiliaries, but, on further reflection, I don't believe they ever have a plural before them, either. The future works just like the "imperfective" in this respect, and there, for example, it's ....=tta=akha (typical third person) or ...=tta=miNkhe (typical first person). I've just realized that I'm not positive that the auxiliaries always condition ablaut, or, to phrase it more carefully, the a-grade. In fact, I think they don't, except with the future. (So, maybe the future and the imperfective are *not* exactly the same in formation.) Yet another thing I have to check. I'm also fairly sure that the last stem in a relative clause before a definite article doesn't ablaut. Although the evidential or narrative the (narrative is Dorsey's gloss) probably does have a separate origin from the article the, I've also demonstrated that in OP at least it clearly now alternates with khe, dhaN and even ge in its evidential capacity. On the other hand, this is a rather special use of the and may not parallel uses of the animate articles as imperfective (progressive?) auxiliaries. > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no > non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Actually, I've just demonstrated that neither e (demonstrative) nor tte 'buffalo' ablaut in Omaha-Ponca. Akhe doesn't, either, though I'd argue that this was because it incorporates e. If it doesn't incorporate e, it's a third example. However, exceptions are very limited, and fairly special in nature. I posted something on this just recently, but I've so voluminous I'm not surprised it got lost in the storm. > Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ > ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) > does not mean that they are semantically or > morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual > or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like > some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan > -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional > field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have > tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he > didn't always understand everything. Agreed about Dorsey and understanding and normalization. However, I believe there is nothing chance about the alternation of a=i and a=bi and I don't think e enters into the pattern at all. There are stems in which ai seems to lead to e by contraction (ppe < *ppahi 'sharp' is the only one I can think of). Also, pez^i occurs as an alternate for ppiaz^i. Finally, the a+i => e contraction also occurs with wa-i, wa-gi, dha-i, and a-i in the prefixal system of verbs. These are special cases. On the other hand, There are tons of places where it ai > e could occur with =i, and it never, ever does, unless one insists on including just the akhe and e existential cases for some reason, while ignoring the e=i and akh(=)e=i cases that show that =i actually follows these. In fact the normal development of final ...a=i## is not e, but a, which occurs with most Omaha speakers - including all those I have ever heard personally. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 21 19:13:10 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:13:10 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha -akhe. Message-ID: >Although the evidential or narrative the (narrative is Dorsey's gloss) probably does have a separate origin from the article the, I've also demonstrated that in OP at least it clearly now alternates with khe, dhaN and even ge in its evidential capacity. On the other hand, this is a rather special use of the and may not parallel uses of the animate articles as imperfective (progressive?) auxiliaries. Of course not. That's my whole point. > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no > non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. >Actually, I've just demonstrated that neither e (demonstrative) nor tte 'buffalo' ablaut in Omaha-Ponca. Huh?? But those aren't verbs!! Of course they don't "ablaut". >Akhe doesn't, either, though I'd argue that this was because it incorporates e. If it doesn't incorporate e, it's a third example. No, it's the only example if it's a verb. > Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ > ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) > does not mean that they are semantically or > morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual > or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like > some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan > -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional > field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have > tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he > didn't always understand everything. >Agreed about Dorsey and understanding and normalization. However, I believe there is nothing chance about the alternation of a=i and a=bi.... If you mean they're different morphemes, I'd have to see minimal pairs come out of elicitation with different meanings to believe that. Synchronically in OP I can't tell, but historically it's pretty clear that /-i/ here is a variant pronunciation of /-bi/, as there are languages like Kaw and Quapaw that haven't lost the labial element and therefore don't have /-i/. >On the other hand, There are tons of places where it ai > e could occur with =i, and it never, ever does,.... In fact the normal development of final ...a=i## is not e, but a, which occurs with most Omaha speakers - including all those I have ever heard personally. If we're talking about the 'plural' and '3sg' forms (and I admit I've lost track) and you want to look at it strictly synchronically, this is because there is an underlying -b- in the sequences that blocks monophthongization. Historically, it's clear that these cases underwent different relative chronologies from older a+i sequences. I think we're getting too permissive in what we allow as evidence in these discussions. There is an *7e: 'demonstrative', a *he 'locative be', an *-e or *-he 'female speech', an 7e 'food', a *he 'horn', a *he 'louse', an *7e:-he ~ *7e: 'say the preceding', and perhaps others. We have begun playing fast and loose with glottal stops, H's, vowel length and sundry other phonological and morphological processes (monophthongization, C-loss, compounding, etc.) and once you do that with a monosyllabic form such as (7/h)e(:), you can interpret it any way you want. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Sep 22 01:06:26 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:06:26 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> Rory: >> Another argument against it is that akha', as a >> positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at >> the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form >> [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that >> akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. > Bob: > > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in > Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the > system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax > meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. I didn't mean to imply that there were other non-ablauting -e stem verbs. In general, the word dhiN means "to be", but "s/he is" cannot be expressed as e' dhiN. In Dorsey, there seem to be two ways of saying this: e'-e; and X akhe'. The latter is probably existential or identity; for set membership I assume you would say X dhiN. In modern Omaha, our speakers do not recognize e'-e, but they do accept akhe'. Functionally, akhe' is a non-ablauting -e stem verb, though it may be the only one in all of Dhegiha. >> The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal >> ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless >> someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 >> (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X >> akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did >> you have another one? > 3. In those instances where 'lying/horizontal' persons/objects are involved > I think the identity of the /khe/ part of akhe is clearly the reclining > positional, not a derivation from akha. In dealing with form and meaning, > meaning is of equal or greater importance. That's right. Sorry I was blanking on that when I wrote the above. > Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ ai ~ abi all occur in > the texts (or even the same text) does not mean that they are semantically > or morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual or simply > fast-speech variants of one another much like some of the plural allomorphs > Connie listed for Dakotan -- "contractions" if you will. This is why > additional field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have tried to > normalize his notation in publications, but he didn't always understand > everything. I agree; this is something we need to watch out for. In Dorsey, though, the -bi is pretty certainly a distinct morpheme from the -i, and there are apparently at least two different versions of -i as well. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 22 05:39:19 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:39:19 -0600 Subject: Omaha-Ponca bi vs. i with "egaN" Message-ID: This is an installment in support of my hypothesis that i and bi are two morphemes which both mark plurality and third person singular proximate status. We're looking primarily at the third person singular proximate cases. While I believe that i and bi mark the same thing, and are selected between depending on context, I will keep my eyes open for indications that bi marks something like irrealis. I don't see any traces yet of it marking a quotative sense, thought the quotative (or reportative) morpheme ama consistently conditions use of bi (as opposed to i), in cases where one of them would precede it. There are, of course, cases where something else precedes. ========= Use of i vs. bi with conjunctions of the form egaN. In fact, there are two conjunctions here, and recognizing this is critical to the enterprise. As they are written very similarly and seem to have the same etymology, it is easy to overlook the consistently different way Dorsey glosses them, the consistently different contextual semantics that correlate with these glosses, and the difference in accentual patterning. ========= bi before egaN 'having' The stress pattern of egaN 'having' depends on the stress of the preceding verb. The rule is probably alternating syllables, but this involves some assumptions. It does vary, however, and it does seem to depend on the preceding verb. JOD 1890:17.3 We'ahide=xti= atta hi uxdha'=bi egaN', far away very at it arriving [they] overtook him having t?e'=adha=bi= ama. [they] killed him they say Having overtaken him at a very distant location, they killed him. - In this example the bi before egaN 'having' is not glossed 'they say', though sometimes it is. See the next example. - If alternating stress rule for 'having' stress, then this is something like uxdha'=b(i)=egaN'. - Note the -a- between we'ahide=xti and tta DIRECTION. JOD 1890:40.9-10 E'gidhe z^e'=adi=gdhaN ppe'z^i gdhi'za=bi e'gaN, it came to pass loincloth bad he took his own "they say" having we'za= hnaN adha=bi=ama to give the alarm only he went they say Then, having grabbed up his vile loincloth, he just went to given the alarm. - In this example the bi before egaN 'having' does get the gloss 'they say', but I bleieve this is a contamination from biama, which Dorsey always treats as a unit. - If alternating stress rule for 'having' stress, then this is gdhi'za=b(i)=e'gaN. - Note the -a- between z^e' 'penis' and =di LOCATION in 'loincloth'. As far as the accentuation issue, Dorsey does sometimes write bi before egaN 'having' as just b, e.g. JOD 1890:23.4 a'=b egaN 'he said "they say" having' This tends to confirm that the i of =bi elides before egaN 'having'. ========= But i before e'=gaN 'as, because, so'. This conjunction always has initial stress. I interpret it as part of the following clause, though the glosses 'as' (which Dorsey often uses) and 'because' tend to suggest attachment to the preceding clause. In any case, I believe the e' of e'gaN '(that) is so' refers to the subordinated preceding clause. JOD 1890:17.9 "Ga'=ama naghi'de=dhiN'ga=i e'=gaN e'=di dha'=z^i=a he" ehe'= dhaN those they are disobedient as there go not IMP DEC I said PAST s^aN' s^i e'=gaN c^?e'=dhidha=i. yet you went as they killed you 'Those folks are disobedient, so don't go to them!' I said, yet you went, so they killed you. - 'Disobedient' is Dorsey's gloss, but 'wild, unruly' seems to fit better. The form literally means 'they lack inner ears'. - Note the c^?e for t?e in 'kill'. I call this phenomenon "grandmother speech," though that term may miss the essence of it. (The speaker is Rabbit's Grandmother, i.e., the Earth.) ========= It is possible to switch the glosses about. For example, 'as' would work instead of 'having' in the English glossing, but if you think about it, they didn't kill him because they overtook him, but subsequent to overtaking him. It's true they (the Black Bears) couldn't have killed him (Rabbit) if they hadn't overtaken him, but they always intended to kill him, to avenge themselves for his actions (killing their chief and taunting them with it), and were chasing him long and hard with that intent. The emphasis in the context is on sequentiality. In the next 'having' example, if you look at it, 'as' won't work at all. In dealing with Dorsey's texts one has to be cautious about his glosses, but one ignores them at one's peril. Thus, he spuriously glosses many =bi markers as 'they say', working from a false conclusion as to the relation of =bi=ama to the gloss 'they said', but a careful consideration of the evidence suggests that it may provisionally be taken as an error. I have not yet regretted making that provisional assumption, and so I stick with it. On the other hand the consistent pattern of 'having' vs. 'as' does reflect something very real, if easily overlooked, since it corresonds to something real in meaning, morphology, and phonology. Dorsey's very tendency to consistency in glossing makes the one practice a probable error and the other an important distinction. I do not wish to suggest that Dorsey is never inconsistent and if I found a mismatch between the behavior of (b)i and egaN and glossing I would look first to a possibile inconsistency in explaining it. On the other hand, there are some differences that do seem inexplicable. One I have noticed is: Dorsey 1890:15:7-9 AN'haN -- negi'ha -- wa?u'z^iNga aka' -- dhine'gi -- Wasa'be -- dhiNkhe'=tta -- maN'dhiN=a he -- ai' e'gaN -- aN'husa=i egaN' -- phi ha,... Yes -- o mother's brother -- old woman the -- your mother's brother -- Blackbear -- the-to -- walk thou -- she said having -- she scolded me having -- I've come DEC Clearly these are 'having' both by gloss and by context, but they have unexpected i. The one thing noticeably different thing about these examples is the 'crying' intonation indicated by the -- (long dashes) in Dorsey's texts. I can't say at present if that is relevant. I believe this exception and others that may exist are just that. The vast majority of instances (I checked the first 50 pages, albeit hastily) seem to be consistent with the rules I've offered. I didn't count them, but it seemed like dozens, even hundreds, that met the patterns, and perhaps this one set that didn't. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 22 06:03:20 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:03:20 -0600 Subject: Consideration of Rory Larson's egaN Exceptions Message-ID: I promised Rory I'd try to address his proposed cases of =bi appearing and not appearing before egaN depending on whether the occurrence was seen or not seen, and hence dubitative or non-dubitative. I think these were the examples. Please point out any I've missed, Rory. ==== Rory: 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. ==== These are cases in which there is no bi before egaN. Note that I claim that =bi should occur if egaN is 'having' and that =i should occur if egaN is 'as'. But I claim this only in cases where the preceding verb is a third person singular proximate or a plural. Note also that Rory has reglossed 'having' as 'so' in the first case. This said, my explanations are: The first example is 'having', and should have =bi if it is proximate, but it is evidently (consistent with the context) obviative and has neither =i nor =bi. The second example has two intances of egaN which were glossed 'because' in the original, cf. 'as', fairly reglossed as 'so', As we are dealing with the 'as', and the first case is a third person plural it predictably has =i, while the second case is a first person singular and so lacks both =i and =bi. ==== Rory: 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. ==== These examples are all third person singular proximate or third person plural 'having' examples with =bi (mostly recorded in this text as =b). These is one case of e'=gaN=i 'it is [=these things are] so' later in the line in line 4, and this is sentence initial (following a vocative), so it's irrelevant whether =i or =bi appends to a the last verb of the embedded clause preceding it. I hope this helps. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 22 06:34:47 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:34:47 -0600 Subject: Other Contexts that Condition =bi Message-ID: 1) We've mentioned names, cf. I's^kada=bi 2) and old song texts. 3) Infamous is following ama QUOTATIVE (or REPORTATIVE). Sometimes Dorsey records this as =b ama, but mostly as =bi=ama, glossed 'they say'. By a sort of contagion various other =bi or =b get glossed as 'they say', too. 4) The 'heraldic' or 'announcement by authority' or 'formal' declarative particles a'dha (male) and e'dhe (female) (sometimes ano (anau) in songs or modern speech, I think) also condition =bi. Dorsey often glosses these as 'indeed'. Dorsey 1890:33.10-11 "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED - Note that 'Rabbit' is consistently Mas^c^iN'ge in Dorsey's texts, whereas modern Omahas seem to much prefer Mas^tiN'ge. - This form of the future, with =i (if needed) and no positional is used for polite requests. You might call it the precative. ==== A few following contexts and/or morphemes that seem never to take =bi: - 'I think' - edaN 'apt; in thought', ethedaN 'shall' - a'haN 'indeed' (also the feminine ehaN) (a sort of emphatic declarative) - a'naN 'in thought' (different from a'dhaN?) - i'naNhiN 'truely' (an inflectable verb) - e'skaN 'perhaps' The 'think' and 'in thought' cases are significant, because some thought complements do take =bi, of which more, I hope, anon (no pun intended). From rankin at ku.edu Sat Sep 22 15:50:15 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:50:15 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> There are no non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". >In general, the word dhiN means "to be", but "s/he is" cannot be expressed as e' dhiN. Wow. That's interesting. It would be a homophone with 'be moving' in the 3rd person and perhaps others. >In Dorsey, there seem to be two ways of saying this: e'-e; and X akhe'. The latter is probably existential or identity; for set membership I assume you would say X dhiN. In modern Omaha, our speakers do not recognize e'-e, but they do accept akhe'. Functionally, akhe' is a non-ablauting -e stem verb, though it may be the only one in all of Dhegiha. I'm not sure what your last sentence means. If you mean "predicate" in the larger sense, then I can't argue with it, since nouns can be predicates and don't "ablaut" like verbs. But if you feel it really is a verb, then I'd be curious to know what happens with (1) the plural (-a{b}i), (2) the negative (-azhi) and the imperative (-a). That would be the test of whether it ablauts or not. If it doesn't occur with any of these, then at least formally, I'd be willing just to say it isn't a verb. I'm also curious to know if the -akhe/-ame constructions are found in Osage, or, even more interestingly, in Oklahoma Ponca. This would give us a handle on whether we're dealing with an otherwise-unattested older development or whether it's a recent Omaha grammaticalization. Same for the -abi ~ -ai alternations (vs. possibly separate morphemes). Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 04:09:36 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 22:09:36 -0600 Subject: Ablaut in Dheigha (was Re: Dhegiha -akhe) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > I've just realized that I'm not positive that the auxiliaries always > condition ablaut, or, to phrase it more carefully, the a-grade. In fact, > I think they don't, except with the future. I've checked and the imperfective (or progressive) auxiliaries do not condition ablaut. Examples: JOD 1890:356. ... wadha'the dhatha=i[=]dhaN e' he'be dhath*e'[=] akha* food they eat the that piece he has eaten AUX Here [=] represents replacing a space with =. JOD 1890:578.5-6 T[t]ena! Na'=uha=xti ttaNg=e'gaN[=]aN'gadhiN s^e'na=awadhe Why! almost big like we-the he is exterminating us *adhe'[=]akha* ha he goes AUX DEC Hey! He's destroying those of us who at all big! Most examples of auxiliary akha are in the form akh=ama, with the ama quotative appended. Like this: JOD 1890:155.9 Xdhabe' maN's^i=adi[=]the maNa' kkaN'ha[=]khe Tree tall the cliff edge the *a'gdhe[=] akha*=a'ma it was standing on AUX QUOTE Note: maN's^i=adi 'tall' is a postpositional phrase 'in the sky'. Notice again the inserted -a- before the locative postposition =di. There are plenty of examples of am=a'ma imperfectives, but examples of just ama are rare. Frankly, I suspect Dorsey glossed most of them as quotatives by accident. There a lot of examples of quotatives (to judge from the gloss) after verbs ending in e. I imagine some of them are obviative quotatives, but a few are presumably imperfectives mistaken for quotatives. > (So, maybe the future and the imperfective are *not* exactly the same > in formation.) In fact they are different in formation. The auxiliary after the future =tte conditions the a-grade =tta, but the auxiliary after a non-future verb does not. The auxiliaries are the same (or both based on articles), but in one case they form the future, in the other the imperfective or progressive - I still don't claim to exactly understand the semantics of thAt construction. Incidentally, =the the 'evidently' evidential, also conditions ablaut in the future, since the 'shall surely' future is =tta=the. Given this last, I'm not sure if I'd say that the difference was in the future (or irrealis) morpheme, or the auxiliary sense. > Yet another thing I have to check. I'm also fairly sure that the last > stem in a relative clause before a definite article doesn't ablaut. And it doesn't: JOD 1890:421.1 S^i ni'kkagahi ahi'=bi *ehe'[=]akha* Again chief he arrived I said the Again the chief whom I said had arived ... (Interesting to notice the =bi under ehe'!) JOD 1890:362.5 E'gidhe ... tti'=i= the ha, dhe' wahaN' *adhe'[=]akha.* Finally he camped EVID DEC this set off he goes the Finally ... this camp-mover camped. ===== I believe this resolves two gaps in my knowledge of Omaha-Ponca that have been embarassing me for a long time. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:30:15 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:30:15 -0600 Subject: Indefinite Demonstratives in Siouan Message-ID: In looking to see what Boas et al. had to say about (Omaha-)Ponca ablaut - not as much as I thought I recalled - I happened upon this Boasian assessment of Dakotan demonstratives. It is interesting because it seems to take the view that the indefinite or interrogative stem to is a demonstrative on a par with e, le, he, and ka. It probably underlies my own views in the matter, not because I had assimilated it directly, or even necessarily read it before, but because it determines the approach used in Boas & Deloria, which I have assimilated. Boas & Swanton, 1911, pp. 944-45 "The demonstrative pronouns proper are *e*, *le*, *he*, *ka*, and *to*. The first of these always refers to something that has just been said, and its use is more syntactic than local; *le* ... to indicates that what is referred to is indefinite; and it would not have been classes as a demonstative had it not been employed in a manner absolutely parallel with that of the other demonstratives. ... "... "The definite article *kiN* is probably formed from the demonstrative *ka* by rendering the phonetic change to *iN* permanent. ... "In the plural, and when combined with certain particles, *to* performs the function of an interrogative pronoun. ... "In fact, the regular interrogative and relative pronouns *tu'wa* or *tu'we* WHO, and *ta'ku* WHAT, are properly indefinites, and so related to *to*; ..." ==== The comment on kiN seems a bit doubtful, and is included to show than even appealing to established authority has its pitfalls. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:34:36 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:34:36 -0600 Subject: An Omaha-Ponca Idiom for 'awhile', 'at length' Message-ID: Also in Boas & Swanton, 1911, pp. 944: "In addition to these terms, there is a syllable *tHe-* meaning FAR in space or time, which is employed in an analogous manner: *tHehaN* a long time, *tHehaNl* 'far'." I thought this *tHe* was interesting because I had noticed something perhaps reminiscent of it in Omaha-Ponca just yesterday. The demonstrative (?) syllable in the examples below is obviously homophonous with gaN 'so', and may be an idiomatic development of it. The article that follows when an article follows agrees with the article of a preceding noun, e.g., NOUN=the gaN'=the, which may support this. I wonder if anyone knows of a similar idiom in other Siouan languages? 90:36.3, 90:46.20, 90:297.5 gaN'=akh(a) '(after) standing/sitting a while' 90:601.3 gaN'=ama=i=the 'they were so for some time' 90:563.2 gaN'=dhiNkhe 'was there for a while' 90:311.3 gaN'=dhaNkha 'after they (stood) [sic] awhile' 90:211.12 gaN'=miNkhe 'I have ... been sitting for some time' 90:51.10 gaN'=thaN 'he was standing awhile' 90:278.1 gaN'=dhaN 'in a curvilinear heap for some time' 90:21.8, 90:152.18, 90:141.4, 90:345.12, 90:359.9 gaN'=the 'a (long) while; for some time; had lain [sic] there some time; it had stood for awhile (of a lodge)' 90:581.7 gaN'=ge=xti 'a long time' 90:265.4 gaN' maN'dhiN=bi(=ama) 'he walked for awhile (they say)' Note that gaN + gdhiN 'to sit' and gaN + naNz^iN 'to stand' are rendered 'so' + ... 90:58.19 gaN' e'=di 'still there' 90:771.1 gaN'=adi 'now' (intrusive -a- again) 90:396.11 gaN' gdhe'=tta 'at length will go away' From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:39:10 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:39:10 -0600 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie Message-ID: It might be interesting to know that Boas's "Notes on the Ponka Grammar" in the Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists of 1906, heavily reprised in Boas & Swanton 1911, is credited to a seminar led by Boas and involving "Miss Martha W. Beckwith, Mr. Albert B. Lewis, and Mr. R.A. Lowie." I don't recognize Beckwith or Lewis. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:43:28 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:43:28 -0600 Subject: Other Contexts that Condition =bi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > 4) The 'heraldic' or 'announcement by authority' or 'formal' declarative > particles a'dha (male) and e'dhe (female) (sometimes ano (anau) in > songs or modern speech, I think) also condition =bi. Dorsey often > glosses these as 'indeed'. > > Dorsey 1890:33.10-11 > > "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. > "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED > > - Note that 'Rabbit' is consistently Mas^c^iN'ge in Dorsey's texts, > whereas modern Omahas seem to much prefer Mas^tiN'ge. > > - This form of the future, with =i (if needed) and no positional is used > for polite requests. You might call it the precative. I spoke too soon, cf. 90:144.14 s^aN'= s^kaghe=tta=i a'dha enough you do FUT PL indeed 'you will finish, indeed' From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:52:32 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:52:32 -0600 Subject: Omaha-Ponca a/e Sentence Finals Message-ID: And, incidentally, Boas reminds me that a and e occur as male and female sentence finals in Omaha-Ponca 'to mark emphasis'. His examples (corrected somewhat): male: aNs^iN' idha'naNhiN a'! 'truely I am fat!' (567.9) female: dhi't?adhe=wadhe i'dhanaHniN e'! 'truely you are a hateful one!' (152.2-3) This is different from the *a *question final and the *a* female imperative final. And incidentally, this pair are a nice example of the inflected i'na(N)hiN 'be truely', idha'- and i'dha- are the regular first and second persons of i'- verbs. From rankin at ku.edu Sun Sep 23 20:53:55 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 15:53:55 -0500 Subject: TTA irrealis allomorph spread Message-ID: >Incidentally, =the the 'evidently' evidential, also conditions ablaut in the future, since the 'shall surely' future is =tta=the. Given this last, I'm not sure if I'd say that the difference was in the future (or irrealis) morpheme, or the auxiliary sense. In Kaw I don't think I *ever* heard the E allomorph of 'irrealis/future'. It would palatalize to /cce/ in contrast to /tta/ with the non-front V. So for Kaw, it looks very much as though the more common "A" allomorph has spread analogically at the expense of the E allomorph. It may be that in Omaha any new contexts for 'irrealis' get the A form from speakers. I do recall both /tte/ and /tta/ in Quapaw texts. It's interesting that -akha is often thought of as the 3rd person of certain AUX's in the class with /miNkhe, ayiNhe, athaN/, etc. But it does not seem to be in this case, since those AUX's always condition the tta form of the future. Akha seems to have been a more recent development, since Quapaw seems to lack it entirely. Messy. Bob From jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu Mon Sep 24 13:05:48 2001 From: jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu (John Boyle) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 08:05:48 -0500 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Martha Beckwith was a student of Boas' who worked on the Ft. Berthold Reservation among many other places. She recorded a number of Mandan and Hidatsa stories. Although they are published in English there is a chance that she might have had notes or original transcriptions in Mandan and Hidatsa. I'm still working on this. >It might be interesting to know that Boas's "Notes on the Ponka Grammar" >in the Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists of 1906, >heavily reprised in Boas & Swanton 1911, is credited to a seminar led by >Boas and involving "Miss Martha W. Beckwith, Mr. Albert B. Lewis, and Mr. >R.A. Lowie." I don't recognize Beckwith or Lewis. From egooding at iupui.edu Mon Sep 24 15:27:22 2001 From: egooding at iupui.edu (Erik D Gooding) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:27:22 -0500 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: M. Beckwith also published in 1930 a collection of Lakota and Yankton materials which I refer to in my work all the time but, of course, now I cannot remember the title. It's a series of "tales", ethnographic sketches, as well as a Lakota winter count. Erik On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, John Boyle wrote: > Martha Beckwith was a student of Boas' who worked on the Ft. Berthold > Reservation among many other places. She recorded a number of Mandan > and Hidatsa stories. Although they are published in English there is > a chance that she might have had notes or original transcriptions in > Mandan and Hidatsa. I'm still working on this. > > >It might be interesting to know that Boas's "Notes on the Ponka Grammar" > >in the Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists of 1906, > >heavily reprised in Boas & Swanton 1911, is credited to a seminar led by > >Boas and involving "Miss Martha W. Beckwith, Mr. Albert B. Lewis, and Mr. > >R.A. Lowie." I don't recognize Beckwith or Lewis. > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 24 17:18:47 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:18:47 -0600 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Erik D Gooding wrote: > M. Beckwith also published in 1930 a collection of Lakota and Yankton > materials which I refer to in my work all the time but, of course, now I > cannot remember the title. It's a series of "tales", ethnographic > sketches, as well as a Lakota winter count. It sounds like Beckwith's activities may have to some degree paralleled those of (Edward?) Kennard, who worked with Dakotan and Mandan in the 30s. Is that a coincidence? From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 25 03:44:31 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 22:44:31 -0500 Subject: Omaha-Ponca bi vs. i with "egaN" Message-ID: > John: > JOD 1890:17.3 > We'ahide=xti= atta hi uxdha'=bi egaN', > far away very at it arriving [they] overtook him having > t?e'=adha=bi= ama. > [they] killed him they say > Having overtaken him at a very distant location, they killed him. This is a narrative statement. The thing stated cannot be directly attested by the narrator. Hence, both the main clause and the subordinate clause are marked with -bi. > JOD 1890:40.9-10 > E'gidhe z^e'=adi=gdhaN ppe'z^i gdhi'za=bi e'gaN, > it came to pass loincloth bad he took his own "they say" having > we'za= hnaN adha=bi=ama > to give the alarm only he went they say > Then, having grabbed up his vile loincloth, he just went to given the > alarm. This is another narrative statement from a myth. Again, both clauses are marked with -bi, because the narrator cannot claim positive knowledge of what he is saying. > JOD 1890:23.4 > a'=b egaN > 'he said "they say" having' This, again, will be part of the narrative of a myth. Hence, we find the -bi (==> b) disclaimer as usual. > JOD 1890:17.9 > "Ga'=ama naghi'de=dhiN'ga=i e'=gaN e'=di dha'=z^i=a he" ehe'= dhaN > those they are disobedient as there go not IMP DEC I said PAST > s^aN' s^i e'=gaN c^?e'=dhidha=i. > yet you went as they killed you > 'Those folks are disobedient, so don't go to them!' I said, yet you went, > so they killed you. This is a dialogue statement. The Rabbit's grandmother claims positive knowledge that those folks are disobedient, and that "you" (the Rabbit) went. Hence, these clauses are not marked with the suppositional particle -bi. The third person clauses are marked with the "factual" declarative -i. > Dorsey 1890:15:7-9 > AN'haN -- negi'ha -- wa?u'z^iNga aka' -- dhine'gi -- Wasa'be -- > dhiNkhe'=tta -- maN'dhiN=a he -- ai' e'gaN -- aN'husa=i egaN' -- > phi ha,... > Yes -- o mother's brother -- old woman the -- your mother's brother -- > Blackbear -- the-to -- walk thou -- she said having -- she scolded me > having -- I've come DEC This is another dialogue statement. The Rabbit claims to know from personal experience that the old woman told him to go to his mother's brother, and that she scolded him. The third person clauses preceding both of these egaNs ends in the factual declarative particle -i, rather than the suppositional -bi which would be used if the narrator were to make these claims directly. As I've noted before, there is a substantial minority of cases where third-person narrative clauses fail to be marked with -bi, but I think the examples you have given illustrate the rule. As you do your analysis, I would strongly urge you to divide the narrative statements from the dialogue statements into separate piles, and keep a tally of which ones use -bi and which use -i or neither before the conjunction egaN. I think you will find that most narrative statements use -bi, and that virtually all dialogue statements do not. Next, you might want to try the same test with the conjunction ki; I think you will get the same result. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 25 23:31:56 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:31:56 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: > Bob: > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in > Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the > system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax > meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. Did you mean "non-ablauting -a stems", or did you mean to type "-e stems", in your reference to Dakotan? There certainly seem to be plenty of non-ablauting -a stems in OP, notably gaNdha, "want, wish", and udha', "tell". I'd certainly be interested in seeing your paper. I don't know anything about the meeting though. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Wed Sep 26 02:02:28 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 21:02:28 -0500 Subject: Other Contexts that Condition =bi Message-ID: > On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: >> 4) The 'heraldic' or 'announcement by authority' or 'formal' declarative >> particles a'dha (male) and e'dhe (female) (sometimes ano (anau) in >> songs or modern speech, I think) also condition =bi. Dorsey often >> glosses these as 'indeed'. >> >> Dorsey 1890:33.10-11 >> >> "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. >> "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED >> >> - Note that 'Rabbit' is consistently Mas^c^iN'ge in Dorsey's texts, >> whereas modern Omahas seem to much prefer Mas^tiN'ge. >> >> - This form of the future, with =i (if needed) and no positional is used >> for polite requests. You might call it the precative. > I spoke too soon, cf. > 90:144.14 > s^aN'= s^kaghe=tta=i a'dha > enough you do FUT PL indeed > 'you will finish, indeed' Yes. I don't think that a'dha will predict -bi any more than ki or egaN do. The -i vs. -bi relate to the preceding thought, not to the conjunctions or emotional modifiers that follow. The second example is clear enough. The -i there is either PL, as you have it marked, or the factual declarative -i. This is a declaration (or veiled command) in the dialogue, addressed to a group, of what they are to do. There is no reason to use the suppositional, dubitative, subjunctive particle -bi in this case. Your first example is much more interesting. I have said in an earlier posting that you would find virtually no examples of -bi used in the dialogue. Here you have found one that I hadn't noticed before. >> "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. >> "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED If this is to be taken as a straight, deadpan statement "He says (or They say) you will make Rabbit a chief, indeed." then I would predict a=i rather than a=bi. But the Rabbit's dialogue here is subtile. The people he has freed from the Devouring Hill had started homeward, and then gathered together with the thought of making him chief. "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi aNga'ghe tta=i", a'=bi=ama. "We will make Rabbit chief," they said (supposedly). The Rabbit may or may not be with them at the time; this isn't clear. In any case, he addresses the people and scornfully spikes the proposal as an absurdity. Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe tta=i a' =bi a'dha. Rabbit chief you make will he says, they say INDEED Wi' ni'kkagahi kaN'bdha a'dhiNhe'iNthe. I chief I wish I who move, it may be. Dorsey has a note on page 34: 33, 11. mas^c^iNge - - - a'bi a'dha, the words of the crier going through the camp, quoted by the Rabbit. kaN'bdha a'dhiNhe'iNthe (i. e., kaNbdha achiNhe eiNthe) is not in the *form* of a question, though it *implies* one, according to Sanssouci. His free translation runs: "It is said, 'You shall make the Rabbit chief.' As if *I*, for my part, had been desiring to be chief!! (Or, Have I been behaving as if I wished to be chief?) We all seem to be having a little trouble here. Dorsey's note implies that the entire first sentence is a quote by Rabbit of what the camp crier had said. But the people's words were already quoted in the previous sentence as a group proposal rather than as a command issued by a crier. Dorsey's own translation breaks out the a'bi a'dha as the Rabbit's assertion "It is said", and makes the rest of the sentence a direct quote, which contradicts the note. On page 83-84, we have a couple of examples of a herald issuing the chief's commands to the camp. They take the form: [Sentence] tte a=i' a'dha u+! will he says INDEED halloo! (Note the use of tte in this case as referencing a plurality.) This is closely parallel to what the Rabbit says, but takes the definite -i form rather than the dubitative -bi form. Also, the "he says" presumably refers to the chief; the people in the case of the Rabbit have as yet no chief. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this sentence, and I would like to see some more comparable examples. However, if I read it by the rule of suppositional -bi, I get: "You shall make Rabbit chief," they supposedly say, indeed. As if *I* wanted to be chief! Perhaps this can be best understood as a device commonly used by leading figures in the community to refuse an office that is about to be thrust upon them. If they use the definite form a=i' to reference the proposal, they make the proposal real. This is embarrassing to everyone if it should happen that it isn't. Furthermore, it clearly implies that some particular people that could be named are actually making the proposal. This association would be embarrassing to those implied parties, likely the leader's fondest friends, given that the proposal is being rejected. In this circumstance, it is probably better all around to pretend that the proposal is only a rumor, or the speaker's own misunderstanding of what has been said. While the Rabbit is certainly not going out of his way to be polite in this case, his lead-in to his rejection speech may just reflect the standard courteous formula of any leader in the circumstance of trying to reject an unwanted office. Rory From hu_matthews at sil.org Sat Sep 15 19:15:52 2001 From: hu_matthews at sil.org (Hu Matthews) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 15:15:52 -0400 Subject: Irregular "to eat" in Dakotan Message-ID: 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. From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Sat Sep 1 01:38:17 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 20:38:17 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: Koontz John E wrote: > 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. A question: What time relative to Proto-Siouan are we talking about here? The ablaut patterns in Dakota/Lakota, Winnebago, and Omaha-Ponca seem to be similar enough in most details to warrant simply reconstructing ablaut in the ancestor of these languages, at least. (I went to check on Biloxi and Tutelo but I find I have left those grammars about a mile away from the computer and decided not to delay this query while going out into the growing twilight to fetch them.) Of course, morpheme alternants presumably always arise from phonemic or morphemic changes, and it is appropriate historical inquiry to try to discover those changes -- I'm not questioning the inquiry. But do you think those changes occurred in post-Proto-Siouan times or in pre-Proto-Siouan? A parallel from ablaut in Germanic: It is thought to arise, at least in part, in reaction to the shifting place of accent in Proto-Indo-European. But as far as Proto-Germanic is concerned, I think the accent is already fixed on the first syllable except for a few prefixes, and ablaut as a device for indicating tense, etc., is simply reconstructed for the proto-language much as it is found in the daughter languages to this day. Paul From BARudes at aol.com Sat Sep 1 15:04:14 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 11:04:14 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: If the changes occurred in pre-Proto-Siouan, one would expect to find some trace of the phenomenon in Catawba, but there is none. One could argue that Catawba has leveled out the phenomenon, but then the argument becomes circular. So, the change must have occurred in Proto-Siouan or later. Blair From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 2 00:42:47 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 18:42:47 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > 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' Are the dropped or devoiced vowels clearly always /a/ in this context? Perhaps some of the dropped vowels are e? David Rood has a funny story about the differences in voiceless vowels in Wichita, but it's his and I'll leave it to him! > 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. I didn't make it clear that the independence of unaccented final a - C# stems in Shaw's terminology - and ablaut applies especially to verbs. Examples of a# verbs: niya', yugha', xpec^a', ba', gleska', paha', etc. aN# verbs: lowaN', ki'nihaN, yughaN', yuthaN', etc. A# verbs: yeA', aphA', nasA', yA' (to go), yA' (causative), etc. AN# verbs: yatkAN', hAN', nuwAN', hihAN', slohAN', hiNxtAN', etc. (Connie had a list of such forms, too) C#a verbs: c^ha'gha, the'c^a, thaN'ka, lu'ta, c^huwi'ta, etc. C#A verbs: yu'zA, ka'ghA, s^a'pA, kuN'zA, uN'pA, etc. These examples are for Teton, from Shaw. She treats a with C# stems (for which stress and reduplication pattern are diagnostic) as an epenthetic vowel added by a phonological rule of stem formation, rather than, say, as a thematic morpheme. She treats verbal ablaut as a lexical property of stems. She further notices that ablauting status varies with dialect. For example, she finds that yuha' 'have' ablauts in Sioux Valley (a form of WaxpetuNwaN Santee), Stoney and "Riggs" Santee, but not Teton; xa' 'bury' ablauts in Teton and Sioux Valley, but not in Assinigoine or Yankton; dowaN' 'sing' ablauts in Assiniboine, but not in Teton, Sioux Valley or Stoney; etc. On the other hand, on closer reading, it sounds like what Shannon is describing is not a variation in which stems ablaut, but in how ablaut behaves with singulars? JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 2 01:51:41 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 19:51:41 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: <3B903C09.82689B31@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > A question: What time relative to Proto-Siouan are we talking about > here? The ablaut patterns in Dakota/Lakota, Winnebago, and Omaha-Ponca > seem to be similar enough in most details to warrant simply > reconstructing ablaut in the ancestor of these languages, at least. ... It's clear that similar forms of verb ablaut are attested right across Siouan. I think that pretty much the only constants are e ~ a. The conditioning contexts are always following enclitics and a set of additional factors like nominalization. Some specific enclitics are subject to ablaut themselves in the same contexts. Perhaps the main ones that are reconstructable for earlier stages of the language are *ktE or (?) iNktE, the irrealis marker, and maybe something like *krE as a kind of third person plural. The specific grades associated with particular enclitics are not very constant. I think perhaps plural stems are always a-grades, but things like negatives and the irrealis vary wuite a bit, even within particular dialect continuums. Ablaut may or may not be associated with something like unaccented final vowels. Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', yA 'cause' in Teton. It's true that at least 'go' may come from something like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as secondary. Verbal ablaut is by its nature a constant, productive factor in Siouan morphology, since the conditioning enclitics are in constant use. It can only disappear by an active change in the morphology or phonology of the languages. What does seem clear is that there is a very good chance that ablaut is some of its primary specific examples (with pi or ktE) can be accounted for nicely by assuming that the vowel preceding the enclitic is actually an historical part of the enclitic. I think this was proposed first (that I'm aware of) by Wes Jones, and taken up by David Rood, and subsequently Bob Rankin. It looks very reasonable to see the plural as *api (across much of the family) and the irrealis as iNkt(e) (in at least some Dakotan dialects). This doesn't account for all of verbal ablaut in any cut and dried way, because there are so many enclitics, many of them not clearly cognate, and varying from dialect to dialect, let alone language to language. Furthermore, in some cases apparently cognate enclitics condition different ablaut grades in different languages. I'm think here of the negative, which is an e-grade in dakotan, but an a-grade in Dhegiha. It's true that this particular set is quite complex, and seems to involve a group of associated morphemes *s^(i) ~ *z^(i), *niN*, etc. I'd say that ablaut as an abstract phenomenon is somewhat self-renewing. Once you have any situation that results in a common pattern of e ~ a alternation, any chance circumstance that produces a new e ~ a alternation gets dragged into the complex. Probably something like the plural *api in connection with a rule that merges some V1 + V2 as V2 across enclitic boundaries and syllabifies the initial vowel of the enclitic with a final consonant of a host seeded the situation, and additional fuel has been added to the fire since then by other enclitics at intervals. I'm also inclined to feel that there is an additional common source of final vowel alternations in Proto-Siouan verbs that we haven't yet recognized. It seems to me that the additional of aN-finals to ablaut and the inclusion of iN as an ablaut grade are specific to Dakotan and involve analogical extensions of ablaut in the abstract, albiet fueled in the case of iN by a new instance of something like the original source of ablaut. To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, but not as morphologized and lexicalized ablaut (vowel alternations) per se. I suppose you could call the stage at which it was still an unpatterned collection of vowel elicisions or combinations and resyllabifications at enclitic boundaries Pre-Proto-Siouan, and the stage at which it was more abstract and arbitrary Proto-Siouan, though I'm not sure that this phase of the development hasn't occurred more or less independently in the ealy stages of development of the several branches of Siouan. Certainly the system continues to evolve in the various contemporary languages. Turning to nominal ablaut, either in the form of not very productive internal relicts, as in Dakotan or Omaha-Ponca, or cross-branch alternations, as between, say, Dakotan and Ioway-Otoe, it is more restricted, and may only occur in Mississippi Valley. It, too, involves e ~ a alternations, but it is usually fairly obscure in conditioning. I'd say that the e-grade could be attributed to 'possession', perhaps specificity, in Dakotan, and that at least some a-grades seem to be conditioning by enclitics in Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca, but I'm sure not everyone would agree with this. Even if 'specificity' marking accounts for the e-grades in, say, Ioway-Otoe, it's interesting, but maybe less useful, to be able to say that most e-final nouns in Dhegiha reflect 'specific' forms, while most a-final nouns in Dakotan reflect 'generic' forms. The real benefit in comparative terms may be to save us from looking for a specious phonological basis for the difference in final vowels. Nominal ablaut is probably an internal development of Mississippi Valley, originating in Proto-Mississippi Valley. I think the conditioning enclitics in this case were just vowels, though morphemes none-the-less. It looks superficially like verbal ablaut as an abstract morphological phenomenon, and has a similar source. It interacts with it because the morphemes in question were nominalizers and appear with nominalized verbs, and because the morphemic basis for it are homophonous with the phonological grades of verbal ablaut. But it is not as old as verbal ablaut and has an independent source. If the nominalizers in question have been, say, i and o, then things would have looked quite different. Nominal ablaut is not productive, primarily because in each of the branches the renewal of article and/or nominalizing systems has replaced the relevant morphological systems, and because in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago the merger of final *a and *e after velars and the subsequent loss of *e in final light syllables in Winnebago has eliminated much of the phonological material of the system. Ironically, I think that the Winnebago =ra (and maybe =re) nominal markers and maybe Ioway-Otoe are 'that' may be the best remininants of the system as articles, though they seem to be post-vocalic allomorphs. JEK From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Sun Sep 2 22:25:22 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 17:25:22 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: BARudes at aol.com wrote: > If the changes occurred in pre-Proto-Siouan, one would expect to find some > trace of the phenomenon in Catawba, but there is none. One could argue that > Catawba has leveled out the phenomenon, but then the argument becomes > circular. So, the change must have occurred in Proto-Siouan or later. Indeed, the alternation of final e and a, so common in other Siouan languages, is not only absent from Catawba, but moreover, there is no Catawban cognate support that I know of for most of the proposed predecessors of ablaut. But maybe Catawba is so distantly related to most of the rest of the Siouan languages that there was plenty of time for the one group to develop ablaut while Catawba lost all trace of the factors that caused it. Koontz John E wrote: > .... Perhaps the main ones > that are reconstructable for earlier stages of the language are *ktE or > (?) iNktE, the irrealis marker, and maybe something like *krE as a kind > of third person plural. The future marker in Catawba is part of the clause-final marking system (like Dakota do, ye, he, wo, 7, or Winnebago -(Sa)na, -re, -gi.). Maybe ka:te7 'indeed' or even ka:te(:)se 'the next time', the latter attested only once, are cognates with *ktE. No sign of *iNktE though. > .... Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', > > .... It's true that at least 'go' may come from something > like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as > secondary. Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. > .... > What does seem clear is that there is a very good chance that ablaut is > some of its primary specific examples (with pi or ktE) can be accounted > for nicely by assuming that the vowel preceding the enclitic is actually > an historical part of the enclitic. ... It looks very reasonable to see > the plural as *api (across much of the family) and the irrealis as iNkt(e) (in at least some Dakotan dialects). The future marker was discussed above. As for the plural, there is a noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), apparently meaning 'more than one', found in the published texts, whose pronunciation is probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a possible cognate with the pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good evidence that it had an initial vowel. > .... > To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, I think John is using the term Proto-Siouan to mean the ancestor of all the Siouan languages after the separation of the Catawban group. I know that is also what I was thinking of when I first used the term, but of course there's also an ancestor of Catawban and the rest of Siouan further back in time that I think we all, or just I (?), usually also refer to as Proto-Siouan. > .... > Turning to nominal ablaut ... most e-final nouns in Dhegiha reflect > 'specific' forms, while most a-final nouns in Dakotan reflect 'generic' > forms. The real benefit in comparative terms may be to save us from > looking for a specious phonological basis for the difference in final > vowels. > > Nominal ablaut is probably an internal development of Mississippi Valley, > originating in Proto-Mississippi Valley. I think the conditioning > enclitics in this case were just vowels, though morphemes none-the-less. > ... the > morphemes in question were nominalizers and appear with nominalized verbs, ... > Nominal ablaut is not productive, primarily because in each of the > branches the renewal of article and/or nominalizing systems has replaced > the relevant morphological systems, and because in Ioway-Otoe and > Winnebago the merger of final *a and *e after velars and the subsequent > loss of *e in final light syllables in Winnebago has eliminated much of > the phonological material of the system. Ironically, I think that the > Winnebago =ra (and maybe =re) nominal markers and maybe Ioway-Otoe are > 'that' may be the best remininants of the system as articles, though they > seem to be post-vocalic allomorphs. There are no probable cognates in Catawba for putative articles or demonstratives *a or *e, as far as I know. Blair has more extensive and accurate material to work with, though, and may be able to suggest something for these and the other Siouan forms discussed here. Likewise, I'll count on him to correct my transcriptions since the material I work with is rather unreliable, especially in the marking of vowel length. Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 00:28:08 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 18:28:08 -0600 Subject: Ablaut In-Reply-To: <3B92B1D2.D1DFFB6E@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Sep 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > The future marker in Catawba is part of the clause-final marking system > (like Dakota do, ye, he, wo, 7, or Winnebago -(Sa)na, -re, -gi.). Maybe > ka:te7 'indeed' or even ka:te(:)se 'the next time', the latter attested > only once, are cognates with *ktE. No sign of *iNktE though. I'm pretty certain that iNktE is a compound of two morphemes, one the more or less widely attested *kte irrealis or future, which takes the e-grade in Dakotan (where it doesn't take the iN grade) and Dhegiha, the other the *iN that leads to the iN grade and which I suspect provides the iN in OP (e)=iN=the 'perhaps'. I have a notion that the iN may also show up with the future in Ioway-Otoe and/or Winnebago. I'll try to look that up. > > .... Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', > > > > .... It's true that at least 'go' may come from something > > like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as > > secondary. > > Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, > certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. My idea of the h final comes from the form in Crow-Hidatsa, but I am weak on verbs of motion outside of Mississippi Valley and maybe instead of trying to look them all up I'll wait for comments from the CH contigent (Randy Graczyk and John Boyle) or maybe Bob Rankin. Giulia Oliverio, who's had some things to say on the subject for Southeastern is in Mexico and off the list for the time being. There's certainly no trace of -hV in Mississippi Valley. > The future marker was discussed above. As for the plural, there is a > noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), apparently meaning 'more > than one', found in the published texts, whose pronunciation is probably > wi: or wi. That seems to be a possible cognate with the pluralizer > *-pi, but there is no good evidence that it had an initial vowel. How interesting and somewhat awkward! So, like the iN in the iNkte future, the a in the api plural would have to have a secondary origin. I believe it is true that all Siouan plurals or whatever formation take the a-grade where ablaut enters into their formation. > > To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, > > I think John is using the term Proto-Siouan to mean the ancestor of all > the Siouan languages after the separation of the Catawban group. I know > that is also what I was thinking of when I first used the term, but of > course there's also an ancestor of Catawban and the rest of Siouan > further back in time that I think we all, or just I (?), usually also > refer to as Proto-Siouan. Yes, I meant Proto-Siouan as the source of Crow-Hidatsa, Mandan, Mississippi Valley and Southeastern. I use the expression Proto-Siouan-Catawban for the larger entity, following the underlying practice of referring to Siouan and Siouan-Catawban in place of earlier (Western) Siouan and Eastern Siouan. This is something of an innovation, but I think it's sound and fairly deeply embedded in the thinking of the CSD group, though perhaps I should be careful not to put words in their mouth! In one sense it is nothing new at all, since only recently has much been known about Catawba(n), and information on it has had essentially no impact on the development of the concept of Proto-Siouan in the sense of Proto-Siouan-Catawban. As a matter of fact, Proto-Siouan as reconstructed tends to be even more restricted. It is largely Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan, though CH, Mandan and SE have had some influence on our conception of it. > There are no probable cognates in Catawba for putative articles or > demonstratives *a or *e, as far as I know. ... The *e is pretty universal in Siouan (as opposed to Catawban), but I'm less sure of *(h)a. I should say frankly that as far as deriving nominal ablaut from demonstratives or articles, that I have never received any particular encouragement in that regard from other Siouanists so nobody else needs to take it very seriously. In fact, I should admit that there is a strong precedent for not taking it very seriously. Everybody has their views on the awkward final vowels of nouns across Siouan, of course. When the typical vowel development rule in Siouan is V[alpha features] => V[alpha features], with only the occasional raising of e and o to i and u, you know something is up, and students have not failed to notice the problem. I have noticed different approaches or attempts at summarization by Ken Miner, Dick Carter, and Bob Rankin in the past. I have to confess that I'm not sure at the moment what the views of Wolff and Matthews and Kaufman have been, but I'm sure they puzzled over it, too. Incidentally, to give credit where it's due, the whole conception of deriving thematic (and thus often gender markers) on nouns from absorbed articles (in the larger sense) derives from a paper by Greenberg. This may tend to make Americanists bridle, influenced by his ideas on classification, but I think in this instance his conclusions are sound. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 07:18:28 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 01:18:28 -0600 Subject: Ablaut In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > I'm pretty certain that iNktE is a compound of two morphemes, one the more > or less widely attested *kte irrealis or future, which takes the e-grade > in Dakotan (where it doesn't take the iN grade) and Dhegiha, the other the > *iN that leads to the iN grade and which I suspect provides the iN in OP > (e)=iN=the 'perhaps'. I have a notion that the iN may also show up with > the future in Ioway-Otoe and/or Winnebago. I'll try to look that up. Winnebago has the intentive kj^e < *kte, and the future kj^ane < *kte + ???. If the latter is added to a consonant final stem a vowel i is inserted between the stem and kj^ane. It is also possible to insert the i into the last syllable of the stem and delete the k: rac^oop 'to chew' > rac^oobikj^ane' ~ rac^oipjane See Lipkind, section 17, p. 10. For a discussion of the two suffixes meanings, see sections 48 & 49, p. 36. Note that the declarative takes the form naN after kje (kjenaN), so clearly -ne is not the declarative. In Mandan, per Kennard p. 18, the future is -kt, usually ktoc (declarative suffix addressing men added) or ktore (dec. suffix addressing women added). In subordinate clauses the form is ktek. The k of the future is lost, reducing it to -t... if it is added to a consonant final stem. Compare the second pattern in Winnebago. The reduction of the cluster is natural enough, so we need not assume this represents any inherited pattern. (Note that Hollow corrects the phonology of the declarative to males to o?s^.) It's not entirely clear if the epenthetic or intrusive i of the Winnebago future has anything to do with the iN of the Dakotan future, but it seems likely that it does, in spite of the lack of nasalization. It's noteworthy that it is separate from ablaut. For what it's worth, the Ioway-Otoe future is -hne ~ hna (the n is palatalized before e). The usual assumption is that it this is related somehow to *kte, but the details are obscure. It looks more like the extra ne on the end of the Winnebago affix. Something like hje ~ hda would be more regular for *kte. JEK From BARudes at aol.com Mon Sep 3 16:56:04 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 12:56:04 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: Paul Voorhis wrote: >The future marker in Catawba is part of the clause-final marking system >(like Dakota do, ye, he, wo, 7, or Winnebago -(Sa)na, -re, -gi.). Maybe >ka:te7 'indeed' or even ka:te(:)se 'the next time', the latter attested >only once, are cognates with *ktE. No sign of *iNktE though. Catawbas today use the particle kate (with accent on the last vowel) both as an adverb meaning and as the word for . The semantics of relating this to -ktE or the related forms in other Siouan languages seem difficult. Paul Voorhis wrote: >Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, >certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. I agree. Incidentally, Catawba da: is underllyingly , with automatic shift of morphophonemic /r/ to /d/ when word-initial. Paul Voorhis wrote: >As for the plural, there is a noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), >apparently meaning 'more than one', found in the published texts, >whose pronunciation is probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a >possible cognate with the pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good >evidence that it had an initial vowel. Although Siebert also analyzed wi as general pluralizer, all of the data I have show it to be the non-first person, plural object proclitic on verbs (i.e., it means or ). It forms a set of object proclitics with ni , yi , and nu . Third person singular objects are not marked by a proclitic. There is also another object proclitic, pa , which is used for indefinite objects. I think Catawba pa may be a better candidate for being cognate with Siouan *-(a)pi than is wi. Paul Voorhis wrote: >I think John is using the term Proto-Siouan to mean the ancestor of all >the Siouan languages after the separation of the Catawban group. I know >that is also what I was thinking of when I first used the term, but of >course there's also an ancestor of Catawban and the rest of Siouan >further back in time that I think we all, or just I (?), usually also >refer to as Proto-Siouan. I assumed the same think, and I concur with John's usage (in a subsequent email) of the term Proto-Siouan-Catawban for the ancestor of the Siouan and Catawban languages. My quibble is with how we use the term pre-Proto-Siouan. Since the only well documented Catawban language (at the moment, but see below) is Catawba, in both its dialects, unless a feature is attested both in the Siouan languages and Catawban languages, it cannot be ascribed to Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Since Catawba is the only language that we are sure is distantly related to Siouan (although Yuchi may someday be proven to be in the same boat), for something to be securely pre-Proto-Siouan, it must be attested in Catawba, and therefore belong to Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Anything ascribed to a purported pre-Proto-Siouan that is not attested in Catawba is presumably an internal reconstruction within Proto-Siouan. While internal reconstruction within Proto-Siouan is fine, the results must be viewed with great caution when they cannot be confirmed with data from Catawba. Now for the possibility of data on other Catawban languages. To make a long story short, back in 1567, Juan Pardo left his chaplain, Father Montero, behind in the Carolinas to set up a mission to the Wateree Indians in the heart of Catawban-speaking territory. After about 5 years, Montero left and no knew what had become of his records. Last fall, I met Claudia Heinemann-Priest's mother, Professor Barbara Heinemann, who teachers in the Modern and Classical Languages Department at Winthrop University. She mentioned that she was going to be chaperoning a group of students to Havana this summer, and I asked her to look in the archives there to see if there were any manuscripts from Spanish missions to the Southeast. Barbara and I have only spoken briefly since she got back, but she reports that she found the records from a number of Spanish missions in the Southeast, including the records of the mission to the Wateree by Father Montero. The records are currently being copied through support form Winthrop University, and it may be some time before they are catalogued and available for research. However, since Father Montero was reportedly a Jesuit, and we know that he missionized to not only the Wateree, but the surrounding villages as well, there is every reason to believe that new data on Catawban languages (as well as data on other little known languages of the Southeast such as Guale, Yamassee, Cusabo and Calusa) will become available in the not too distant future. Paul Voorhis wrote: >There are no probable cognates in Catawba for putative articles or >demonstratives *a or *e, as far as I know. Blair has more extensive and >accurate material to work with, though, and may be able to suggest >something for these and the other Siouan forms discussed here. >Likewise, I'll count on him to correct my transcriptions since the >material I work with is rather unreliable, especially in the marking of >vowel length. Catawba has numerous demonstratives that differentiate fine degrees of proximity, but Paul is correct that none of them bear any resemblance to *a or *e. (Paul, your transcriptions were fine.) Blair From rankin at ku.edu Mon Sep 3 17:48:48 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 12:48:48 -0500 Subject: PL and 'future' Message-ID: >I'm pretty certain that iNktE is a compound of two morphemes, one the more or less widely attested *kte irrealis or future, which takes the e-grade in Dakotan (where it doesn't take the iN grade) and Dhegiha, the other the *iN that leads to the iN grade and which I suspect provides the iN in OP(e)=iN=the 'perhaps'. There's more on this in the archives of the list. I recall discussing it last year. > The future marker was discussed above. As for the plural, there is a > noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), apparently meaning 'more > than one', found in the published texts, whose pronunciation is > probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a possible cognate with the > pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good evidence that it had an initial > vowel. > How interesting and somewhat awkward! So, like the iN in the iNkte > future, the a in the api plural would have to have a secondary origin. While that's always possible, w/p correspondences between Siouan and Catawba are not established. The for the most part the only ones that are established are one to one with allowances for the d~r alternations, etc. It seems premature to claim an irregular Catawba cognate for a morpheme that doesn't even occur in Crow/Hidatsa, Mandan (?) or OVS. The overall meaning of kte is much closer to 'irrealis' than 'future'. I tend to agree w/ Blair that the semantics is a bit dicey here. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 19:58:46 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 13:58:46 -0600 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <155.6113bb.28c51024@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > Paul Voorhis wrote: > > >As for the plural, there is a noun modifier (=adjective or stative verb?), > >apparently meaning 'more than one', found in the published texts, > >whose pronunciation is probably wi: or wi. That seems to be a > >possible cognate with the pluralizer *-pi, but there is no good > >evidence that it had an initial vowel. > > Although Siebert also analyzed wi as general pluralizer, all of the data I > have show it to be the non-first person, plural object proclitic on verbs > (i.e., it means or ). It forms a set of object > proclitics with ni , yi , and nu . Third person > singular objects are not marked by a proclitic. There is also another object > proclitic, pa , which is used for indefinite objects. I think Catawba > pa may be a better candidate for being cognate with Siouan *-(a)pi than is wi. It's interesting that wi covers both second person and third. Not that Siouan-Catawban doesn't have some other interesting concatenations of person. It appears that Winnebago may use ne (phonologically odd, too) as an independent pronominal of both the first and second persons (Lipkind, p. 29). Actually, it is usually accompanied by an enclitic with a sense like 'only', and proclitic to a form that that does distinguish person, but the use of a cover form seems unusual. But what I was thinking of is that at least some Siouan languages use different plurals for different persons, e..g, Mandan has nothing for the first (but does have ruN- as a special first person plural pronominal), riNt for the second, and kere (< *kre) for the third. Tutelo has nothing for the first person again, but pu' for the second person and helE' for the third (perhaps again from *kre, though the development would probably be phonologically irregular). So there is some precedent in Siouan for plural marking categorizing or correlating with persons, and in cases of categorizing first is usually opposed to second plus third. Mandan has the a-grade before riNt (which also inserts an i if it follows a consonant), but, apparently, the e-grade before kere. Tutelo had the a-grade before helE', but it looks pu, doesn't cause ablaut, and, if anything, may delete some of the stem final. Tutelo does have a potential marker tE (no initial k), and this conditions the ablaut grade i (or sometimes e). Tutelo uses the a-grade in citation forms. (Manda information from Kennard in IJAL, and Hollow's dissertation. Tutelo information from Oliverio's dissertation.) From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 20:20:38 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:20:38 -0600 Subject: Pre and Proto- (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <155.6113bb.28c51024@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > My quibble is with how we use the term pre-Proto-Siouan. Since the > only well documented Catawban language (at the moment, but see below) > is Catawba, in both its dialects, unless a feature is attested both in > the Siouan languages and Catawban languages, it cannot be ascribed to > Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Since Catawba is the only language that we are > sure is distantly related to Siouan (although Yuchi may someday be > proven to be in the same boat), for something to be securely > pre-Proto-Siouan, it must be attested in Catawba, and therefore belong > to Proto-Siouan-Catawban. Anything ascribed to a purported > pre-Proto-Siouan that is not attested in Catawba is presumably an > internal reconstruction within Proto-Siouan. While internal > reconstruction within Proto-Siouan is fine, the results must be viewed > with great caution when they cannot be confirmed with data from > Catawba. I had always understood proto-X to refer to a language (or some details of it) reconstructed across a family of languages X, while pre-X referred to internal reconstructions within a language X. So, pre-Mandan would refer to internal reconstruction within Mandan, and pre-proto-Siouan to internal reconstruction within proto-Siouan, not to a proto-langauge at one remove from proto-Siouan. Hence, pre-proto-Siouan would not need to reflect anything from Catawban or to equate with pre-proto-Siouan-Catawban. Naturally, anyone looking at pre-proto-Siouan, or even wondering about proto-Siouan per se would feel free to be influenced by knowledge of Catawban. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 20:24:55 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:24:55 -0600 Subject: Go (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <155.6113bb.28c51024@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 BARudes at aol.com wrote: > Paul Voorhis wrote: > >Catawba da: 'to go', usually held to be cognate with this verb, > >certainly fits more easily with yA or *rA than with *ree'hE. > > I agree. Incidentally, Catawba da: is underllyingly , with > automatic shift of morphophonemic /r/ to /d/ when word-initial. As far as I know, Mississippi Valley and Southeastern all suggest *rE. But Mandan has the abstract stem reh, or re when nothing follows, but reh- when something relevant does, e.g., the third person singular declarative reho?s^. Crow has dEE, but Hidatsa has rEEhE, with the second syllable manifesting in the plural only. So Siouan has some evidence for a longer form. Perhaps the hE is some additional morpheme or analogical extension that is shared by Mandan and Hidatsa, which greatly influence each other, though they are not that closely related. That is, Crow and Hisatsa are clearly closely related, and Mandan is at least at a further remove from them, perhaps belonging with Mississippi Valley. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 3 20:35:06 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:35:06 -0600 Subject: bows (and arrows) In-Reply-To: <133F43D1B91@soas.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Aug 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote: > 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 seems > like a very superfluous derivation. Any ideas ... I've been meaning to say that 'arrow' like wiNyaN 'woman' seems to include a final h a number of the languages and that this may have something to do with the failure of w to nasalize m in these two words. WiNyaN seems to be wiN and wi in compounds and I assume that the yaN is an "epenthetic" a, separated from the stem by epenthetic y and nasalized across the y, cf. he- ~ heya, etc. It is not clear that the -h- in waNhiNkpe is derived from this PS h. OP has just maN or moN, but would, of course, lose the final h. I suspect the root is just waN in Dakotan and that the h is secondary, though it might as well be from hu as hi. Also, isn't huNkpa also 'end'? JEK From Rgraczyk at aol.com Mon Sep 3 22:58:49 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 18:58:49 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: In Crow, noun stems ending in i and a have an e-grade that occurs as the citation form and when the the noun occurs with no further suffixation. E.g., bili' 'water' (stem), bile' (citation form). When the definite article is added to a noun, it is always added to the e-grade, eg, bile'e-sh 'the water'. This would support some kind of connection between e-grade and definiteness. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Sep 4 03:59:18 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 21:59:18 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: <108.4ed4d1a.28c56529@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > In Crow, noun stems ending in i and a have an e-grade that occurs as the > citation form and when the the noun occurs with no further suffixation. > E.g., bili' 'water' (stem), bile' (citation form). When the definite article > is added to a noun, it is always added to the e-grade, eg, bile'e-sh 'the > water'. This would support some kind of connection between e-grade and > definiteness. It occurs to me to mention that Mandan has a kind of noun-marker e that is omitted in some contexts, e.g., in compounding, but also some independent contexts. Hollow treats it as an epenthetic vowel, if I remember, but Kennard thought it was morphological. Nouns often display a final -r- or -h- or -?- when the e is added, e.g., ko ~ kore. The -r- could be something of a default, as -r- is the usual separator of two vowels, one of them high in Plains languages where y ands r have merged or for some other reason there is no y. This would be my assumption. However, is is also not inconceivable that some Proto-Siouan nouns ended in -r (*-r or (*-y) and some Siouanists have favored this analysis at least at time. I don't think anyone would claim that e is an article. In fact, Mandan has an enclitic or suffix -s (matches Crow s^) that is the definite article. The Mandan e is somewhat reminsicent of the Winnebago -ra, though I don't know that anyone has looked at their functions in any detail. From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Tue Sep 4 16:07:51 2001 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 11:07:51 -0500 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) Message-ID: Koontz John E wrote: > It appears that Winnebago may use ne (phonologically odd, too) as > an independent pronominal of both the first and second persons (Lipkind, > p. 29). Actually, it is usually accompanied by an enclitic with a sense > like 'only', and proclitic to a form that that does distinguish person, > but the use of a cover form seems unusual. Winnebago not only uses /nee/ in addition to either first or second person affixes to express emphasis or contrast, but with third person forms, /ee/ is used for the same purpose. Historians, is the latter another example of the demonstrative *e, implicated in the development of Siouan ablaut, and surviving in Winnebago as an independent word without affixes? Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Sep 4 16:50:56 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:50:56 -0600 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) In-Reply-To: <3B94FC57.18217808@westman.wave.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Sep 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > Winnebago not only uses /nee/ in addition to either first or second > person affixes to express emphasis or contrast, but with third person > forms, /ee/ is used for the same purpose. Historians, is the latter > another example of the demonstrative *e, implicated in the development > of Siouan ablaut, and surviving in Winnebago as an independent word > without affixes? Lipkind mentions the ee for the third person, too. I just didn't pass that along. In answer to the question, I believe so. Actually, the demonstrative e(e) 'the aforesaid' is essentially the third person independent pronominal throughout Mississippi Siouan. Its involvement in ablaut isn't universally recognized, but the use of ee as a sort of discourse-based demonstative, i.e., a third person pronominal, is recognized and generally reported. Of course, like other independent pronominals in Siouan it has an inherently emphatic or contrastive sense, and this affects its behavior in various ways that may perhaps make it seem less pronominal to English observers. Recently I've begun to suspect that use of e after clauses and demonstratives, etc., in OP might amount to the equivalent of a cleft in English: blah-blah e ... = it is blah blah that ... But this isn't really anything new, since e is emphatic-contrastive in Siouan, and that's basically what a cleft does in English. All I'm really suggesting is that in various cases e follows some larger entity to lend its contrastive strength to it. I suspect others have had the same thought, perhaps for other languages. From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 4 20:40:15 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:40:15 -0500 Subject: Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...) Message-ID: >Winnebago not only uses /nee/ in addition to either first or second person affixes to express emphasis or contrast, but with third person forms, /ee/ is used for the same purpose. Historians, is the latter another example of the demonstrative *e, implicated in the development of Siouan ablaut, and surviving in Winnebago as an independent word without affixes? /?ee/ seems to be the least marked of the demonstratives and it fits in the same slots as /ree/, /s^ee/ and /ka/. It would *seem* to be the same particle that compounds with stative pronominal prefixes to form the contrastive pronoun set, /*wiN-?e/, /*yiN-?e/, etc., although the /e/ here could possibly be one of the elusive 'be' verbs. In some languages /e-/ seems to have replaced the 3rd person /i-/ of the possessive prefix paradigms. It also appears as an attached "preverb" in verbs like /ee-he/ 'to say this/that'. I've never seen any convincing evidence that there is, or ever was, an e/a "article" pair, but this is something John and I have disagreed about early and often. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 4 20:50:19 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:50:19 -0500 Subject: Demonstrative /7ee/ again. Message-ID: As I work my thru my email I see that John and I have substantially the same answer to Paul's query. I hope that's a good sign; there is much about Siouan morphological history yet to be worked out. >Recently I've begun to suspect that use of e after clauses and demonstratives, etc., in OP might amount to the equivalent of a cleft in English: blah-blah e ... = it is blah blah that ... But this isn't really anything new, since e is emphatic-contrastive in Siouan, and that's basically what a cleft does in English. All I'm really suggesting is that in various cases e follows some larger entity to lend its contrastive strength to it. I suspect others have had the same thought, perhaps for other languages. The only thing I might add is that we need to be mindful of the problem of homophony here. There are postverbal particles of the shape /?e/ and /he/ in different subgroups that seem to be the 'be' of location. (The glottal stop in the former variant is presumably epenthetic and a 'Grenzsignal' as ?/h is not an equation within MVS as far as I know.) Demonstrative /?ee/ and ontological /(h)e/ may both occur after clauses. This could lead to reinterpretation of syntactic functions by speakers. Bob From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 4 21:43:12 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 16:43:12 -0500 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: >> In Crow, noun stems ending in i and a have an e-grade that occurs as the citation form and when the the noun occurs with no further suffixation. E.g., bili' 'water' (stem), bile' (citation form). When the definite article is added to a noun, it is always added to the e-grade, eg, bile'e-sh 'the water'. This would support some kind of connection between e-grade and definiteness. I suspect this is a sound change. Short e and o raise in final position but are retained preceding the suffix/enclitic. I suspect that's the source of Paul's Winnebago -i before affixes too. >It occurs to me to mention that Mandan has a kind of noun-marker e that is omitted in some contexts, e.g., in compounding, but also some independent contexts. Hollow treats it as an epenthetic vowel, if I remember, but Kennard thought it was morphological. Nouns often display a final -r- or -h- or -?- when the e is added, e.g., ko ~ kore. The -r- could be something of a default, as -r- is the usual separator of two vowels, one of them high in Plains languages where y ands r have merged or for some other reason there is no y. This would be my assumption. However, s is also not inconceivable that some Proto-Siouan nouns ended in -r (*-r or (*-y) and some Siouanists have favored this analysis at least at time. I don't have time to summarize all the discussion Dick, Wes, John and I have had over Mandan -re. It is extensive. Suffice it to say that some like a phonological solution by which -e is epenthetic and then -r- is epenthetic to break up the VV cluster (if I remember correctly). My own analysis is more in line with Kennards and is morphological and looks upon -re as meaning something like "it's a X", where X is the noun. There are also verbal suffixes -re and -he that recur often but without easily specifiable meaning at this point. Bob From BARudes at aol.com Wed Sep 5 01:00:34 2001 From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 21:00:34 EDT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) Message-ID: Bob Rankin wrote: I don't have time to summarize all the discussion Dick, Wes, John and I have had over Mandan -re. It is extensive. Suffice it to say that some like a phonological solution by which -e is epenthetic and then -r- is epenthetic to break up the VV cluster (if I remember correctly). My own analysis is more in line with Kennards and is morphological and looks upon -re as meaning something like "it's a X", where X is the noun. There are also verbal suffixes -re and -he that recur often but without easily specifiable meaning at this point. As possible support for Bob's analysis, the Catawba indiciative modal suffix (-re:) means basically '(it) is X', and can occur with any part of speech to create a predicate. Blair From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 5 06:07:38 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 00:07:38 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: Kennard's view of -e on Mandan nouns is: p. 26, "The indefinite article is the suffix -[eta] (i.e., a short e)." p. 6, "Whenever a suffix beginning with a vowel is used with a stem ending in a vowel, an r is inserted between the two vowels." I don't see any sign of a -re verbal suffix. I think Catawba has one. And Biloxi has a -di on verbs and I think nouns that would match. === As far as e vs. a demonstratives, I think that the e form is clear and reconstructable for Proto-Siouan, if evidently not Proto-Siouan-Catawban. The a or ha form (?*Ha) is more obscure, but here's the data, including the initials of 'day' to show the *H correspondence. I'm not sure what *H represents. I don't mean to imply it's a new proto-phoneme. It seems to be an h that's there is some languages and not in others. I think that Chafe reconstructed *rh for this set ('day' that is), though it's not the same *rh that Allan Taylor reconstructed for quite a different kind of set (like 'arrive here'). The r comes from reflexes in Southeastern. It's not absolutely clear whether the *Ha demonstrative is the same set as *HaNp- 'day', because it has more restricted distribution. Some sort of grammatical alternation may be at work in 'day', perhaps one of Bob's obsolete classifier prefixes. The *Ha demonstrative is primarily found active in Dhegiha, though perhaps it also occurs in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago. Dakotan - I'm not really sure of anything for the *Ha demonstrative. The usual interrogative root is tV. For the initial correspondence cf. aNpe'=tu 'day', aNb=wa's^te 'pleasant day'. Omaha-Ponca - a'=gu=di 'where', a'=thaN 'when, how far, how long', a'=na(N)ska 'of what size, how big', a'=na(N) 'how many', a'=xt(i)=aN 'how possibly' = 'how on earth' (?), e=a'=thaN ~ e=a'=c^haN 'how', a'=daN 'therefore'. All these forms are indefinite as well as interrogative. Some of them have parallels with e= as the demonstrative root, like e=na(N) 'that many'. Some do not and some seem to have both e and a, interestingly enough. For the initial correspondence in OP cf. aN'ba 'day'. There is also a form a'wa- that seems to mean something like 'which of two (or several?)' that can serve as a demonstrative base that might be connected. This has a variant or maybe just a resemblant alternative wiaNwa that is better distributed in the rest of Dhegiha. Dorsey claims that a=the=di, a=khe=di, etc., exist as '(some)where' forms, but I've only seen a'wa=the=di, etc., in the texts. I'll skip Osage in favor of Kaw, since they're fairly similar. Kaw - hago'j^idaN 'when', hago'ha 'where, whither', hakhaN' 'when, how far, how long', ha'yoNska 'how big', ha'naN 'how many, how much', hago', ha'go 'why', hago'daN 'why, how come'. For the initial correspondence haN'ba 'day'. I've omitted boundaries here and in Quapaw, though they're probably quite analogous with OP. I'm not absolutely positive about an analysis like ha=go=j^i=daN, especially given the Quapaw form ha'kidede (modified from ha'kudidaN?), but I make the analysis of OP a'gudi in internal terms 'something' = gu 'yonder' = di LOCATIVE or something like 'where away'. Quapaw - ha'kidede- 'where', haki'ttaN 'whence', hathaN'- 'when', ha'naska 'how big/small, what size', hana(N)' iNke 'some' ~ hana (h)itte (or hide) 'how many', hanaN' 'how much'. For the intial correspondence haN'ba 'day', haNba' 'light'. Ioway-Otoe - JGT lists ha, ha?e 'that', but the indefinite demonstrative is ta(N) and I'm not at all sure of the status or usage of ha. For the initial correspondence, cf. haN'we 'day'. Winnebago - The usual interrogative demonstrative is j^aa. There are a few possiblities for ha in the form of hac^aNga' 'which one', hac^iNiNj^a (< hac^aNiNj^a, per Lipkind) 'where', haga' 'time, occurrence, intance'. For the correspondence, cf. haN'aNp 'day'. Hawa?uN' 'that's why' looks like hawa + uN. These could be fossils of *Ha and *Hawa, but maybe not. By way of a demonstration that the initial of 'day' is not the usual h, compare it with 'night', which is consistently haN(he). So there's definitely a Proto-Siouan demonstrative e, and there's definitely a Dhegiha, possibly a Proto-Mississippi Valley, "demonstrative" (indefinite/interogative root) *Ha. The real issue is whether they have anything to do with the finals of nouns - or in some restricted ways - of verbs. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 5 06:24:31 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 00:24:31 -0600 Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I don't have time to summarize all the discussion Dick, Wes, John and I have > had over Mandan -re. Ah yes, the R-Wars. I'd try to summarize them, but (a) I'm not sure everyone stuck to one point of view throughout, which makes them rather complex to summarize. I think everyone's views altered in some ways from one year to the next. Also (b), I'm not sure I remember precisely what each person thought. Not well enough to do them each justice, anyway, and that makes things impossible to summarize. I have a hard enough time remembering what I think about the subject. Finally, (c) heaven forbid that the Third R-War should break out. Even the knowledge that the Romans built a new Carthage shortly after they won the third Punic war and sowed the site of Carthage with salt isn't all that encouraging. Et Carthago delenda est, anyone? Just kidding. From rankin at ku.edu Wed Sep 5 14:46:13 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 09:46:13 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: >As far as e vs. a demonstratives, I think that the e form is clear and reconstructable for Proto-Siouan, if evidently not Proto-Siouan-Catawban. I assume this is what we've been reconstructing as *7ee? It is an unmarked demonstrative in most or all Siouan languages as far as I know. Both length and the glottal stop are clearly present in some forms and need to be reconstructed. >The a or ha form (?*Ha) is more obscure, but here's the data, I see what John is talking about here. I'm familiar with the Dhegiha data on these, but I've always thought of ha- as equivalent to WH-forms, not TH-forms to use the English analog. I guess I've just never called these demonstratives. >Kaw - hago'j^idaN 'when', hago'ha 'where, whither', hakhaN' 'when, how far, how long', ha'yoNska 'how big', ha'naN 'how many, how much', hago', ha'go 'why', hago'daN 'why, how come'. >So there's definitely a Proto-Siouan demonstrative e, and there's definitely a Dhegiha, possibly a Proto-Mississippi Valley, "demonstrative" (indefinite/interogative root) *Ha. The real issue is whether they have anything to do with the finals of nouns - or in some restricted ways - of verbs. I think I would generally resist the notion that we have derivational affixes that can be either preposed or postposed. It's not out of the question if resegmentation/reassociation can be demonstrated, but it is far too permissive for me to accept as a general principle of reconstruction. In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share neither function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any discernable sense. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 5 15:47:20 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 09:47:20 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I assume this is what we've been reconstructing as *7ee? It is an unmarked > demonstrative in most or all Siouan languages as far as I know. Both length > and the glottal stop are clearly present in some forms and need to be > reconstructed. Yes. I've neglected the length because it seems to come and go and the glottalization because I'm mainly aware of it where e(e) follows another demonstrative and take it for a boundary phenomenon as Bob mentioned earlier. > I see what John is talking about here. I'm familiar with the Dhegiha data on > these, but I've always thought of ha- as equivalent to WH-forms, not > TH-forms to use the English analog. I guess I've just never called these > demonstratives. It's somewhat moot to call them demonstratives, but I'm using the term as a sort of cover term for the morphemes that can combine with the set of postpositions and things like *ra(N) 'number', *raNska 'size', etc., plus *(k)uN 'manner'. (What do we call these last few things, anyway?) > >Kaw - hago'j^idaN 'when', hago'ha 'where, whither', hakhaN' 'when, how > far, how long', ha'yoNska 'how big', ha'naN 'how many, how much', hago', > ha'go 'why', hago'daN 'why, how come'. Incidentally, I think -go here in 'why' is a denasalized version of OP -goN (or -gaN) as in the problematic egoN (or *-kuN), but in hago'j^idaN it looks like it matches OP -gu- as in agudi 'where'. > >So there's definitely a Proto-Siouan demonstrative e, and there's > definitely a Dhegiha, possibly a Proto-Mississippi Valley, "demonstrative" > (indefinite/interogative root) *Ha. The real issue is whether they have > anything to do with the finals of nouns - or in some restricted ways - > of verbs. > > I think I would generally resist the notion that we have derivational > affixes that can be either preposed or postposed. It's not out of the > question if resegmentation/reassociation can be demonstrated, but it is far > too permissive for me to accept as a general principle of reconstruction. I would probably resist a derivational morpheme that was both prefixal and suffixal myself, at least in a general way ,but I don't have any problem with a prefix and a suffix coming from the same historical source, say a demonstrtative. It's clear that there's nothing problematical about both ga=tta 'to(ward) yon' and s^aNge=ga 'yon canine/horse' (emphasizing enclisis of the demonstrative with intent). And e=tta 'to it' or 'to the aforesaid' is also not a problem. I think s^aNge e would be 'it is the horse that', but I'd have to look for examples to be fully confident of exact parallels in current OP. However, I'm not at all worried about the potential for something like *s^unk(...) e 'the aforesaid canine' existing in Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan. If what is later an affix starts as an independent syntactic element, it's ability to occur before some things and after others depends on the syntax of the language. > In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share neither > function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any discernable > sense. They do occur in oppositions like e=na(N) 'that many, so many' and a=na(N) 'some quantity' or 'how many', which willy nilly yokes them into a pair. Of course, it's a pair that's part of a larger set, including also dhe=na(N), s^e=na(N), and ga=na(N), though I think that the potential of all the demonstratives (and fellow travelers) to occur with all the "post-demonstrative elements" is not equal. I don't know that any of the last three, for example, are attested except in Dorsey's manuscript tables, which may overgeneralize. What I can definitely say I have never seen is a free-floating Dhegiha (h)a "demonstrative" following a noun or clause. Of course, that's just what I'm assuming may have existed at any earlier PMV date. As far as indefinites following nouns generally, I'd say that du'ba 'some' definitely looks like it might have the *tV-stem in it, but, of course, that interrogative/indefinite stem is indefinite enough in form that I can't be very definite about that. Du'ba does definitely follow nouns, though, as in s^aNge duba 'some horses'. I do think it's only a coincidence that that du'ba 'some' falls together with du'ba 'four' in Omaha-Ponca. === Not that I've found Indo-Europeanists are any more thrilled about the possibility than Siouanists, but it's interesting note that the noun thematic suffixes e/o and aa in PIE bear a strong resemblance to the third person/demonstrative elements of PIE, too. Interestingly, however, I think that at least some Indo-Europeanists (Shields?) do think that the e/o thematic affix in PIE verbs might reflect a (definite) third person object concord verb paradigm, on the analogy of similar patterns in Uralic languages. Presumably athematic verbs would be the paradigm without object concord. (I don't mean to imply that I think such an explanation would account for verbal ablaut in Siouan.) From rankin at ku.edu Wed Sep 5 20:45:06 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 15:45:06 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: >I've neglected the length because it seems to come and go ... This is because Siouanists apart from Crow and Hidatsa have so desperately tried to ignore it. In fact, we have no idea what the length alternations are in any Siouan language outside of those two. >and the glottalization because I'm mainly aware of it where e(e) follows another demonstrative and take it for a boundary phenomenon as Bob mentioned earlier. Two things: (1) this is a glottal that is retained even word-internally in Kaw, so I tend to think it is organic, and (2) the one I mentioned earlier was not the demonstrative but rather *he 'be' (probably locative, certainly so in Dhegiha) that shows up in Dakotan (if my memory of these discussions is right) as ?e. >I would probably resist a derivational morpheme that was both prefixal and suffixal myself, at least in a general way ,but I don't have any problem with a prefix and a suffix coming from the same historical source, say a demonstrtative. Maybe I haven't understood, but that seems to be assuming what you're trying to prove. I think, though, that we may have reached our usual impass where I assume homophony where John assumes polysemy. This has happened many times over the past 15 years or so. >...ga=tta 'to(ward) yon' and s^aNge=ga 'yon canine/horse' (emphasizing enclisis of the demonstrative with intent). I've never been able to elicit demonstratives optionally following their head like shonge-ga. Maybe something where both shonge and ga were heads like shonge=akha ga=akha or the like, not the former. If both ga shonge and shonge ga occur as constituents below the S level, then I stand corrected. >And e=tta 'to it' or 'to the aforesaid' is also not a problem. I think s^aNge e would be 'it is the horse that', but I'd have to look for examples to be fully confident of exact parallels in current OP. To me it might possibly mean 'that one is a horse', but again here, both would be heads. E would be a predicate. Intonation and accent in such cases tends to preclude enclisis. > However, I'm not at all worried about the potential for something like *s^unk(...) e 'the aforesaid canine' existing in Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan. That's what I do worry about. I think that any such grammaticalization clines we assume have to be demonstrated very carefully, and hopefully with different extant languages showing different stages. It's easy to say "oh, demonstratives, they can be grammaticalized anywhere...". It might even be true in some languages, but I'd want to spend a lot of time looking at lots of data before I'd want to accept it. >> In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share neither function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any discernable sense. >They do occur in oppositions like e=na(N) 'that many, so many' and a=na(N) 'some quantity' or 'how many', which willy nilly yokes them into a pair. It's true they occur consistently in Dhegiha in WH/TH pairs, but not as members of the same class of objects. They are all WHich one/THis one, how many/this many, how long/that long, etc. pairs. >Of course, it's a pair that's part of a larger set, including also dhe=na(N), s^e=na(N), and ga=na(N),... These only occur in a paradigm with the TH pair of the set. None occurs in the WH set. It is the TH group, namely, ?ee, *ree, *shee, *ga that form a set. Ha- is not a member of that set. But we're losing track of what we're being asked to believe. Personally, I just think it extremely unlikely that the Ha that forms WH questions in Dhegiha (and sometimes maybe Winn./Chiwere too) and is always a root turns up as a suffix -a on a few nouns, has nothing to do with Q-formation, is some sort of demonstrative and explains noun ablaut. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Fri Sep 7 01:47:44 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 20:47:44 -0500 Subject: OP e'iNte Message-ID: John, >> 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. There is no breve over the final -e in the examples of e'iNte I've looked at since reading this post, and the potentiality marker tte seemed to me like a better candidate for the end of this "whatever" word than the "vertical", "stacked", "bundled" positional the. So I ran it by our three native speakers in class yesterday. It took some coaxing, and Mark's excellent solicitation skills, to get them to come around to this question, but in the end they agreed firmly that the final syllable of e'iNte is aspirated -the, not -tte as in buffalo. So I think we've confirmed that your phonological analysis of e'iNte as e=iN=the is correct! Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Sep 8 00:51:40 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 19:51:40 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: >> 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. > John: > 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. > 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. I think we substantially agree on conditions (b) and (c), in which the old *(a)pi with its normal use-value is clearly fossilized as =bi. Of course, even here there is an issue of whether the shift from =bi to =i was conditioned phonologically or semantically. If it was conditioned phonologically, then we should rather expect the change to occur in the names and songs anyway, no matter how much lack of change was prized, since the change would be gradual and in the absence of writing it would be difficult to know what was original. If it was conditioned semantically, however, then =i would have appeared in productive form as a quantum jump. In that case, the preservation of the old forms within previously established "texts" would be only natural, without even having to assume any special effort to keep them. Regarding condition (a), I don't think the pattern you're trying to extract will be very helpful. I think we've identified just two common words that fit that pattern here: ama' and egaN'. Of these, ama' does show signs of partially fusing with the preceding =bi, and if it were the only case of =bi in productive speech, then you could certainly make a good argument that the bi- in biama' was simply a fossil relic preserved by its fusion with ama'. With egaN', however, there is no sign of fusion that I can see in Dorsey, and it can be preceded equally well by =bi or by =i. Another important word you need to consider is the conjunction ki, "when". This word does not fit the phonological pattern, but it does share with egaN' the status of being a conjunction normally governing entire statement clauses. In general, ki implies that the foregoing clause sets the scene for the following clause, while egaN' means that the foregoing cause offers some sort of explanation or prerequisite for the following clause. Like egaN', ki can be preceded indifferently by =bi or =i, or for that matter, by biama', or ama', or none of the above. The =bi or =i, or biama' or ama', simply belong to the preceding clause and have nothing to do with the conjunction that follows them. They are terminators of statements. If we want to understand what distinguishes them, we need to look in the other direction, to the statement they belong to. The material in Dorsey that I have seen so far consists of myths-- traditional stories to which the narrator cannot personally attest. The material can be divided into narration statements, in which the narrator is describing what happened, and dialogue, in which characters in the story are directly quoted. The narration comprises the bulk of the text, probably at least 70%, but there is still a substantial amount of dialogue. In the dialogue, =bi hardly ever occurs, and when it does it is associated with irrealis conditions. I pointed out a couple of examples about a month ago, in which =bi was tacked onto the end of a noun or stative verb to indicate that the previous was an assumption based on what had been heard, rather than a fact grounded in direct experience. In both of these cases, Dorsey had a note explaining that that was what was going on. In the narrative, however, =bi is overwhelmingly common as a statement terminator. This is most notably the case with the incessant "biama"s that complete almost every sentence, but it is also in those same "biama" sentences that we can expect to find a =bi terminating the statement clauses that precede the conjunctions ki and egaN'. In the dialogue, we generally find an =i after the final verb of a third-person statement, in the same position that we would usually find a =bi in the narrative. The presence of =i or =bi in either case seems to have nothing to do with plurality; they will appear in the singular as well as the plural. (I believe John has pointed this out long ago.) The =i seems to be a declarative particle used to terminate active statements, at least in the third person. The =bi particle functions the same way grammatically, except that it indicates that the preceding statement is a supposition, or an inference based on hearsay, and hence to be doubted. All narrative statements in the myths are third person and based on hearsay, and hence properly should be qualified with =bi. Most of them are. There is a significant minority of them, however, that use the standard declarative =i form. In these cases, the sentence usually seems to be short. I think these cases are probably lapses from the proper but tedious =bi form into standard declarative form for a momentary wake-up effect. This may be similar to a narrator in English telling a story set in the past, but shifting into present tense now and then for dramatic effect. One more use of =bi can be found in its alternation with =i after tta. X tta=i means X _will_ happen, but X tta=bi means that X was supposed to happen (but didn't). This usage can be found several times in the story "The Chief's Son and the Thunders", pages 177 - 179. The chief's son tells his scouts: Ni'khawasaN', e'gidhe dhiti'gaN wiN ... t?e'dhadhe ttai' ha. Warriors, beware lest you kill one of your grandfathers! The scouts go out and make an attempt to kill some ferocious totemic animal, and lose one of their own as a result. When they report back to their war leader in shame, he chews them out for having disobeyed his orders: Ni'khawasaN', dhiti'gaN t?e'dhadha-ba'zhi tta'-bi, ehe' dhaN'shti. Warriors, I said before you were not to kill your grandfather! Actually, when understood this way, even the contrast of =bi with =i in the song and story, respectively, of "The Lament of the Fawn for its Mother", page 358, makes sense without having to attribute conservatism to the song. In the story, the two characters are assertively arguing with each other over whether the beings they perceive are men or crows. They both use =i to emphasize their respective claims as facts. In the song, the Fawn reflects on their past argument in the format of nia'shiNga'-bi ehe', kaxa'-bi eshe' ... I said they were men, you said they were crows ... thereby casting their former claims in the subjunctive, just as we do in English. In sum, I think that the existence of an active particle =bi, used to indicate supposition, hearsay and the subjunctive, in semantic contradistinction to another particle =i that is used as a factual declarative, and both of these distinct from the historical pluralizing particle =i, is quite clear in the Dorsey texts. I can't speak for the etymology of these particles, but their semantically distinct usage in historical OP seems to me to be absolutely plain. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 8 23:53:29 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 17:53:29 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > >I would probably resist a derivational morpheme that was both prefixal > >and suffixal myself, at least in a general way ,but I don't have any > >problem with a prefix and a suffix coming from the same historical > >source, say a demonstrative. > > Maybe I haven't understood, but that seems to be assuming what you're trying > to prove. I think, though, that we may have reached our usual impass where I > assume homophony where John assumes polysemy. This has happened many times > over the past 15 years or so. I agree that I often see multiple uses of a single morpheme where Bob sees two homophonous morphemes, but I'm not sure I see any circularity in the enterprise at hand. Am I missing something? > >...ga=tta 'to(ward) yon' and s^aNge=ga 'yon canine/horse' (emphasizing > enclisis of the demonstrative with intent). > > I've never been able to elicit demonstratives optionally following their > head like shonge-ga. Maybe something where both shonge and ga were heads > like shonge=akha ga=akha or the like, not the former. If both ga shonge and > shonge ga occur as constituents below the S level, then I stand corrected. I've collected some instances of the relevant patterns from the Dorsey texts. It is true that demonstrative alone tend more often to precede the noun (in OP), and that when they follow there is usually an article after following the demonstrative. It is also the case that OP often produces situations like NOUN=ART DEM=ART, but it is possible to have NOUN DEM. It is even possible to have "NOUN e." There are, as I said, no examples of a= (*Ha) following or preceding nouns, though it occurs with all the enclitics that can attach to e. This is the more common alternative with a single demonstrative and a noun. DEM NOUN 90:28.12 dhe' nikkas^iNga 'this person' 90:704.8 s^e' ni'kkas^iNga 'that fellow' 90:713.2 ga' waxiN'ha 'that paper [letter]' 90:25.5 e maN'ghe 'that sky' DEM=NOUN (fused example of foregoing) 90:54.1 eaN'ba 'that day' More elaborate possibilities: DEM [NOUN VERB] DEM [NOUN QUANT] 90:87.12-13 dhe' aN'xtiegaN u'z^u 'these principle head-men' 90:85.14 dhe' nu'z^iNga naN'ba 'these two boys' This pattern seems to be pretty unusual: DEM=ART NOUN 90:96.2 dhe'=khe s^aN'ge 'this horse' 90:57.9 s^e'=khe ttas^niN'gdhis^kaha 'that fawnskin bag' More normal is: DEM NOUN ART (QUANT) 90:86.7 dhe' us^te' ama 'these remaining ones' 90:149.4 dhe' tte'wa?u dhiNkhe 'this buffalo woman' 90:147.5-6 dhe' tti' ama' bdhu'ga 'all these lodges (of people)' Demonstrative after noun also occurs, though I'm not sure what the difference is. NOUN DEM 90:85.2 a(N)'ma dhe 'this one' 90:330.1 niN' dhe' 'this water' 90:109.9 maN'zewethiN dhe(') 'this sword' 90:194.6 wadha'ha dhe' 'this clothing' 90:109.6 s^i'nudaN dhe=dhaNkhe=i=kki, maN'zewethiN dhe(') 'these dogs and this sword' 90:721.3-5 ni'kkas^iNga s^e' 'those people' 90:295.15 xdhabe' s^e', zaNde' s^e' 'those trees, that thicket' 90:83.1 ttaN'waNgdhaN e 'that tribe' Note the absence of ablaut in 109.6. There =kki is 'when'. NOUN=DEM (fused example of foregoing) aN'ba=dhe 'today' More common than just a demonstrative: NOUN DEM=ART(=POST) 90:124.14 wa'xesabe dhe'=ama 'this blackman' 90:80.2 maN' dhe=the 'this arrow' 90:140.3 u'?e dhe'=khe 'this field' 90:213.11 z^aN" dhe'=the 'this wood' 90:109.6 s^i'nudaN dhe=dhaNkhe=i=kki, maN'zewethiN dhe 'these dogs and this sword' 90:54.1 dhe'ghegakku s^e'=the 'that drum' 90:134.19 ppahe' s^e'=hi=dhe=khe 'that hill yonder' 90:... ppa'he s^e'=hi=dhe=dhaN=di 'at that distant hill' 90:109.17 z^aN' s^e'=the 'that tree' 90:117.19 s^iu s^e'=thaN 'that prairie chicken' 90:167/2 s^i'nudaN s^e'=dhiNkhe 'that dog' 90:154.20 wa?u'zhiNga ga'=dhiN 'that old woman' 90:190.11 naN'b=udhixdhaN ga'=dhaN 'that ring' The ... example is one that lacks a page number in the computer file and I'm too lazy to look it up. NOUN DEM=ART=ENC 90:221.14 ni'kkagahi dhe'=akha=s^ti 'this chief, too' More elaborate structures: [NOUN NOUN] DEM(=ART) [NOUN VERB] DEM=ART [NOUN QUANT] DEM (QUANT) 90:278.12 ni'as^iNga wahi' dhe' 'these human bones' 90:52.5 maNs^c^iN'ge iz^iN'ge e'=akha 'that Son of the Rabbit' 90:231.19 maN'ze na'=z^ide dhe'=khe 'this redhot iron' 90:278.5 wathaN'zi j^u'ba dhe'=dhiN 'a bit of corn like this' 90:107.13 we'?uhi e=s^naN dhe he'be 'this piece of a mere hide scraper' (available in lieu of the desired metal blade) Instances with DEM=naN 'that many' and DEM=dhaNska 'that large' NOUN DEM=Q-THING NOUN DEM=Q-THING(=ENC) [NOUN QUANT] DEM=Q-THING 90:107.11 u?u'de dhe'=dhaNska '(a) hole this size' 90:27.12 ttez^iN'hiNde e'=dhaNska 'a yarn turban of that size' 90:149.19 tta' he'be dhe'=dhaNska 'a piece of jerked meat this size' 90:249.14 iN'?e ga'=dhaNska=xti dhe'=na=xti 'just this many stones of just that size' I included this as one example of an interesting idiom for 'this ... behind'. NOUN dhe'=tta ART (idiom: 'this X behind') 90:40.10 iNs^?a'ge dhe=tta dhiN 'this venerable man behind' It is normal to have e after a noun if the following verb is 'mean, intend'. This looks like an incipient case of e= preverb, though Dorsey doesn't write the e as a preverb. NOUN DEM mean 90:181.12 he' e' wakhe'=akha=ama 'he meant those lice' 90:35.3 uc^hi'z^e e' wakha'=i 'he meant that thicket' JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 9 00:47:09 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 18:47:09 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > > However, I'm not at all worried about the potential for something like > *s^unk(...) e 'the aforesaid canine' existing in Proto-Mississippi Valley > Siouan. > > That's what I do worry about. I think that any such grammaticalization > clines we assume have to be demonstrated very carefully, and hopefully with > different extant languages showing different stages. It's easy to say "oh, > demonstratives, they can be grammaticalized anywhere...". It might even be > true in some languages, but I'd want to spend a lot of time looking at lots > of data before I'd want to accept it. The paper by Greenberg that first led me to consider articles as a source of noun theme formants and gender markers is: Greenberg, Joseph H. 1978. How does a language acquire gender markers? pp. 47-82 in Universals of Human Language, Vol. 3. Joseph H. Greenberg, Charles Ferguson, and Edith Moravcsik, eds. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. Greenberg had the advantage over us of working especially (for this paper) with Niger-Congo, especially the Bantu subfamily, which has a great many more languages than the Siouan family. He didn't restrict himself to NC. He also considered various other language families, mostly African, but including Uto-Aztecan, with respect to the absolute markers used with nouns there, and Indo-European, with respect to the long forms of the adjectives in Slavic. One of my favorite examples is Berber, since the feminine marker, especially, shows up clearly fore-and-aft, as in amazigh 'Berber man' vs. tamazight 'the Berber language', for example. In most of the Moroccan dialects the t is actually theta, and the prefix is ta- for the feminine, and a- for the masculine. > >> In addition, here, we are dealing with two particles that share > neither function nor basic meaning; i.e., they are not a "pair" in any > discernable sense. > > >They do occur in oppositions like e=na(N) 'that many, so many' and a=na(N) > 'some quantity' or 'how many', which willy nilly yokes them into a pair. > > It's true they occur consistently in Dhegiha in WH/TH pairs, but not as > members of the same class of objects. They are all WHich one/THis one, how > many/this many, how long/that long, etc. pairs. The boundary between demonstratives and interrogatives is particularly weak in Siouan languages. In particular, the interrogatives consistently serve as indefinites, e.g., 'what' = 'something', 'who' = 'somebody', 'where' = 'somewhere', 'what quantity' = 'some quantity', etc. This is the only reason I allowed myself to consider these WH-forms in this light. That, of course, and the form being right. I do consider the h-initial in Kaw, Osage and Quapaw to be a potentially serious problem, which is why I'm interested in that initial correspondence. > >Of course, it's a pair that's part of a larger set, including also > dhe=na(N), s^e=na(N), and ga=na(N),... > > These only occur in a paradigm with the TH pair of the set. None occurs in > the WH set. It is the TH group, namely, ?ee, *ree, *shee, *ga that form a > set. Ha- is not a member of that set. When every enclitic pattern that occurs with the dhe/she/ga and e demonstratives occurs with the (h)a interrogative/indefinite it is difficult to see a major barrier within the paradigm of TH/WH + enclitic forms. All of dhe=naN, e=naN, and a=naN, for example, occur. I think I may be misunderstanding the application of paradigm here. There is, of course, a major barrier with the bare forms, for though the TH members of the set do occur post-nominally, the WH members do not, except perhaps in the case of duba/juba 'some', if that is connected with the *tV interrogative/indefinite. In fact, as far as I know, the (h)a "element," never occurs as a bare stem in Dhegiha or elsewhere, and so it does not occur either prenominally or postnominally. I suppose we could wonder about the a-question particle that appears sentence finally, but let's agree not to, since that's not clearly demonstrative, even though there is some parallel with e occurring sentence finally. I agree that it would be very helpful to have an instance of, say OP "a NOUN" or "NOUN a" in the sense of 'some NOUN' or 'is it a NOUN'. I'm pretty sure that the question particle is as close as I'm going to get on that and I don't see that as strong enough to press. Ironically, an example of "a NOUN" would be more helpful here, even though I'm trying to place a in a postnominal context. > But we're losing track of what we're being asked to believe. Personally, I > just think it extremely unlikely that the Ha that forms WH questions in > Dhegiha (and sometimes maybe Winn./Chiwere too) and is always a root turns > up as a suffix -a on a few nouns, has nothing to do with Q-formation, is > some sort of demonstrative and explains noun ablaut. I read this as: "where it has nothing to do with Q-formation," right? From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 9 04:46:41 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 22:46:41 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Long, but quite synchronic and more or less syntactic. JEK On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > >and the glottalization because I'm mainly aware of it where e(e) follows > another demonstrative and take it for a boundary phenomenon as Bob mentioned > earlier. > > Two things: (1) this is a glottal that is retained even word-internally in > Kaw, so I tend to think it is organic, and (2) the one I mentioned earlier > was not the demonstrative but rather *he 'be' (probably locative, certainly > so in Dhegiha) that shows up in Dakotan (if my memory of these discussions > is right) as ?e. ... > >And e=tta 'to it' or 'to the aforesaid' is also not a problem. I think > s^aNge e would be 'it is the horse that', but I'd have to look for examples > to be fully confident of exact parallels in current OP. > > To me it might possibly mean 'that one is a horse', but again here, both > would be heads. E would be a predicate. Intonation and accent in such cases > tends to preclude enclisis. I thought it might be interesting to track down cases of -e (or ?e) with a sort of predicative sense. I've stayed with OP, though I think Dakotan and Winnebago have similar things. In OP there is a final e that attaches to demonstratives and verbs. There is never any glottal stop with this in OP that I can see, though there is plainly a rearticulated vowel. I've never heard this construction in a live elicitation, but I've had very little live exposure to OP, to be honest. I have heard glottal stops live, of course, but clear glottal stops in OP seem to be from *k? and *x? reduced to ?. Anyway, I'm pretty sure these are the ?e that Bob speaks of, and that they all match (all the clause final and post-demonstrative e's in Mississippi Valley Siouan), rather than some (Dakotan cases?) coming (only) from Dhegiha he. Undeniably Dh verbal he should match a Dakotan verbal e, and undeniably Dh verbal he has matches in Winnebago, so maybe some Dakotan (?)e's come from *he. Returnign now to OP, it's pretty clear what the (?)e is doing with demonstratives, even when there's a noun preceding the demonstrative, or anarticle following. (Note that these e-forms seems to be almost always followed by a declarative.) 90:126.14 dhe'e he 'this is he (w spkg)' 90:136.16 dhe'e ha 'this is he (m spkg)' 90:17.1 s^e'e ha 'that is it (m spkg)' 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' 90:246.19 he'ga=am=e'e ha 'it is the Buzzard' 90:143.14 wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e 'my wife, that one lying, is she' 90:153.17 ga'=thaN e'e ha 'that one is she' 90:17.1 s^aN'de=dhaN s^e'e ha 'that is the (his) scrotum' As soon as the e gets attached to a verb, it gets a lot less clear to me what is going on. 90:17.6 a'=gu=di=the=di t?e'=dha=i=the ttaN'be=t[t?]=egaN where- the-at they killed him I will see it HAVING ua'ne bdhe'e he I seek I go E DECL I go seeking in order to see the place where they killed him (Maybe, '(Here) *I* am the one who is ...' with the understood sense that the looker (Rabbit's Grandmother) might have been saved a good deal of trouble if *only* the lookee (Rabbit) had heeded the *excellent* advice that she gave him and *avoided* those consarned blackbears in the first place ... JEK) In the next the e'e is merged with the front of the ede (e=de?) that Dorsey translates "but." I tend to wonder if this ede (or the de, anyway) might be something like the Dakotan c^ha particle used with indefinite relatives, but I haven't really looked at this. Dorsey renders the form "but" and cha is said to imply unexpectedness, but mainly =de seems to occur at the end of clauses with obscure import (to me). So, naturally I think of =cha, which is also fairly obscure (to me). And I haven't actually noticed any indefinite relative clauses, either, otherwise. Observationally, an ede can be pretty much substituted for e in many grammatical particles, like egaN the general subordinator (conjunct?) clause conjunction, which alternates with an infrequent edegaN. Add an e'e and you have the proverbial enigma wrapped in a riddle, etc. (Conjunctions follow the clause, of course.) I guess you could say that ede can substitute for e, for that matter. Have fun. Except for clear 'DEM is' glosses the e doesn't seem to get glossed by Dorsey and I've not tried to gloss it either except parenthetically here and there. 90:23.5-6 e'=gaN=i e'ede=gaN they are so E "but" HAVING Tta'xtigikkidabi=ama wi'aNnappa=i ha the Deertakers we fear them DECL these things having "but" been so, we fear the Deertakers 90:133.19 dhiNge'e 'there is none' (Perhaps 'it is that it lacks' or 'it is a lack'? JEK) This next may perhaps not be the same thing? 90:154.5 sa'ttaN waaN=dha=ama e' we'sappe e=d=uathaN e' ha five they deserted that sixth next to that DECL he is the sixth by those who are the five who left (Uttered in specifying which of several calves is the son the speaker had just claimed to recognize.) I'm not sure the first dhe in this next doesn't refer ahead to the last one, rather than applying (directly) to tti. 90:194.17 dhe' tti' witti'gaN udha'= dhaN'=s^ti dhe'e ha this house my gfa he spoke of heretofore this E DECL this is the dwelling of which my grandfather always spoke 90:221.9-10 wi'gdhaN dhaNz^a uaga's^aN bdhe'e ha I marry you though I travelling I go E DECL though I am marrying you, I go travelling 90:331.17 dhe'=dhu=thaN z^u=a'wagdhe=hnaN agdhe'e he here from I with them usually I go E DECL I went homeward thence usually with them 90:362.2 kki dhe' s^aaN' tti=ma' and this Sioux the dwellers e=di=thaN wiN uga's^aN dhe'= the'e ha thence one he travelled he went EVID E DECL one (man, just mentioned as of a wandering disposition) went off travelling from this Dakota camp (Perhaps, "it was this one who went off from the Dakota camp"? That is, a focus, like English cleft. JEK) 90:369.1 dhe'ghegakku uthiN'=bi= am= e'e ha drum(s) they struck it they CONTIN that E DECL it is they who are striking the drum(s) (Here I've just translated with a cleft. This is a conclusion about some enemies previously seen by a war party. JEK) Incidentally, one of Rory's bi's. 90:487.10-11 AN'ska, Frank wa?u' miN'=gdhaN e'=de t?e'e ha, by the by F woman he married her "but" she died E DECL nu'geadi last summer By the way, (the) woman whom Frank married died, last summer. The preceding has an example of ablaut (actually, an intrusive a) before a postposition =di. The next is similar with t?e'e. 90:512.4 I'kkuhabi=s^ti t?e'e ha 'Ikkuhabi, too, is dead.' 90:567.4 A'wathe'e a? 'Where is it?' (perhaps "Ou est-ce que c'est?" Just a'wa=the is 'where', or, apparently, an interrogative reading of 'some place or another', from a'wa 'indefinite alternative' + the 'the (upright)'. JEK) 90:591.1-2 Xdhabe' dhe'=the ma'ghe idha'bat?u=tte ehe'e ha tree this the sky it will extend I said E DECL 'Let that tree extend to the sky' I said (Perhaps "I am the one who said ..." JEK) This is definitely not all the examples of e'e in the texts, but it is good starting sample, with many similar examples suppressed. === With the simplest as clearest examples like dhe'e "this is it" we can see where this morpheme gets the predicative analysis. But I think that with a little examination of the context most of these simple cases can be read as clefts ("it is this that is the one") or at least stress focusses ("*this* is the one"). And when the examples get more complex, that approach seems to be the only one that works or makes any sense, as I hope some of my parenthetical analyses will have helped suggest. So, the e is not really 'is' but just 'it/he/that' or 'the one that', with the predicative 'be' being implied by the context. And, if this e is really a demonstrative, then why not regard it as an instance of the usual e demonstrative? While this approach does perhaps erode some of the foundations of Bob's objections to my nominal ablaut analyis, I don't think it discommodes the relevant ones to a point where agreeing with this would entail agreeing with ablaut analysis. I intend this only as an expose of one small factor in my analysis of demonstratives and Siouan syntax that eventually led to my being comfortable with my assessment of ablaut. I suspect that in a synchronic context this anlaysis is more interesting then the nominal ablaut thing anyway. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 9 04:53:40 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 22:53:40 -0600 Subject: OP e'iNte In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > He tends to put a breve over e in the vs. e in tte. ... > There is no breve over the final -e in the examples of e'iNte > I've looked at since reading this post, ... Sadly, he seems to have only done this with the in other contexts, like just plain the. This is why I'm somewhat grieved at Dorsey's breves. Anyway, I'm relieved to be confirmed. I'm pretty sure I had managed to confirm it one way or another in the past. However, the "double future" (I think this may be Boas's term) in =tte=the or =tta=i=the has given me a great deal of grief over the years. I'm pretty sure the second morpheme is aspirated, however, not another future. This is one reason why marking aspiration properly is so important. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 10 05:15:02 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 23:15:02 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I see John's examples with DEM N as ordinary modified nouns. > > The instances of N DEM (ART) I've always looked upon as two distinct > constituents, the DEM part of which I would translate mostly as predicates > (translation is one of the big imponderables here, as Dorsey's understanding > was not always 100%). > > 90:124.14 wa'xesabe dhe'=ama 'this blackman' > My analysis: 'this one, the black guy' > > 90:80.2 maN' dhe=the 'this arrow' > My analysis: 'the arrow, this one' > > In other words I think the bracketing is [N [DEM ART]]. A lot of these are > possibly copular constructions. The few cases of N DEM alone are less clear > and less common, but only field elicitation and careful comparison of > semantics will elucidate the situation, and none of us wants to do that. But > these are the only cases where reanalysis would realistically yield N DEM in > a single syntactic constituent. I think that the preposed demonstrative is the more marked possibilty. In Dakotan demonstatives can only precede the noun if the noun is followed by an article. If the demonstrative follows the noun the intervening article can be omitted. Demonstratives follow and are written as enclitic in Mandan. A posiitonal can follow the demonstrative. Demonstratives follow in Winnebago, but, interestingly, can be preceded by the positional. Demonstratives also seem to follow in Biloxi and Tutelo. I'm not sure about the situation in Ofo, or in Crow or Hidatsa. In Dhegiha demonstratives can precede or follow. The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. I think Omaha-Ponca is pretty typical of Dhegiha as far as the syntax of article and demonstratives. Note that the articles, however, are essentially what pass for positionals elsewhere, and that they follow the demonstrative. My analysis of the syntax of NPs: N'' => [N' (DEM)] (ART) (QUANT) N'' => DEM (ART) N' => N (QUANT) So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of extraction. This is consistent with the hypothesis of the development of articles from posiitonal verbs, but, of course, there's no reason why constituents might not have been reorganized. Again, though this analysis is certainly convenient for the nominal ablaut ex-article analysis, I don't believe that accepting it need commit one to the hypothesis that nominal ablaut comes from old articles. From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Mon Sep 10 15:00:11 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 15:00:11 GMT Subject: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Saad You deserved it. I hope all goes well Bruce Date sent: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 19:51:41 -0600 (MDT) Send reply to: siouan at lists.colorado.edu From: Koontz John E To: Subject: Re: Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system) On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 voorhis at westman.wave.ca wrote: > A question: What time relative to Proto-Siouan are we talking about > here? The ablaut patterns in Dakota/Lakota, Winnebago, and Omaha-Ponca > seem to be similar enough in most details to warrant simply > reconstructing ablaut in the ancestor of these languages, at least. ... It's clear that similar forms of verb ablaut are attested right across Siouan. I think that pretty much the only constants are e ~ a. The conditioning contexts are always following enclitics and a set of additional factors like nominalization. Some specific enclitics are subject to ablaut themselves in the same contexts. Perhaps the main ones that are reconstructable for earlier stages of the language are *ktE or (?) iNktE, the irrealis marker, and maybe something like *krE as a kind of third person plural. The specific grades associated with particular enclitics are not very constant. I think perhaps plural stems are always a-grades, but things like negatives and the irrealis vary wuite a bit, even within particular dialect continuums. Ablaut may or may not be associated with something like unaccented final vowels. Some stems clearly have accented ablauting vowels, like yA' 'go', yA 'cause' in Teton. It's true that at least 'go' may come from something like (?) *ree'hE which might explain the exceptional pattern away as secondary. Verbal ablaut is by its nature a constant, productive factor in Siouan morphology, since the conditioning enclitics are in constant use. It can only disappear by an active change in the morphology or phonology of the languages. What does seem clear is that there is a very good chance that ablaut is some of its primary specific examples (with pi or ktE) can be accounted for nicely by assuming that the vowel preceding the enclitic is actually an historical part of the enclitic. I think this was proposed first (that I'm aware of) by Wes Jones, and taken up by David Rood, and subsequently Bob Rankin. It looks very reasonable to see the plural as *api (across much of the family) and the irrealis as iNkt(e) (in at least some Dakotan dialects). This doesn't account for all of verbal ablaut in any cut and dried way, because there are so many enclitics, many of them not clearly cognate, and varying from dialect to dialect, let alone language to language. Furthermore, in some cases apparently cognate enclitics condition different ablaut grades in different languages. I'm think here of the negative, which is an e-grade in dakotan, but an a-grade in Dhegiha. It's true that this particular set is quite complex, and seems to involve a group of associated morphemes *s^(i) ~ *z^(i), *niN*, etc. I'd say that ablaut as an abstract phenomenon is somewhat self-renewing. Once you have any situation that results in a common pattern of e ~ a alternation, any chance circumstance that produces a new e ~ a alternation gets dragged into the complex. Probably something like the plural *api in connection with a rule that merges some V1 + V2 as V2 across enclitic boundaries and syllabifies the initial vowel of the enclitic with a final consonant of a host seeded the situation, and additional fuel has been added to the fire since then by other enclitics at intervals. I'm also inclined to feel that there is an additional common source of final vowel alternations in Proto-Siouan verbs that we haven't yet recognized. It seems to me that the additional of aN-finals to ablaut and the inclusion of iN as an ablaut grade are specific to Dakotan and involve analogical extensions of ablaut in the abstract, albiet fueled in the case of iN by a new instance of something like the original source of ablaut. To sum things up, I think verbal ablaut originated in Proto-Siouan, but not as morphologized and lexicalized ablaut (vowel alternations) per se. I suppose you could call the stage at which it was still an unpatterned collection of vowel elicisions or combinations and resyllabifications at enclitic boundaries Pre-Proto-Siouan, and the stage at which it was more abstract and arbitrary Proto-Siouan, though I'm not sure that this phase of the development hasn't occurred more or less independently in the ealy stages of development of the several branches of Siouan. Certainly the system continues to evolve in the various contemporary languages. Turning to nominal ablaut, either in the form of not very productive internal relicts, as in Dakotan or Omaha-Ponca, or cross-branch alternations, as between, say, Dakotan and Ioway-Otoe, it is more restricted, and may only occur in Mississippi Valley. It, too, involves e ~ a alternations, but it is usually fairly obscure in conditioning. I'd say that the e-grade could be attributed to 'possession', perhaps specificity, in Dakotan, and that at least some a-grades seem to be conditioning by enclitics in Dakotan and Omaha-Ponca, but I'm sure not everyone would agree with this. Even if 'specificity' marking accounts for the e-grades in, say, Ioway-Otoe, it's interesting, but maybe less useful, to be able to say that most e-final nouns in Dhegiha reflect 'specific' forms, while most a-final nouns in Dakotan reflect 'generic' forms. The real benefit in comparative terms may be to save us from looking for a specious phonological basis for the difference in final vowels. Nominal ablaut is probably an internal development of Mississippi Valley, originating in Proto-Mississippi Valley. I think the conditioning enclitics in this case were just vowels, though morphemes none-the-less. It looks superficially like verbal ablaut as an abstract morphological phenomenon, and has a similar source. It interacts with it because the morphemes in question were nominalizers and appear with nominalized verbs, and because the morphemic basis for it are homophonous with the phonological grades of verbal ablaut. But it is not as old as verbal ablaut and has an independent source. If the nominalizers in question have been, say, i and o, then things would have looked quite different. Nominal ablaut is not productive, primarily because in each of the branches the renewal of article and/or nominalizing systems has replaced the relevant morphological systems, and because in Ioway-Otoe and Winnebago the merger of final *a and *e after velars and the subsequent loss of *e in final light syllables in Winnebago has eliminated much of the phonological material of the system. Ironically, I think that the Winnebago =ra (and maybe =re) nominal markers and maybe Ioway-Otoe are 'that' may be the best remininants of the system as articles, though they seem to be post-vocalic allomorphs. JEK Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From rankin at ku.edu Mon Sep 10 18:45:39 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:45:39 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: > > I see John's examples with DEM N as ordinary modified nouns. In my own data, a single demonstrative precedes the N. If it follows a demonstrative, it's normally paired with a verb root (i.e., positional) or other constituent. > I think that the preposed demonstrative is the more marked > possibilty. In Dakotan demonstatives can only precede the noun if the noun > is followed by an article. If the demonstrative follows the noun the > intervening article can be omitted. Dhegiha looks to me to have the opposite pattern; the DEM tends to follow the N only if there IS an article (which is always deverbal). >Demonstratives follow and are written as enclitic in Mandan. A posiitonal >can follow the demonstrative. Oddly positionals tend to follow 'this' but not 'that' in Kennard. >The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. I think in every one of my Kaw examples of this construction, the DEM-ART is a predicate. > So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of > extraction. The pattern is so prevalent in my data that I have a hard time looking upon it as an extraction. Unless the DEM follows the N and forms an NP distinct from the N, DEM-N looks normal to me in Kaw and, I expect, in Dhegiha generally. This sort of thing can happen in languages. In Romanian you can say either "omul acesta" or "acest om" 'this man' but in Spanish "este hombre" is the rule and I can't get speakers to accept *"hombre este" as an NP. Again, does any Siouan language have anything resembling a consistent noun "ablaut"? Or, are what little there is in the way of rules/alternations in the extant languages found in matching environments? (the sort of thing one might expect of relic forms.) If not, then for now at least the article theory of ablaut is still DOA for me. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 10 20:02:44 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 14:02:44 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > Dhegiha looks to me to have the opposite pattern; the DEM tends to follow > the N only if there IS an article (which is always deverbal). Without having done any statistics on this, I'd say that was consistent with the numbers of examples I was noticing. I'd say that the numbers were something like NOUN DEM=ART > DEM NOUN > NOUN DEM. I'm not sure where things like DEM NOUN=ART fall in this, but I think near DEM NOUN, i.e., fairly common. In regard to the choice of demonstrative, ga, of course, was fairly rare are we noticed earlier, with dhe and s^e (and e) accounting for most the demonstratives. Some of the more prominent examples fo ga involve cases of explicit pointing to remote objects. > >Demonstratives follow and are written as enclitic in Mandan. A posiitonal > >can follow the demonstrative. > > Oddly positionals tend to follow 'this' but not 'that' in Kennard. I hadn't noticed that. I thought it particularly interesting that positional precede demonstratives in Winnebago. That tends to suggest to me that the historical processes leading to grammaticalization of positionals have been fairly independent across the family. > >The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of > things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. > > I think in every one of my Kaw examples of this construction, the DEM-ART is > a predicate. I think Catherine Rudin had numerous non-predicative examples of this sort of thing. > > So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of > > extraction. > > The pattern is so prevalent in my data that I have a hard time looking upon > it as an extraction. Unless the DEM follows the N and forms an NP distinct > from the N, DEM-N looks normal to me in Kaw and, I expect, in Dhegiha > generally. This sort of thing can happen in languages. In Romanian you can > say either "omul acesta" or "acest om" 'this man' but in Spanish "este > hombre" is the rule and I can't get speakers to accept *"hombre este" as an > NP. I'd think that even if extraction is a marked or additional sort of thing processually, it might come to be the more common (less marked) alternative over time. However, I don't know which order is considered historically primary in Romance! I do have the impression that DEM > NOUN is normal in most of the older IE languages. > Again, does any Siouan language have anything resembling a consistent noun > "ablaut"? Or, are what little there is in the way of rules/alternations in > the extant languages found in matching environments? (the sort of thing one > might expect of relic forms.) If not, then for now at least the article > theory of ablaut is still DOA for me. I'd be interested in this, too, of course. The only cases I'm aware of without appealing to comparative data (Da s^uNka vs. OP s^aNge, e.g.) or to extensions matching *-ra (e.g., Da -ya) are: - Dakotan, fairly well discussed in Boas & Deloria and in Shaw's diss. (Maybe in Carter's diss., too?) - OP, not in the literature, involving cases like ppahe' :: ppaha'=di - Crow citation forms in e for -i and -a nouns. I think the Dakotan cases are considered to be somewhat non-productive (earlier) to non-productive (contemporary), though, in fact, the conditioning environments are rather specialized and derivational, e.g., tha=NOUN conditions the e-grade, vs. NOUN, the a-grade as with s^uNka, so that it would be difficult to imagine the process as every being productive in these specific terms, by comparison with verb ablaut, which comes on on nearly a clause by clause basis. The OP cases are clearly somewhat moribund, too, as exceptions occur for the same nouns in Dorsey's texts of the 1890s. The OP data tend to firmly link the pattern with the intrusive -a- some postpositions, whereas intrusive -ya- before postpositions falls under the heading of *-ra extensions in Dakotan. The OP data are one reason why I associate the two phenomena in Dakotan. (Though I developed that tendency before I noticed the ablaut in OP nouns!) My impression from Randy Graczyk's discussion of the Crow phenomena are that they are fully productive. I don't know if Hidatsa has anything like the Crow pattern. With a slight loosening of criteria one could include cases like: - Mandan's -e suffix that comes and goes and gets different analyses from different linguists - Dakotan final -a and -e in alternation with C-final form - Dakotan -ya(N) extensions on some nouns (bound vs. free instances) - Dakotan -ya- extensions on some nouns before some postpositions - Dhegiha (OP only?) -a- extensions on some nouns before some postpositions - Winnebago -ra article - Winnebago was^c^iNiNk vs. was^c^iNge'ga ('rabbit' vs. 'the Rabbit') - Perhaps some cases of noun :: noun-ka variation in Mandan - Perhaps some cases of noun :: noun-ke (or ge) variation in Winnebago I'm restricting alternations to synchronic (if sometimes fossilized) alternations in particular languages, so I am omitting cases of final alternations of *a :: *e, 0 :: *ra, 0 :: *ka across languages, though, as a matter of fact, it's the same roots that participate in both the within-language and cross-family sets. Again, I'd again like to point out that recognizing some of the individual alternations as patterns has nothing to do with seeing them as old articles. The patterns just there. You don't have to make articles of them. You do have to recognize them, even if you then regard them as chance or analogies of form, etc. Even associating some or all of the various patterns in a greater pattern doesn't entail seeing the greater pattern as due to old articles. But, obviously, as you do extend the set of patterns you are willing to attribute to a greater pattern you approach at least a possibility of a morphological analysis. You might consider the extensions to be theme formants of the form -a ~ -e ~ -ra ~ -ka (~ -re?), for example. I guess you could consider them to be old parts of the root analyzed off by analogy, but then the awkward question arises, by analogy to what? That approach actually seems to presuppose the existence of suffixed morphemes to analogize with. If we are looking for a non-articular - inarticulate doesn't quite work! - solution we don't need to look any further than Indo-European. Indo-Europeanists, of course, are quite happy talking about noun and verb thematic affixes without passing to any issue of functional origins. In fact, traditionally the issue of functional origins is more or less explicitly denied - a thematic affix is simply a semantically empty gesture - though even the same sources consider PIE *-ske/o- to be inceptive, -ye/o- causative, and so on. (I'm thinking of Meillet, but my recollections are rather vague at this point.) Anyway, it's clear to me than a non-articular analysis of the phenomena is possible. It seems to me that it may omit the obvious, but I can see that there are steps to take from seeing the individual patterns, to integrating them, to deducing a source for the integrated pattern. At any point (after recognizing the individual patterns), you can stop or take a different turning. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 11 02:58:42 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 21:58:42 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: John's discussion of predicative (?)e brings out the dimensions of a problem in OP that I struggled with, thought I found an explanation for, and then failed to observe the counter-evidence that made that explanation untenable. > Returnign now to OP, it's pretty clear what the (?)e is doing with > demonstratives, even when there's a noun preceding the demonstrative, or > anarticle following. (Note that these e-forms seems to be almost always > followed by a declarative.) > 90:126.14 dhe'e he 'this is he (w spkg)' > 90:136.16 dhe'e ha 'this is he (m spkg)' > 90:17.1 s^e'e ha 'that is it (m spkg)' > 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' > 90:246.19 he'ga=am=e'e ha 'it is the Buzzard' [snip] > 90:153.17 ga'=thaN e'e ha 'that one is she' > 90:17.1 s^aN'de=dhaN s^e'e ha 'that is the (his) scrotum' Actually, although the meaning of the sentences were plain, it was anything but clear to me what the (?)e was actually doing. I see three possibilities: 1) The (?)e is a verb, equivalent here to English "is". This option feels very good to an Indo-European speaker-- the (?)e even sounds like a derivative of "est"! By this understanding, we might read, for example: dhe' (?)e he this-one [it] is DECL 2) The (?)e is the generic deiktic e, meaning "the foregoing". In this case, it takes the place of a noun. The "is" is implied, and we assume a rule in OP, as, I think, in Semitic, in which [Noun 1] [Noun 2] means [Noun 1] is [Noun 2]. With this understanding, we would read: dhe' (?)e he this-one the foregoing DECL (is) After wrestling with a few sentences of this type last year while trying to hack into Dorsey, I decided in favor of option 2, for reasons I no longer remember. Now John hands us a sentence like this: > 90:17.6 a'=gu=di=the=di t?e'=dha=i=the ttaN'be=t[t?]=egaN > where- the-at they killed him I will see it HAVING > ua'ne bdhe'e he > I seek I go E DECL > I go seeking in order to see the place where they killed him The operative part is "ua'ne bdhe'e he", and in all the times I've read that story, the (?)e after that bdhe somehow never sunk in. John gives other examples of (?)e after verbs and positionals as well, including another "bdhe'e he" example, so this cannot be brushed aside as an anomaly. This pattern defies both the above understandings of (?)e: 1) bdhe' (?)e he I go [it] is DECL (??) and 2) bdhe' (?)e he I go the foregoing DECL (is) (??) despite John's heroic efforts to make it work within option 2: > (Maybe, '(Here) *I* am the one who is ...' with the understood > sense that the looker (Rabbit's Grandmother) might have been > saved a good deal of trouble if *only* the lookee (Rabbit) had > heeded the *excellent* advice that she gave him and *avoided* > those consarned blackbears in the first place ... JEK) I think there is one more possibility for (?)e: 3) The (?)e is a modal particle (or whatever we properly call all those little morphemes like -ga, -a, -ha, -he, -bi and -i that usually come at the end of a sentence or clause), which acts as a declarative. In this view, our readings would be: dhe' (?)e he this-one DECL (it is) EMPH and bdhe' (?)e he I go DECL EMPH (The particles -ha and -he are not so much declaratives as emphatics, though they may sometimes assume the declarative role. They commonly occur after the command particles -ga and -a when a speaker clearly wants to emphasize a command. In formal speech, -ha is replaced by -adha'.) Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. However, we already have a declarative modal particle -i, which can fit in much the same paradigms as (?)e under option 3: 289:11 wiz^aN'dhe MaNtc^u' i he my sister Bear DECL (she is) EMPH and 288:12 Edha! e' hnaN i he Alas! she says only DECL EMPH What struck me about the numerous examples John gave is that, barring just two cases that don't really fit the pattern he is generally describing, every single case of postfixed (?)e is immediately preceded by a word that ends in accented -e. On the other hand, while declarative -i is fairly common after -a, -u and -aN, I'm not sure I ever see it after -i or -iN words, and I'm sure I've never seen it after non-ablautable -e stem words. I believe the (?)e morpheme that John presents here fills the gap for the -e stems nicely. The original sequence [Statement]-e' i must have become [Statement]-e' e by simply lowering the original *i to match the preceding -e'. Since both are front vowels, they would have been hard to distinguish in quick succession anyway. Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of this type appended to roots that are clearly not -e stems, especially -a, aN, -A and -u stems. John and I should both be on the lookout for this. Rory From CaRudin1 at wsc.edu Tue Sep 11 14:09:19 2001 From: CaRudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 09:09:19 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: > >The list I provided gave samples of most possibilities, though not of > things like NOUN=ART DEM=ART and so on. > > I think in every one of my Kaw examples of this construction, the DEM-ART is > a predicate. >I think Catherine Rudin had numerous non-predicative examples of this sort >of thing. OK -- since my name's been mentioned, I guess I'll jump in. (I've been reading or at least skimming this thread with interest, but I'm so totally snowed under this fall that I've been resisting even trying to contribute to it -- and this one will just be a quick note.) Yes, NOUN-ART DEM-ART is extremely common in my data, and I don't recall even seeing any reason to think it was predicative. DEM-ART NOUN-ART is I guess equally common, and longer strings of nominals with articles (DEM-ART Modifier-ART NOUN-ART, eg.) also occur. I have a paper that fusses over whether to analyze these as noun phrases with multiple definiteness etc. marking (some kind of agreement on components of the NP) or as appositive constructions; the arguments weren't entirely conclusive. > > So, of course, when the demonstrative precedes I see that as a sort of > > extraction. > > The pattern is so prevalent in my data that I have a hard time looking upon > it as an extraction. Unless the DEM follows the N and forms an NP distinct > from the N, DEM-N looks normal to me in Kaw and, I expect, in Dhegiha > generally. This sort of thing can happen in languages. In Romanian you can > say either "omul acesta" or "acest om" 'this man' but in Spanish "este > hombre" is the rule and I can't get speakers to accept *"hombre este" as an > NP. >I'd think that even if extraction is a marked or additional sort of thing >processually, it might come to be the more common (less marked) >alternative over time. However, I don't know which order is considered >historically primary in Romance! I do have the impression that DEM > NOUN >is normal in most of the older IE languages. I'm mystified here. Just because something is extraction does not mean it should be unusual or marked or anything, does it??? ... For instance, questions in English ALWAYS involve extraction, except in highly marked echo question constructions. I realize we're probably using the term differently (and certainly in the context of different theoretical assumptions, diachronic vs. synchronic orientation, etc. -- maybe I've completely misunderstood Bob's (and John's) point -- but I still don't see why extraction should be anything other than common and normal. Catherine From rankin at ku.edu Tue Sep 11 18:24:54 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:24:54 -0500 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives Message-ID: > Yes, NOUN-ART DEM-ART is extremely common in my data, and I don't recall even seeing any reason to think it was predicative. DEM-ART NOUN-ART is I guess equally common, and longer strings of nominals with articles (DEM-ART Modifier-ART NOUN-ART, eg.) also occur. I have a paper that fusses over whether to analyze these as noun phrases with multiple definiteness etc. marking (some kind of agreement on components of the NP) or as appositive constructions; the arguments weren't entirely conclusive. I think what you're calling "appositive" is what I'm thinking of as predicative usage. I the absence of a copula it might not be easy to tell the difference. > I'm mystified here. Just because something is extraction does not mean it should be unusual or marked or anything, does it??? ... For instance, questions in English ALWAYS involve extraction, except in highly marked echo question constructions. I realize we're probably using the term differently (and certainly in the context of different theoretical assumptions, diachronic vs. synchronic orientation, etc. -- maybe I've completely misunderstood Bob's (and John's) point -- but I still don't see why extraction should be anything other than common and normal. I think we're just using a term we shouldn't be using for this. I was thinking of "movement" and assuming that unnecessary movement probably signals some sort of pragmatic marking. That is, I doubt very much that both DEM-N and N-DEM in Dhegiha are equally marked/unmarked. I'm assuming that the less common is the marked one, though field work may show that not to be the case. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 04:10:25 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 22:10:25 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC wrote: > >I'd think that even if extraction is a marked or additional sort of thing > >processually, it might come to be the more common (less marked) > >alternative over time. However, I don't know which order is considered > >historically primary in Romance! I do have the impression that DEM > NOUN > >is normal in most of the older IE languages. > > I'm mystified here. Just because something is extraction does not > mean it should be unusual or marked or anything, does it??? ... Marked in the sense of "additional," i.e., adding some feature to the construction. > For instance, questions in English ALWAYS involve extraction, except > in highly marked echo question constructions. I realize we're > probably using the term differently (and certainly in the context of > different theoretical assumptions, diachronic vs. synchronic > orientation, etc. -- maybe I've completely misunderstood Bob's (and > John's) point -- but I still don't see why extraction should be > anything other than common and normal. Relatively so. Questions are surely less common than statements, and their syntax serves to focus what is being questioned, focus being the additonal feature. Very likely I am using the word in a different way. What I was thinking was that demonstratives must ordinarily have a contrastive focus (this not that, that not this), and that extraction is often used to signify focus. I think there is a tendency for the sense of focus marking strategies to bleach, resulting in their replacement by newer, more emphatic strategies. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 05:02:23 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 23:02:23 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > > Returnign now to OP, it's pretty clear what the (?)e is doing with > > demonstratives, even when there's a noun preceding the demonstrative, or > > anarticle following. (Note that these e-forms seems to be almost always > > followed by a declarative.) > > > 90:126.14 dhe'e he 'this is he (w spkg)' > > 90:136.16 dhe'e ha 'this is he (m spkg)' > > 90:17.1 s^e'e ha 'that is it (m spkg)' > > 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' > > 90:246.19 he'ga=am=e'e ha 'it is the Buzzard' > [snip] > > 90:153.17 ga'=thaN e'e ha 'that one is she' > > 90:17.1 s^aN'de=dhaN s^e'e ha 'that is the (his) scrotum' > > Actually, although the meaning of the sentences were plain, > it was anything but clear to me what the (?)e was actually doing. > I see three possibilities: > > 1) The (?)e is a verb, equivalent here to English "is". This > option feels very good to an Indo-European speaker-- > the (?)e even sounds like a derivative of "est"! By this > understanding, we might read, for example: > > dhe' (?)e he > this-one [it] is DECL I think this is the usual analysis in Mississippi Valley languages at present. > 2) The (?)e is the generic deiktic e, meaning "the foregoing". > In this case, it takes the place of a noun. The "is" is implied, > and we assume a rule in OP, as, I think, in Semitic, in which > [Noun 1] [Noun 2] means [Noun 1] is [Noun 2]. With this > understanding, we would read: > > dhe' (?)e he > this-one the foregoing DECL (is) Or, 'this one(dhe) [is] the one(e) [I meant]' or 'it(e) [is] this(dhe)' or 'it(e) is this(dhe) [that is] the one(e).' It is this that is the analysis I currently prefer. > After wrestling with a few sentences of this type last year while > trying to hack into Dorsey, I decided in favor of option 2, for > reasons I no longer remember. > > Now John hands us a sentence like this: > > > 90:17.6 a'=gu=di=the=di t?e'=dha=i=the ttaN'be=t[t?]=egaN > > where- the-at they killed him I will see it HAVING > > ua'ne bdhe'e he > > I seek I go E DECL > > > I go seeking in order to see the place where they killed him > > The operative part is "ua'ne bdhe'e he", and in all the > times I've read that story, the (?)e after that bdhe somehow > never sunk in. I've noticed examples like this from time to time, but I've always tabled them in favor of some other matter. > John gives other examples of (?)e after > verbs and positionals as well, including another "bdhe'e he" > example, so this cannot be brushed aside as an anomaly. > This pattern defies both the above understandings of (?)e: > > 1) bdhe' (?)e he > I go [it] is DECL (??) > > and > > 2) bdhe' (?)e he > I go the foregoing DECL (is) (??) I make 'I am the one(e) who is going', an approach which actually works in some of the cases, but seems obscure with this particular example. However, the approacj I take in applying it here, though it does seem a stretch, does take away some of the bland narrative quality of the utterance, which otherwise seems more or less a sort of descriptive monolog: "Now I'm doing this, now I'm doing that, etc." > despite John's heroic efforts to make it work within option 2: The stretch. > > (Maybe, '(Here) *I* am the one who is ...' with the understood > > sense that the looker (Rabbit's Grandmother) might have been > > saved a good deal of trouble if *only* the lookee (Rabbit) had > > heeded the *excellent* advice that she gave him and *avoided* > > those consarned blackbears in the first place ... JEK) > > I think there is one more possibility for (?)e: > > 3) The (?)e is a modal particle (or whatever we properly call > all those little morphemes like -ga, -a, -ha, -he, -bi and -i that > usually come at the end of a sentence or clause), which acts > as a declarative. In this view, our readings would be: > > dhe' (?)e he > this-one DECL (it is) EMPH > > and > > bdhe' (?)e he > I go DECL EMPH > > (The particles -ha and -he are not so much declaratives as > emphatics, though they may sometimes assume the > declarative role. They commonly occur after the command > particles -ga and -a when a speaker clearly wants to > emphasize a command. In formal speech, -ha is replaced > by -adha'.) The adha(u) is what I've referred to from time to time as the hortative. It is commonly used by heralds announcing the decisions of the chief or hunt leader, etc. It occurs in some kinds of songs, and I used to hear Clifford Wolfe use it in announcing Powwows. > Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. > However, we already have a declarative modal particle -i, > which can fit in much the same paradigms as (?)e under > option 3: > > 289:11 wiz^aN'dhe MaNtc^u' i he > my sister Bear DECL (she is) EMPH > > and > > 288:12 Edha! e' hnaN i he > Alas! she says only DECL EMPH > > What struck me about the numerous examples John gave is > that, barring just two cases that don't really fit the pattern he is > generally describing, every single case of postfixed (?)e is > immediately preceded by a word that ends in accented -e. I gather this would take us away from the i = 'plural' analysis entirely. > On the other hand, while declarative -i is fairly common after > -a, -u and -aN, I'm not sure I ever see it after -i or -iN words, > and I'm sure I've never seen it after non-ablautable -e stem > words. It definitely occurs after verbs of motion in final i (i, hi, thi), after agdhiN 'sit' in iN, and after tti 'dwell' in i. And, of course, if i is a plural in origin, we wouldn't expect to find it after a first person verb (bdhe) or after any singular -e final, since these all ablaut to a in the plural. True, it is used with the third person singular. > I believe the (?)e morpheme that John presents here fills the > gap for the -e stems nicely. The original sequence > > [Statement]-e' i > > must have become > > [Statement]-e' e > > by simply lowering the original *i to match the preceding -e'. > Since both are front vowels, they would have been hard to > distinguish in quick succession anyway. I'm afraid I don't think that's what happened. > Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of > accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of Which would theoretically never happen, though we have examples like 90:110.6 s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i 'they are the children' 90:149.8 tte=i=the 'she was a buffalo' These are among the few examples of e-stems that don't ablaut. I'd be tempted to say that nominal stems in fian e don't ablaut, but there's 90:358.3 kkagha=i 'they are crows' < kka'ghe > this type appended to roots that are clearly not -e stems, > especially -a, aN, -A and -u stems. John and I should both > be on the lookout for this. This kind of example might also help clarify matters here. Looking at the paradigm of dhiN 'to be' shows that when it occurs with a focussed pronoun it requires an e. 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) 90:75.17 Is^ti'niNkhe am=e=daN 'it is (the) Ishtinikhe who is (moving)' ama = 'the moving', so I'd revise this to 'it is (he,) Ishtinikhe =daN occurs as a sort of 'contingent' marker, as 'during', and with some declaratives, which is what I think is going on here. 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' The closest to an inclusive I know is: 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' As far as I know there are no cases in which the third person stem dhiN of 'to be' occurs with a focussed pronominal, so this paradigm is rather defective. And since e occurs alone in the third person in such cases, it's open to being interpreted as the verb 'to be' in that person. However, the other persons have dhiN in an ordinary dh-stem inflectional pattern. And the third person does occur without the focussed pronouns. 90:148.17 tte'wa?u dhiN 'she is a buffalo woman' (not to be mistaken for a buffalo gal, unless that actually explains the old song) 90:148.18 wathaN'ziwa?u dhiN 'she is a corn woman' On the other hand, you also get: 90:247.18 He'ga akh=e 'he is (the) Buzzard', with akha 'the single, not moving proximate' And then there's 90:385.8 Is^i'baz^i akha=e akha ha 'I. is the one' I have no idea what's up there. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 05:07:33 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 23:07:33 -0600 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I've been pondering the conditioning of bi vs. i as the plural/proximate marker and I'm beginning to wonder if bi doesn't occur in mainly irrealis contexts or something like that, which is not far in some ways from what Rory claims. It occurs with ama, with negatives, with at least some clause markers variably - and I have to check that), and with clauses under 'to think'. It does also occur in songs and names, which seems a separate case or cases. I do think that bi and i are otherwise synonymous and "interchangeable." (Subject to bi having an additional feature.) From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 14:46:04 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 08:46:04 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' It's interesting to note that this shows how -e-can at once look like the 'be' or 'emphatic' e suffix and the e-demonstrative prefix on verbs. (I'm using prefix and suffix fairly loosely here.) From rankin at ku.edu Wed Sep 12 18:43:01 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:43:01 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) > > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' I think we have rather different analyses here. For me, wie bdhiN is NP VP. I don't look upon dhiN as an enclitic. Biloxi has re/ri in some peculiar places like your de here. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 19:40:18 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:40:18 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > > > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > > > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) > > > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > > > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' > > I think we have rather different analyses here. For me, wie bdhiN is NP VP. > I don't look upon dhiN as an enclitic. The use of = as opposed to dashes or lack of spacing is mine, but the decision to write the forms as one word is Dorsey's. Of course, it's not always clear what his practices might mean, but they're consistent with the one example of this that I recall from elicitation (umaN'haN=bdhiN). From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 12 19:41:42 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:41:42 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) (fwd) Message-ID: Bob says he meant to post this. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 11:48:01 -0500 From: "Rankin, Robert L" To: 'Koontz John E ' Subject: RE: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) There is a lot here to digest; thanks for the really interesting data. Actually, I think most of what you have here agrees with what I have been saying, but there are probably still matters of homophony/polysemy to be dealt with. The laryngeals 7 and h/H are problematic too. We need to be especially careful sorting out reflexes of demonstrative *7e: and locative *he in languages that have tended to lose one or both laryngeals. They are clearly not a single Proto-Siouan etymon, but that doesn't mean they couldn't syncretize in some languages. These copular and locative 'be' verbs are not covered very well in the Siouan literature. It is clear that we have to reconstruct at least *he 'be in a place' and *7u:N 'be' overlapping with 'do' (homophony or polysemy??) and that both have tended to fuse to preceding lexemes to form auxiliary verb constructions of one kind or another. Biloxi is full of reflexes of *7u:N in this capacity, and Dhegiha AUXs all have -he. I haven't even begun to sort them out in Dakotan. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 04:11:25 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:11:25 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > John: > Or, 'this one(dhe) [is] the one(e) [I meant]' or 'it(e) [is] this(dhe)' or > 'it(e) is this(dhe) [that is] the one(e).' It is this that is the > analysis I currently prefer. Or in OP: [Analysis]=the [I currently prefer]=the dhe'e ha. :) >> Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. > This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be > particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. I'm confused, but interested. Could you elaborate your argument here? Why are you seeing this (putative) declarative as particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences? >> However, we already have a declarative modal particle -i, >> which can fit in much the same paradigms as (?)e under >> option 3: >> >> 289:11 wiz^aN'dhe MaNtc^u' i he >> my sister Bear DECL (she is) EMPH >> >> and >> >> 288:12 Edha! e' hnaN i he >> Alas! she says only DECL EMPH >> >> What struck me about the numerous examples John gave is >> that, barring just two cases that don't really fit the pattern he is >> generally describing, every single case of postfixed (?)e is >> immediately preceded by a word that ends in accented -e. > I gather this would take us away from the i = 'plural' analysis entirely. That's the view I would favor. >> On the other hand, while declarative -i is fairly common after >> -a, -u and -aN, I'm not sure I ever see it after -i or -iN words, >> and I'm sure I've never seen it after non-ablautable -e stem >> words. > It definitely occurs after verbs of motion in final i (i, hi, thi), after > agdhiN 'sit' in iN, and after tti 'dwell' in i. Oops! I stand corrected. >> I believe the (?)e morpheme that John presents here fills the >> gap for the -e stems nicely. The original sequence >> >> [Statement]-e' i >> >> must have become >> >> [Statement]-e' e >> >> by simply lowering the original *i to match the preceding -e'. >> Since both are front vowels, they would have been hard to >> distinguish in quick succession anyway. > I'm afraid I don't think that's what happened. >> Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of >> accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of > Which would theoretically never happen, though we have examples like > 90:110.6 s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i 'they are the children' > 90:149.8 tte=i=the 'she was a buffalo' > These are among the few examples of e-stems that don't ablaut. Alright, these are both fair counter-evidence by the first clause of the criteria I stipulated. I don't think this clause is very strong, however. It's likely that the shift I postulated above was still in progress in Dorsey's time, and that the declarative -i after -e could appear as either -i or -e depending on the speaker, the transcriber, the surrounding words, and the rapidity of the utterance. One might pronounce the -i more carefully after an unlikely declaration like "she was a buffalo", while one would never utter it any way but -e in the common expression "I am going." And for your first example, would we recognize any semantic difference between s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i and s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=e ? The second clause of my criteria is stronger. Can we find any examples of this (?)e following any other type of stem than -e ? >> this type appended to roots that are clearly not -e stems, >> especially -a, aN, -A and -u stems. John and I should both >> be on the lookout for this. > This kind of example might also help clarify matters here. Looking at the > paradigm of dhiN 'to be' shows that when it occurs with a focussed pronoun > it requires an e. > 90:33.4 wi'=e=bdhiN 'I am he' > 90:262.1 dhi'=e=hniN=de 'since it is you' (there's that =de) [snip] > 90:113.7 e'=e he 'it is he' > The closest to an inclusive I know is: > 90:197.10 aNgu' aNdhiN'=b=az^i 'we are not' > As far as I know there are no cases in which the third person stem dhiN of > 'to be' occurs with a focussed pronominal, so this paradigm is rather > defective. And since e occurs alone in the third person in such cases, > it's open to being interpreted as the verb 'to be' in that person. > However, the other persons have dhiN in an ordinary dh-stem inflectional > pattern. > And the third person does occur without the focussed pronouns. > 90:148.17 tte'wa?u dhiN 'she is a buffalo woman' (not to be mistaken for a > buffalo gal, unless that actually explains the old song) > 90:148.18 wathaN'ziwa?u dhiN 'she is a corn woman' Could you define what you mean by a "focussed pronoun"? I gather that this is your term for the pronouns wi, dhi, aNgu' and e, which stand as nominals independent of the verb. Correct? If so, wouldn't e dhiN he/she/it is be about the only possible third person example of dhiN occurring with a focussed pronominal? This construction would clash with the somewhat common form e'dhiN, which I think means "have for him/her". > On the other hand, you also get: > 90:247.18 He'ga akh=e 'he is (the) Buzzard', with akha 'the single, not > moving proximate' I've been conceiving of akhe' as an e-grade ablaut form of akha', "s/he is the one", where something one has experienced or discussed is identified as a specific entity. This would be in contradistinction to bdhiN', which identifies the subject as a member of a set. Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. When these are used as articles, we get the a-grade ablaut form, and the sense is that X is the specific known entity that committed the action or that we are talking about. How does that sound to you? > And then there's > 90:385.8 Is^i'baz^i akha=e akha ha 'I. is the one' > I have no idea what's up there. Nor I. We'll have to work on that! Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 04:16:55 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:16:55 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > Bob: > I think we have rather different analyses here. For me, wie bdhiN is NP VP. > I don't look upon dhiN as an enclitic. So are you considering wie to be all one word, as the independent pronoun form of "I"? Do you parse this as: wie bdhiN I am ? Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 04:47:39 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:47:39 -0500 Subject: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system Message-ID: > John: > I've been pondering the conditioning of bi vs. i as the plural/proximate > marker and I'm beginning to wonder if bi doesn't occur in mainly irrealis > contexts or something like that, which is not far in some ways from what > Rory claims. It occurs with ama, with negatives, with at least some > clause markers variably - and I have to check that), and with clauses > under 'to think'. It does also occur in songs and names, which seems a > separate case or cases. I do think that bi and i are otherwise synonymous > and "interchangeable." (Subject to bi having an additional feature.) It sounds like our views are starting to converge a bit here. I agree with John that bi and i are very parallel in function and probably syntactically interchangeable. Hence, their semantic difference should not constitute a problem to any other paradigm built on the assumption of their grammatical equivalence. I would hold that both of these particles are functionally distinct (though not always distinguishable!) from the plural marker i. I would also claim that bi is not merely conditioned by, but actively signals, the irrealis condition. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 13 15:16:16 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 09:16:16 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > >> Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. > > > This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be > > particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. > > I'm confused, but interested. Could you elaborate your argument > here? Why are you seeing this (putative) declarative as particularly > associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences? If e was simply a declarative, why would it occur especially frequently with sentences of the form DEMONSTRATIVE e DECL (where DECL is the he/ha you decided you might prefer to gloss as emphatic). I think clearly something about the e added to the demonstrative produces the sense 'this/that is it/she/he', where the 'is it/she/he' of the English must be the sense added by e. The question seems to be how the e works to produce that 'is it/she/he'. I think that understanding that will help explain cases of VERB e. I don't think we need to jump from the initial difficulties of explaining some VERB e examples to an explanation that seems to me to make it harder to explain how DEM e ha/he means 'DEM is it/she/he'. > > I gather this would take us away from the i = 'plural' analysis entirely. > > That's the view I would favor. I'm afraid I'm still not convinced on that. > >> Counter-evidence to this hypothesis would be examples of > >> accented -e stems followed by the -i declarative, or (?)e of > > > Which would theoretically never happen, though we have examples like > > > 90:110.6 s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i 'they are the children' > > 90:149.8 tte=i=the 'she was a buffalo' > > > These are among the few examples of e-stems that don't ablaut. > > Alright, these are both fair counter-evidence by the first clause > of the criteria I stipulated. I don't think this clause is very > strong, however. It's likely that the shift I postulated above > was still in progress in Dorsey's time, and that the declarative > -i after -e could appear as either -i or -e depending on the > speaker, the transcriber, the surrounding words, and the rapidity > of the utterance. One might pronounce the -i more carefully > after an unlikely declaration like "she was a buffalo", while one > would never utter it any way but -e in the common expression > "I am going." And for your first example, would we recognize any > semantic difference between > > s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=i > > and > > s^iN'gaz^iNga e'=e ? If I understand matters, we wouldn't normally get the latter construction. We'd expect: s^iN'gaz^iNga e. In short, the first is: s^iN'gaz^iNga e=i 'they are the children' and the third is s^iN'gaz^iNga e 's/he is the child'. It might be possible to read the second possibility as 's/he is that child'. The closest we have to an example like that is, I think, something like: 90:419.9 dhe'=dhaNkh=e'e ha 'they are the ones' I'll have to check to make sure the first e wasn't actually part of the article. I think not, because the plural of dhiNkhe is usually dhaNkha, hence any e there seems like it must be due to contraction. > The second clause of my criteria is stronger. Can we find any > examples of this (?)e following any other type of stem than -e ? Sure, see s^iN'gaz^iNga e=i. Also, all cases of akh=e or am=e or probably the dhaNkh=e just cited. In these last there have been a contraction. As far as I can see, all contractions across = or word boundaries result in loss of the first vowel. Another sort of interaction one gets preserves both vowels but inserts dh, and those are all in rather special pre-verbal contexts. There are also some preverbal examples of a + i => e, or aN + i => iN. I will, however, see if I can find some examples of verb-final non-e followed by e. > Could you define what you mean by a "focussed pronoun"? I gather > that this is your term for the pronouns wi, dhi, aNgu' and e, which > stand as nominals independent of the verb. Correct? Yes, that's correct. Focussed however is more than adjective qualifying independent pronouns. It means something like 'selected for attention or comment in contrast to other possibilities. English independent pronouns are not focussed. If you say 'I ate it' with normal intonation, the 'I' is, in effect, the personal inflection of the verb (or the clause). But in some languages, like Spanish, the independent pronoun emphasizes the participation of the referent in contrast to others. So, just 'yo lo comi' in Spanish means 'it was specifically me, and not someone else, who ate it'. In English you get this sense by stressing the pronoun: '*I* ate it' or by using a cleft construction like 'it was I (or me) who ate it'. Something like the contrastive (focussed) interpretation seems to apply to independent pronouns in Siouan languages. This is fairly typical of languages that have inflected verbs, but not always, e.g., not in French (where most inflection is written only) or in Russian (where inflection is real enough in the present/future forms). Focus is not restricted to pronouns. It can be applied to arbitrary noun phrases in indicative sentences. It's usually considered that wh-questions automatically focus the wh-noun phrase. If anyone else wants to jump in and offer a better explanation of this, which must surely be possible, I'd really appreciate it. Surely someone out there must be itching to do this! > If so, wouldn't > > e dhiN he/she/it is > > be about the only possible third person example of dhiN occurring > with a focussed pronominal? This construction would clash with the > somewhat common form e'dhiN, which I think means "have for him/her". It might clash with it, but it needn't preclude it. In fact, it's e'=dhiN 'that is the one' that doesn't seem to exist. Incidentally, the 'have for him or her' is the dative of adhiN 's/he has it'. The dative involves in very unmarked cases the insertion of the prefix gi- before the stem. In OP this gi contracts with lots of things, so that, in simple historical terms e'dhiN is from *a-(g)i-dhiN. In contemporary terms the contraction explanation doesn't work very well, because (a) the cases where contraction occurs are somewhat arbitrary, (b) in some cases the appearence of contraction affects several syllables in a row, and (c) in some cases the contraction affects a non-adjacent syllable. For that matter, (d) in some cases the gi manages to appear before the pronouns as gi. It's all very interesting, but let's not get into it further right here! > > On the other hand, you also get: > > > 90:247.18 He'ga akh=e 'he is (the) Buzzard', with akha 'the single, not > > moving proximate' > > I've been conceiving of akhe' as an e-grade ablaut form of akha', > "s/he is the one", where something one has experienced or discussed is > identified as a specific entity. I think it's just contraction of akha + e or ama + e, though, of course, in general terms this is the explanation that Bob has argued underlies most ablaut anyway, at least historically. As usual in OP and SIouan in general, faced with something like akhe you have to look at everything else and arrive at some balance that leads you to decide if it's (in this case) akha=e or akhe from akhE, etc. One factor that leads me to the first analysis is that normally in Dhegiha the e-grade is clearly the more basic in analytic terms, and that is not the case with akha. I assume that reading akhe as you want to arises just recently, from deciding that the extra e in things like dhee or bdhee is the same as i and means 'witnessed'? > This would be in contradistinction to bdhiN', which identifies the > subject as a member of a set. I do agree that dhiN (the third person of this verb) identifies the subject as a member or a set, whereas constructions with just demonstratives or articles are existential or non-set pointing. > Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. > When these are used as articles, we get the a-grade ablaut form, and > the sense is that X is the specific known entity that committed the > action or that we are talking about. How does that sound to you? The definite articles do indicate specific references, usually previously mentioned or contextually predictable entities. However, I don't see akhe as being a verbal instance in an e-grade and the articles as being articles in the a-grade. Instead akha + e => akhe is a predicative use of the article + demonstrative, or, to be more precise of the demonstrative. The article is just there because the noun phrase being predicated is definite. So the structure of Hega akhe is [Hega=akha] e, [buzzard the] that (or he), pronounced He'ga=akh=e and meaning 'it (or that or he) is the Buzzard'. From rankin at ku.edu Thu Sep 13 21:05:39 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:05:39 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. > Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. I'm sure someone in this exchange has said it already somewhere, but let me reiterate: Sentence-final /V/ and /Ve/ or just /e/ variants are most often the women's speech forms. And in more recent times one gets /-e/ variants in male speech too because of learning contexts. This used to cause great mirth among the elderly Osage women I worked with back about 1980. In Quapaw the /-e/ variant simply substituted for the -V in women's speech. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 13 23:27:21 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:27:21 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > > > Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. > > > Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. > > I'm sure someone in this exchange has said it already somewhere, but let me > reiterate: Sentence-final /V/ and /Ve/ or just /e/ variants are most often > the women's speech forms. And in more recent times one gets /-e/ variants in > male speech too because of learning contexts. This used to cause great > mirth among the elderly Osage women I worked with back about 1980. > > In Quapaw the /-e/ variant simply substituted for the -V in women's speech. Yes, but I'm pretty sure that's not what's up here, since the female declarative is he in OP (and male is ha), or was before the realignment that's occurred since Dorsey's time. It appears that it might now be ha (and male is hau). I will check to see if I can identify a counter example. Dorsey was alert to male vs. female usage and though he looked at the ART + e alternates at several points, he never suggested this. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 13 23:58:42 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:58:42 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: > Bob: >>> Ama' / ame' would be the plural/moving counterpart of akha' / akhe'. >> Yes, but really it's just akha and ama with or without a following e. > I'm sure someone in this exchange has said it already somewhere, but let me > reiterate: Sentence-final /V/ and /Ve/ or just /e/ variants are most often > the women's speech forms. And in more recent times one gets /-e/ variants in > male speech too because of learning contexts. This used to cause great > mirth among the elderly Osage women I worked with back about 1980. > In Quapaw the /-e/ variant simply substituted for the -V in women's speech. Some things I have said in class with sentence-final -e have caused great mirth among our Omaha ladies as well. I'm confused by your symbolism above. Doesn't /V/ just mean any vowel? If so, aren't you saying that any sentence that ends in a vowel is a women's speech form? In that case, why mention /e/ separately? In the Dorsey texts, akha' is regularly used as an article, while akhe' is placed after a nominal to indicate that that nominal is what the foregoing is. It has seemed to me to function as a third-person copula of identity, though John views it as the contraction of a normal akha' article with the third-person demonstrative 7e. (He may be right; I need to think about this.) Though akhe' is generally sentence-final, I don't see any indication that the speaker in these cases is apt to be female. The difference here seems to be grammatical, not a gender marker. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 05:12:06 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 23:12:06 -0600 Subject: akhe (was RE: Predicative (?)e ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Examples that tend to show that akhe isn't a female speech form. I'm using Dorsey's glosses. I've retranscribed but kept his word divisions, though I've inserted = in them. Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. 90:63.11 Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama I. is the one said they they say Here the akhe isn't final. The repeated akha is a pattern that does occur with 'there is' sentences. I suppose the second akha is imperfective, though I'm not sure why. 90:143.14 wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama my wife that one lying is she said he, they say This is definitely a masculine speaker. 90:311.4 wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo Here Dorsey seems to be considering that akhe might be 'the two', but I doubt this is correct per se, though he is no doubt noticing that there are two racoons, but the article form is what he considers singular. The adha u is the "herald's declarative" (or formal declarative as Rory suggests) in the (modern) male form (I'm pretty sure!), though spoken by two crayfish maidens. I make it "There are two dead racoons (we announce)." I'm wondering if the story didn't originally feature two male crayfish scouts. 90:335.6 e'gidhe dhe'=akh=e akha ha, a'=bi=ama wa'xe ama at length this one reclining is he . said, they say whiteman the Again, a male speaker, plus the male declarative ha, plus internal position. There are various other examples of "... akh=e akha ha." 90:666.5 ppaN'kka akh=e waxiN'ha wiN thi=aNkhidha=i, ... Ponca it is he paper one he has sent it to me I make this 'it was a Ponca who sent me the letter ...'. [In fact, it was Standing Bear, as the sentence goes on to say.] Here the example is internal and the speaker is male. ==== As far as the gender of a'dha 'indeed', here are female forms: 90:124.1 e'gaN ghage' am=e'dhe so they cry indeed 90:143.2 a'dhagaz^ade tte e'dhe you stride over will indeed 90:211.17 wabdha'skabe e'dhe I stick indeed I've omitted the 'she said' parts that follow. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 16:20:23 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:20:23 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: I don't know how you guys find the time to keep this correspondence up and get any work done. :-) It's late morning and I still haven't done anything but email.... >Examples that tend to show that akhe isn't a female speech form. I'm using Dorsey's glosses. I've retranscribed but kept his word divisions, though I've inserted = in them. I ran across a number of the forms you list below when I was in Melbourne researching positionals. I'll have to check, but in some instances it looked like akhe was simply a verb. >Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. 90:63.11 Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama I. is the one said they they say >Here the akhe isn't final. The repeated akha is a pattern that does occur with 'there is' sentences. I agree both these are akha, but I certainly wouldn't segment it this way. To me, this is [[[ishtiniNkhe akha] [e akha]] abiama] the /e/ brackets with the second akha. >90:143.14 wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama my wife that one lying is she said he, they say >This is definitely a masculine speaker. I'm not saying that ALL the sequences of /akhe/ are female speakers. To me this is simply mis-segmented. the /khe/ is your 'lying' article or AUX. /ga/ is the part that means 'that one'. You figure out what the extra -a- is between ga and khe, but where are you going to get 'lying' from if not from khe? >90:311.4 wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo >Here Dorsey seems to be considering that akhe might be 'the two', but I doubt this is correct per se, though he is no doubt noticing that there are two racoons, but the article form is what he considers singular. Again, this is not akh+e but rather a+khe. Khe is where you get your 'lying' semantics from. Where else? Khe is both singular and plural for lying (unless a-khe is somehow plural). this is just a perverse segmentation to me. You have several other instances of /khe/ 'the lying' that you've broken up into /akh/ (which you think is what? Akha?) and /-e/, which you seem to feel is demonstrative 7e. But the translation refers to horizontal (lying, reclining) beings or objects. Semantics plays a role in these puzzles too! Why not start off by segmenting the obvious (!) /khe/ and they try to analyze the remainder. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 17:05:38 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:05:38 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > I ran across a number of the forms you list below when I was in Melbourne > researching positionals. I'll have to check, but in some instances it looked > like akhe was simply a verb. As Dorsey almost always glosses it as a verb, it's easy to see it as one. Furthermore articles generally pattern as verbs in several ways in Omaha-Ponca: morphologically (for obviative animates) and syntactically (post demonstrative, clause final). And they serve as or bind pretty closely with (as here) existential predicates. > >Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. > > 90:63.11 > Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama > I. is the one said they they say > > >Here the akhe isn't final. The repeated akha is a pattern that does > occur with 'there is' sentences. > > I agree both these are akha, but I certainly wouldn't segment it this way. > To me, this is [[[ishtiniNkhe akha] [e akha]] abiama] the /e/ brackets with > the second akha. Well, as I indicated, the segmenting into words is Dorsey's. I do agree that syntactically the e is outside [Is^ti'niNkhe(=)akha], serving as the "clefting" predicate (and so marking the NP as focussed). The second akha is an imperfective auxiliary on e. The whole is embedded under a'=bi=ama. However, the e is clearly strongly enclitic to the final element of Is^ti'niNkhe akha, and, I'd add, from exposure to spoken Omaha and to Dorsey's manuscript comments on his orthographic "aka'" being promounced "ak" that the first akha, like all Omaha articles, I think, is an enclitic of the preceding noun. Left to my own devices, I'd have written: Is^ti'niNkhe=akh=e akha a'=bi=ama I didn't because I knew the segmenting would be an issue. I'd analyse this as: [[[[Is^ti'niNkhe=akh]=e] akha] a'=bi]=ama > >90:143.14 > wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama > my wife that one lying is she said he, they say > > >This is definitely a masculine speaker. > > I'm not saying that ALL the sequences of /akhe/ are female speakers. To me > this is simply mis-segmented. the /khe/ is your 'lying' article or AUX. /ga/ > is the part that means 'that one'. You figure out what the extra -a- is > between ga and khe, but where are you going to get 'lying' from if not from > khe? There's no trace of gaa in Omaha except in cases like this. I'm certain Dorsey has simply misunderstood the form. > >90:311.4 > wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u > racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo > > >Here Dorsey seems to be considering that akhe might be 'the two', but I > doubt this is correct per se, though he is no doubt noticing that there > are two racoons, but the article form is what he considers singular. > > Again, this is not akh+e but rather a+khe. Khe is where you get your 'lying' > semantics from. Where else? Khe is both singular and plural for lying > (unless a-khe is somehow plural). this is just a perverse segmentation to > me. > > You have several other instances of /khe/ 'the lying' that you've broken up > into /akh/ (which you think is what? Akha?) and /-e/, which you seem to feel The breaking up into words, as I emphasized in the original posting is strictly Dorsey's. The akh is just akha=e as pronounced. It is never akhae. The strong parallel with ame < ama=e, as well as the majority of Dorsey's glosses of =e (his e, I insert the =) shows that we're not dealing with khe preceded by a mysterious extra a. > is demonstrative 7e. But the translation refers to horizontal (lying, > reclining) beings or objects. Semantics plays a role in these puzzles too! > Why not start off by segmenting the obvious (!) /khe/ and they try to > analyze the remainder. I did. I came back to akh=e. Dorsey has various comments here and there in his materials on akhe and ame showing that they puzzled him. He, however, never looked at akhe as (some a) khe. As much anything, I think that ame was his beacon. As =e is (I think) only now being understood, it's not surprising he had some problems with these two. He had problems with all kinds of things, especially in the post-verbal and/or clause final strings, though in general he was impressively insightful. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 19:05:50 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:05:50 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >Furthermore articles generally pattern as verbs in several ways in Omaha-Ponca: morphologically (for obviative animates) and syntactically (post demonstrative, clause final). And they serve as or bind pretty closely with (as here) existential predicates. I guess I'm shocked and surprised to find that my analysis of these constructions is actually more abstract than other Siouanists. :-) To me the so-called articular verbs (the conjugated 'progressives') are always AUX's and not main verbs. In existential cases the real verb however is most often "zero", and the de-article AUX is all that is left overt. I think essentially that we're saying the same thing here though. > >Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses. > > 90:63.11 > Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama > I. is the one said they they say >Well, as I indicated, the segmenting into words is Dorsey's. I do agree that syntactically the e is outside [Is^ti'niNkhe(=)akha], serving as the "clefting" predicate (and so marking the NP as focussed). The second akha is an imperfective auxiliary on e. The whole is embedded under a'=bi=ama. ... the e is clearly strongly enclitic to the final element of Is^ti'niNkhe akha, and, I'd add, from exposure to spoken Omaha and to Dorsey's manuscript comments on his orthographic "aka'" being promounced "ak" that the first akha, like all Omaha articles, I think, is an enclitic of the preceding noun. OK, you're just marking a phonological boundary where I wouldn't. In Kaw I had lots of examples where I'd have actually written a pause (comma) between the subject and the /e/, which was part of the predicate. If Omaha speakers drop the final V of akha and appear to cliticize the following /e/, I'd consider that a fast-speech phenomenon and let it go as that. [[[[Is^ti'niNkhe=akh]=e] akha] a'=bi]=ama It looks from this as though you're basing your syntactic parsing on your phonological parsing. Grammatically, /e/ just doesn't go with the 1st NP except maybe in the surface phonology. > >90:143.14 > wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e a'=bi=ama > my wife that one lying is she said he, they say >There's no trace of gaa in Omaha except in cases like this. I'm certain Dorsey has simply misunderstood the form. I tend to doubt that. I haven't looked up the context, but IF there is any evidence at all that the wife was in a horizontal position, then you just can't escape having /khe/ as the morpheme. Ga is the third member of the deictic trio, dhee, shee, gaa, and it should probably have a long V if it was accented (although as we've noted many times, we don't understand the length alternations). The next example is even clearer in favor of /khe/, because here both subjects are dead (i.e., lying down). > >90:311.4 > wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e akh=e a'dha u > racoon two dead the two (lie) indeed halloo >The breaking up into words, as I emphasized in the original posting is strictly Dorsey's. The akh is just akha=e as pronounced. It is never akhae. OK, that's just the usual Siouan V1V2 > V2, but it isn't the issue. Nor, I think is Dorsey's word boundaries, which I agree are often problematic. I still see the problem as being your enclitic boundary (=) between kh and e in the horizontal positional. I guess the semantics is primary to me; if reclining is a part of the translation, then khe is clearly a unit. The only way to contradict Dorsey on the semantics is to check it with speakers (and even then folk analyses are possible, unfortunately). > Why not start off by segmenting the obvious (!) /khe/ and they try to > analyze the remainder. >I did. I came back to akh=e. Well, at least in the examples I've seen that still looks perverse. I'm unconvinced that this is contributing to our understanding of the several 7ee's. I guess time and work will sort them out.... bob From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 19:32:52 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:32:52 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: >> So are you considering wie to be all one word, as the independent >> pronoun form of "I"? Do you parse this as: >> wie bdhiN >> I am ? > Exactly. In Proto-Siouan, maybe 3000 years ago, wie, yie, ie, etc. were presumably the patient pronominals compounded with or prefixed to *7e, the demonstrative, I think. But the glottal stop has been replaced by zero or a glide (y) in most languages and these are best thought of as disjunctive, contrastive pronouns and single words. The first person is "echoed" here by the b- of b-thiN. (thiN, 'be of class membership') > kkaNze bliN 'I'm a Kaw' Alright... Now a "patient pronominal" is what? The basic, original pronoun that can either be incorporated into a verb in a non-intensified way, or be combined with some other particle, likely demonstrative, to produce a stand-alone, disjunctive pronoun? The patient pronominal prefix set is used to mark the object of a transitive and the subject of a stative verb. It also combines with a number of particles to produce various emphatic/contrastive disjunctive pronouns. (I am the one who..., me too, etc.) So you would reconstruct the Proto-Siouan state roughly as follows: *wi - I (MORE LIKE 'ME' ACTUALLY RLR) *7e - that, a demonstrative *yiN - to be (a member) (PROBABLY *riN RLR) Then *wi=7e ==> *wie meaning "I - that" (OK RLR) *wi=yiN ==> *bliN meaning "I - be-a-member" Here the pronoun would be a variant of the active pronoun /a-/. Proto-Siouan for this was probably something like *wa-. Wi- was the corresponding patient. >In this case, where is the demonstrative *7e pointing? Does it indicate the *wi, or does it reference something else that is being linked to the *wi? It is simply a part of the independent pronominal set. Whether the 7e is/was a copular verb of some kind or whether it was a demonstrative particle begs the questions that we've been trying to answer, i.e., is it a case of homophony or polysemy? Now you say that you've never heard the verb bliN used with a contrastive pronoun. I take it this means that you have never heard wie bliN in Kaw? No, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. What's it mean? It's me (rather than someone else)? >If so, that surprises me. In Dorsey's OP collection, the statement wiebdhiN is actually somewhat common. However, in Dorsey, the contrastive, disjunctive personal pronoun set seems to me to be clearly wi - I dhi - you oNgu' - we I've heard the final -e of these forms elided or semi-elided, so I look upon the Omaha-Ponca versions without a clear [e] as just fast speech forms. It seems clear that the forms WITH the 7e underlie these throughout Mississippi Valley Siouan. It might pay to listen for a long V here. in hopes of surviving.... The righteous cub in the end states his own claim: Wi'-hnaN s^te edue'ha-ma'z^i the. I alone did not follow them (in their wickedness). 'I alone' may compound wi- with a different particle. Or this may again have an underlying -e. I don't know. Ask for it in slow speech (understanding of course that the request "please speak more slowly" is usually interpreted as "please speak more loudly" :-) ). >Elsewhere, forms like wi s^ti, "I also", are not uncommon. Again, a different compound and different meaning. >It seems to me (and I think to John also, no?) that these basic pronouns still exist independently of following 7e in OP, though they may be fused in other Siouan languages. My sense of the wiebdhiN sequence is: Wi e bdhiN I s/he am I am s/he, the one just spoken of. >In this interpretation, of course, bdhiN would be a copula of identity, not of set membership, but I think that is required by the context in any case. I don't think so. I think the complement "s/he" here is an artifact of English. Also, this is one of those cases where 'identity' and 'class membership' overlap somewhat. Nonetheless, I certainly wouldn't be dogmatic about insisting that dhiN can ONLY be set membership. It's just that virtually all my cases are that way. I'd bet that the forms wie (or wii), dhie (or dhii), oNgu, etc. are Gestalts for speakers. I'd be very surprised if they can still decompose them into two morphemes. The compounds date back many centuries (I can't recall if they're Proto-Siouan or not, but I think they occur in Ohio Valley Siouan also.) Bob From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 14 19:48:05 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:48:05 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e Message-ID: >Some things I have said in class with sentence-final -e have caused great mirth among our Omaha ladies as well. John is probably right that, classically, the fem. particle was -he, with an /h/, but I think those h's are gone in speech for the most part. I never heard a single one in Kaw, Quapaw or Osage. They are a possible source of ANY sentence-final [e], even with male speakers. >I'm confused by your symbolism above. Doesn't /V/ just mean any vowel? yes, sorry about that. My fingers get ahead of my brain. >If so, aren't you saying that any sentence that ends in a vowel is a women's speech form? In that case, why mention /e/ separately? No, that's just my little way of trying to confuse everybody. I think what I was probably trying to say here badly was that, whatever V ends the last word in the sentence, it can be completely replaced by /-e/ in female declaratives. >In the Dorsey texts, akha' is regularly used as an article, while akhe' is placed after a nominal to indicate that that nominal is what the foregoing is. It has seemed to me to function as a third-person copula of identity, though John views it as the contraction of a normal akha' article with the third-person demonstrative 7e. Hmmm, somehow I don't see these as different analyses. I think you're both right. EXCEPT that if the 'reclining' article, khe, is a semantic part of the discourse, then [akhe] is a+khe, not akh(a)+e. That is the topic of the other thread that John and I have been carrying on. >Though akhe' is generally sentence-final, I don't see any indication that the speaker in these cases is apt to be female. The difference here seems to be grammatical, not a gender marker. That may well be. I think my point is that there are SEVERAL potential ambiguities possible in such cases. That's why they all really need to be checked with fluent speakers. Bob From Rgraczyk at aol.com Fri Sep 14 21:42:23 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:42:23 EDT Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow Message-ID: It's about time to add some Crow data to the discussion, lest the Siouan list become the Dhegiha list! Crow does have some traces of nominal ablaut, although I am not sure how significant they are from a diachronic standpoint, except to emphasize the fact that ablaut is a persistent pattern in Siouan languages. 1) Stems ending in short a or i ablaut to e in the citation form, the form that occurs as an independent word, e.g. bili' 'water' (stem) bile' (citation form) bili-shpi'te 'coffee' (+ shipi'te 'black') bili-chiku'a 'pop' (+ chiku'a 'sweet') Wes Jones claims in his article on the Hidatsa approximative that short e is raised to i in Hidatsa. This may have been the case also in Crow, although it is no longer a synchronic rule. Actually the reverse is true in Crow: i -- > ee word-finally. I write ee, because there is evidence that short e and o have been lost in Crow, so that even words like bile' that we write with a short e actually have phonemic ee. Perhaps all the short e's went to i. Because all stems ending in i and a have citation forms in e, it can actually be difficult at times to find out what the stem-final vowel is. When you ask a Crow speaker for a word, you invariably get the citation form. The simplest way to discover the stem vowel is to ask for the word with a sentence-final declarative marker -k, i.e., 'it's an X'. However speakers tend to rebel at saying things like 'it's a pancreas', so I don't actually have stem forms for some of the body parts. (Note that many of the stem forms for body parts cannot be found in the Dictionary of Everyday Crow.) 2) Generally, word-formation processes involve the nominal stem rather than the citation form: compounding, derivational affixation, etc. However there are four suffixes that are added to the citation form rather than to the stem: -sh (definite article), -m (indefinite non-specific article), -taa (path postposition), and -n (locative postposition), e.g. bile'e-sh 'the water' bile'e-m 'some water' a'aka 'top, roof' (stem) a'ake (citation form) a'aka-ss 'to the top' (+ goal postposition; no ablaut) a'akee-n 'on top' (+ locative pp; ablaut) a'akee-taa 'along the top' (+ path pp; ablaut) I consider these true examples of ablaut, since the change is conditioned only by certain suffixes. There are also a handful of stems in Crow that end in short u: these ablaut to oo, e.g. baalu' 'bead' (stem) baalo' (citation form) baalu-sho'oshuwatchi 'medium blue' (no ablaut) baalo'o-sh 'the beads (+ definite article; ablaut) The first solution for this pattern that leaps to mind is that the four suffixes are actually --eesh, -eem, -eetaa and -een. However then we have the difficulty of explaining what happens with the u-stems, where the vowel is oo rather than ee. 3) In addition to these, there are some nouns that ablaut before plural -u and before other suffixes beginning with -a: b'itchii 'knife' (stem) bi'tchiia (citation form) bi'ttaa-u 'knives' (+ plural; ablaut) iskoochi'i 'enemy' (stem) iskoochi'ia (citation form) iskoota'a-u (+plural; ablaut) This variety of ablaut is lexically conditioned; there are many more nouns ending in -ii that do not ablaut. This same ablaut pattern is found in a number of verbs ending in -ii: du'ushii 'set down, put down, bury' (stem) du'usaa-u (+ plural; ablaut) du'usaa-(a)k (+ SS marker; ablaut) du'usaa-h (+ imperative; ablaut) I have a paper on Crow ablaut which goes into these matters in considerably more detail. I'll bring it along to Boulder to add to the collection. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 22:47:08 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:47:08 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow In-Reply-To: <98.1a4f6772.28d3d3bf@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Sep 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > It's about time to add some Crow data to the discussion, lest the > Siouan list become the Dhegiha list! I'm sorry. I really do very much regret that tendency. It makes for a dry and rather exhausting list. > 1) Stems ending in short a or i ablaut to e in the citation form, the form > that occurs as an independent word, e.g. > > bili' 'water' (stem) > bile' (citation form) Based on the following, some nouns (in -ii?) form their citation form by adding -a? > 3) In addition to these, there are some nouns that ablaut before plural -u > and before other suffixes beginning with -a: > > b'itchii 'knife' (stem) > bi'tchiia (citation form) > bi'ttaa-u 'knives' (+ plural; ablaut) > > iskoochi'i 'enemy' (stem) > iskoochi'ia (citation form) > iskoota'a-u (+plural; ablaut) From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Sep 14 23:21:15 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:21:15 -0600 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > Rory: In this case, where is the demonstrative *7e pointing? Does it > indicate the *wi, or does it reference something else that is being > linked to the *wi? Just in case I haven't made myself clear, I'd argue that it was pointing at the pronominal or demonstrative or clause it was following, or, perhaps better, that both (7)e and the thing before it are pointing at the same thing. It ((7)e) is essentially the 'it' of 'it is X' or 'X is it/she/he'. > Bob: It is simply a part of the independent pronominal set. Whether > the 7e is/was a copular verb of some kind or whether it was a > demonstrative particle begs the questions that we've been trying to > answer, i.e., is it a case of homophony or polysemy? Well, if it's a demonstrative particle, it seems much more likely to be something like polysemy (i.e., of (7)e serving as both a demonstrative pronoun and an appendage to personal pronouns, focus particle, etc.), unless we want to argue that there are two different demonstratives of the shape (7)e. On the other hand, I can see where if it's a copular verb it might be better characterized as homophony. (Except that I think some historical linguists think that demonstratives are a major source of copulas.) > Rory: Now you say that you've never heard the verb bliN used with a > contrastive pronoun. I take it this means that you have never > heard > > wie bliN > > in Kaw? > > Bob: No, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. What's it mean? It's > me (rather than someone else)? Yes. > Rory: If so, that surprises me. In Dorsey's OP collection, the > statement wiebdhiN is actually somewhat common. However, in > Dorsey, the contrastive, disjunctive personal pronoun set > seems to me to be clearly > > wi - I > > dhi - you > > oNgu' - we > > Bob (?): I've heard the final -e of these forms elided or semi-elided, > so I look upon the Omaha-Ponca versions without a clear [e] as just > fast speech forms. It seems clear that the forms WITH the 7e underlie > these throughout Mississippi Valley Siouan. It might pay to listen for > a long V here. In OP the e is always present when dhiN 'to be' follows the pronoun, and only e, without dhiN, or dhiN without e, seem to occur as third persons. On the other hand, in Dorsey there is never e after just wi or dhi without (inflected) dhiN following it. I do recall wi in elicitation, and I'd say it was long. However, I concur with Rory that there's just no e with wi and dhi if dhiN doesn't follow, and the forms he cites (not to mention witta 'my', now usually wiwitta, etc.) would be the ones I'd cite. Different languages, different forms. I'm always shocked at how "devient" from the Dhegiha norm Kaw and Osage and Quapaw can be. :-) Sometimes I doubt they're even really underlyingly Omaha-Ponca ... > >It seems to me (and I think to John also, no?) that these > basic pronouns still exist independently of following 7e > in OP, though they may be fused in other Siouan languages. Precisely. > My sense of the wiebdhiN sequence is: > > Wi e bdhiN > I s/he am > I am s/he, the one just spoken of. > > >In this interpretation, of course, bdhiN would be a > copula of identity, not of set membership, but I think > that is required by the context in any case. > > I don't think so. I do agree on this, but also with the fuzziness of membership vs. identity. > I think the complement "s/he" here is an artifact of > English. Also, this is one of those cases where 'identity' and 'class > membership' overlap somewhat. Nonetheless, I certainly wouldn't be dogmatic > about insisting that dhiN can ONLY be set membership. It's just that > virtually all my cases are that way. From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Sep 15 01:06:03 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 20:06:03 -0500 Subject: Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...) Message-ID: >> >> Option 3 gives us intelligible sentences in both cases. >> > This is true, but I'm not sure I see why a declarative would be >> > particularly associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences. >> I'm confused, but interested. Could you elaborate your argument >> here? Why are you seeing this (putative) declarative as particularly >> associated with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences? > If e was simply a declarative, why would it occur especially frequently > with sentences of the form DEMONSTRATIVE e DECL (where DECL is the he/ha > you decided you might prefer to gloss as emphatic). The model I was suggesting (and I don't claim to be married to it) is as follows. The particle e that appears after the verb or nominal in almost all the example sentences you gave a few days ago occurs only after (accented?) -e and fits the position and meaning of the (non-pluralizing) particle -i, which I have considered to be declarative. Hence, e is an allomorph of declarative -i. Its only particular association with 'this is the one' kinds of sentences is that "this", dhe, and "that", she, both happen to be non-ablautable -e stems, and hence condition the -e rather than the -i form of the declarative. Regarding the he/ha particles, I also originally supposed them to be declaratives. This view became untenable to me, at least as an absolute, when I found out that they frequently followed the command particles a/ga in commands. Since then, I've preferred to consider them emphatics, though I grant that they may function as declaratives as well. > I think clearly > something about the e added to the demonstrative produces the sense > 'this/that is it/she/he', where the 'is it/she/he' of the English must be > the sense added by e. The question seems to be how the e works to produce > that 'is it/she/he'. I think that understanding that will help explain > cases of VERB e. I don't think we need to jump from the initial > difficulties of explaining some VERB e examples to an explanation that > seems to me to make it harder to explain how DEM e ha/he means 'DEM is > it/she/he'. I don't think it makes it any harder to explain at all. But I think your objection here segues into a larger issue I had been wanting to bring up. When we make what we regard as a complete sentence, two things are involved. First, we are invoking a subset model of our shared conceptual world. This involves words of reference and their logical relationships. Second, we are making a demand on the listener. If our utterance involves only that structural model of a conception alone, without the demand, then we have spoken only what seems like a noun phrase to us English speakers; the utterance seems vain unless it simply fills in information requested by prior speech. In English and other Indo-European languages, the demand generally rides on the finite verb. If I say: The Siamese cat with the screechy voice that my grandmother in Oregon gave me last Christmas ran out the open door to the tree in my cranky neighbor's back yard last night... no demand has been made on the listener's credulity until we hit the word "ran". At that point, a claim of fact is made along with the imagery of running. After that word, we are simply filling in more details. Because of this Indo-European characteristic, I think that we Western linguists tend to harbor the prejudice that a finite verb is always needed to make a complete sentence. In Siouan, however, I think we're dealing with a different linguistic pattern. Here, the demand rides on a particle that follows the final verb, or noun if there is no verb, of the sentence or clause. In this kind of language, a verb may augment the subset model by describing an action or relation, but it makes no more demand on the listener than a noun, and hence is equally dispensable. A string of nouns and verbs build the conception, but they do not make a complete sentence. That doesn't happen until we hit the "demand" particle at the end. (I don't mean to be too absolutist about the above paradigm of Siouan. I recognize that languages are necessarily gradient, and that some sentences in Siouan may lack any "demand" particle. Also, when I say "Siouan", it should be understood that my own experience is with OP and Lakhota.) A demand might be: Accept this as an addition to your knowledge base! Give me the information I request! Do this! Consider this as a hypothesis! A few weeks ago, we discussed e'gaN. I would suggest the following analysis for its use with "demand" particles: e - the foregoing gaN - so, thus, in such manner e'gaN - in the manner of the foregoing "Demand" particles -0 - zero, perhaps DECL for generalities -i - DECL, perhaps only for entities -bi - hypothetical, irrealis -ga/a - command -a - inquiry E'gaN. It is so. / Okay. / As you say. E'gaN i. He/She/It is that way. E'gaN bi=ama. It is supposedly that way. E'gaN a? Is it/he/she that way? E'gaN ga! Do accordingly! / Do what has just been described! Note that in the last example, I believe that the "do" has nothing to do with the gaN; the English "do!" is implicit in the command particle ga. In this view, the declarative particle -i can be used equally well for nouns or verbs. If used after a verb, it means that the verb took place. If used after a noun, it simply implies the existence or identity of the noun, in a way that we would handle with the verb "is". VERB i. VERB happened/happens. NOUN i. NOUN exists. / He/She/It is NOUN. Since DEMONSTRATIVE references a noun phrase, your objectionable sentence DEM e ha/he can simply be understood as a case of the last sentence type: NOUN i EMPH ==> DEM e ha/he ==> 'this/that is it/she/he' Rory From Rgraczyk at aol.com Sat Sep 15 19:31:42 2001 From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Rgraczyk at aol.com) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 15:31:42 EDT Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow Message-ID: In a message dated 9/14/2001 4:48:10 PM Mountain Daylight Time, John.Koontz at colorado.edu writes: > Based on the following, some nouns (in -ii?) form their citation form by > adding -a? > > That's right; nouns ending in -uu also add -a in the citation form. The generalization seems to be that Crow does not like words that end in a high vowel. The only exceptions that I can think of are vocative forms, e.g., baashi'i 'brother-in-law!', and a few adverbs. Randy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 15 19:46:43 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:46:43 -0600 Subject: Nominal Ablaut in Crow In-Reply-To: <6d.1a62e8a4.28d5069e@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Sep 2001 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote: > That's right; nouns ending in -uu also add -a in the citation form. The > generalization seems to be that Crow does not like words that end in a high > vowel. The only exceptions that I can think of are vocative forms, e.g., > baashi'i 'brother-in-law!', and a few adverbs. How do the Crow final patterns for nouns match up with Hidatsa, Mandan, and Siouan at large? I always think that when there are patterns, it's useful to compare the whole pattern instead of just a particular form within it. I know that at least some ia and ua patterns in Crow (not sure about length) turn out to suggest -h finals when compared with, say Dakotan, though that might be for verb. From bi1 at soas.ac.uk Mon Sep 17 13:00:54 2001 From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (Bruce Ingham) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:00:54 GMT Subject: early loans in Dakotan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Siouanists >>From a recent discussion on bows and arrows, I gathered that it was thought that a number of basic lexemes may be borrowings into Dakotan from neighbouring languages, Indian or European. Do any of you have any good examples. Ones that I know of include khunkhunla 'pickle' presumably French 'cocombre', khukhus^e 'pig' French 'cochon', bebela 'baby' Fr bebe or Engl baby. Are there any anyone knows of from Indian languages. ??? Bruce Dr. Bruce Ingham Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies SOAS From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 17 15:19:33 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:19:33 -0600 Subject: early loans in Dakotan In-Reply-To: <94774764F6@soas.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote: > From a recent discussion on bows and arrows, I gathered that it > was thought that a number of basic lexemes may be borrowings > into Dakotan from neighbouring languages, Indian or European. Do > any of you have any good examples. Ones that I know of include > khunkhunla 'pickle' presumably French 'cocombre', khukhus^e 'pig' > French 'cochon', bebela 'baby' Fr bebe or Engl baby. Are there any > anyone knows of from Indian languages. ??? You can add S^aglas^a to the list of European loans, from les Anglais (but with the Algonquian diminutive). Siebert suggested that an Algonquian term for tamarack was borrowed into Dakota. It's slipping my mind at the moment, but in Buechel it occurs compounded with a color term (blue/green?) in the name of a color of loin cloth. In the other direction, I suspect OP iNdakkudha is a loan from Da dakhota/khola. We've mentioned 'bow'. Other possible loans include wagmuN (and hence wagmeza < wagmuN heza) and igmuN, also c^haNli, -thuNwaN, and -khota/khola, though the sources are obscure. In most cases the clue is an unusual cluster or a very irregular correspondence set, combined with the existence of look-alikes in other families. These don't always allow us to be sure what the source for the terms is, as the lookalikes are fairly widespread. Another very irregular set is 'dance', cf. OP wac^hi(gaghe). Lookalikes for 'nine' cf. OP s^aNkka (-e?) are also pretty widespread in the East, but I don't remember if Dakotan participates in this set. 'Horse' from something like kawara from caballo is fairly widespread. I think the intermediate source here is Wichita. 'Kkawa' is the normal term for 'horse' in Osage, and I've seen Kkawaha 'horsehide' (?) as a name im OP, even though it uses the old 'dog' term normally. I once saw a Mandan name in kawa- I thought might have the same explanation, but I forget the details. for 'horse' in Osage, and I've seen Kkawaha 'horsehide' (?) as a name im OP, even though it uses the old 'dog' term normally. I once saw a Mandan name in kawa- I thought might have the same explanation, but I forget the details. I'd argue that any band names with waz^az^a in them were loans from Dhegiha, and there are some. One might also wonder about forms like 'Saones' (cf. OP sa^aN 'Sioux') for which there are widespread lookalikes. In general, many - though not all - ethnonyms are borrowed. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Mon Sep 17 23:02:38 2001 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:02:38 -0500 Subject: early loans in Dakotan Message-ID: > Siebert suggested that an Algonquian term for tamarack was borrowed into > Dakota. It's slipping my mind at the moment Dakota (Riggs) s^iNt? 'tamarack' < Algonquian (cf. Proto-Alg. s^enta 'evergreen tree') (Siebert 1967 p. 27) From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 18 03:37:35 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:37:35 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> I've been conceiving of akhe' as an e-grade ablaut form of akha', >> "s/he is the one", where something one has experienced or discussed is >> identified as a specific entity. > John: > I think it's just contraction of akha + e or ama + e, though, of course, > in general terms this is the explanation that Bob has argued underlies > most ablaut anyway, at least historically. As usual in OP and SIouan in > general, faced with something like akhe you have to look at everything > else and arrive at some balance that leads you to decide if it's (in this > case) akha=e or akhe from akhE, etc. One factor that leads me to the > first analysis is that normally in Dhegiha the e-grade is clearly the more > basic in analytic terms, and that is not the case with akha. I still don't see that it's that clear that the e-grade is more basic than the a-grade. You've effectively shot down the argument from Dakotan -AN stems for the a-grade being the stem by pointing out that the -AN stems are an analogic derivation within the Dakotan branch, but you still haven't given what I see as a strong argument for the converse position that the e-grade is the basic stem form. I believe the only reason you've given for this view is that the e-grade is the usual citation form. Yet I think we've all agreed that the citation form may well be marked with an additional morpheme. Certainly in English, we might be inclined to use "to run" as the citation form, although the stem would certainly be "run". In German, we'd use the infinitive as the citation form, though there would be an "-en" tacked onto what is actually the stem. In Latin, we might also use the infinitive as the citation form, in which case we would have a "-re" or something appended to the stem. In the Siouan case, we simply have an alternation between -a and -e endings, with the -e ending form commonly being chosen for citation. If this is the only argument we have for the basicness of the e-grade form, then I think we have to regard the issue of which one is the stem form as an open question. > I assume that reading akhe as you want to arises just recently, from > deciding that the extra e in things like dhee or bdhee is the same as i > and means 'witnessed'? No, actually I've been reading it, and akha, that way for quite a while. You may be right in your view that it is simply a contraction of akha=e; I just didn't think of that possibility at the time I discovered akhe. Another possibility, perhaps, is that it is a merging of akha=i. Yet a fourth possibility might be found in the phrase you and Bob have been disputing: >>> 90:63.11 >>> Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha, a'=bi=ama >>> I. is the one said they they say I would be tempted to parse this as Bob does: [[Is^ti'niNkhe akha] [e akha]] ... If this is what it took to say "Is^ti'niNkhe is the one", is it not likely that the entire sentence would be radically reduced in daily unelevated speech? The accented e might have contracted backwards with the preceding akha, while the final longwinded akha was simply truncated away. Thus: X akha', e' akha' ==> X akh=e' where both variants mean "X is the one", but with the latter version saving three syllables of speech time. This fourth explanation would not support the interpretation of [[X akha'] [e]] necessarily being a complete sentence. In any case, though, I can say I've been quite comfortable in reading akha'/akhe' as having the verbal sense of "to exist" or "to be the one", even where it appears as an article. As a subject marker, X akha' simply means that X is the one (who committed the action). It also makes it much easier to understand the force of occasional sentences in which akha' is used for the plural, e.g. 43:6 Khi MaNtc^u z^iN'ga akha' du'ba-biama'. "And there were four young Grizzly bears." (Dorsey's tr.) Or as I would read it: And [young Grizzly bear] there-was, four of them. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 19 05:12:20 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:12:20 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > No, actually I've been reading it, and akha, that way for quite a while. > You may be right in your view that it is simply a contraction of akha=e; > I just didn't think of that possibility at the time I discovered akhe. > Another possibility, perhaps, is that it is a merging of akha=i. ... Actually, it appears that akh(=)e=bi=ama and akh(=)e=i both occur in the texts - search for AKE*-BIAMA AKE*I in the Siouan Archives version. This tends to militate against seeing akhe as from akha=i, though you could try to rescue matters by appealing to analogy or error or assuming two separate i morphemes. However, I think it's just an akha at the end of an NP followed by e'=i 'it is' or e=bi=ama 'it is they say'. Treated as a verb e 'that; it is' doesn't ablaut. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Sep 19 05:36:17 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:36:17 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > I still don't see that it's that clear that the e-grade is more basic > than the a-grade. > You've effectively shot down the argument from Dakotan -AN stems for > the a-grade being the stem by pointing out that the -AN stems are an > analogic derivation within the Dakotan branch, I think this argument originates with the Dakotanists, though I'm not enough of a historian of the matte to recall which. > but you still haven't given what I see as a strong argument for the > converse position that the e-grade is the basic stem form. Omitting the citation form argument in its operation sense, i.e., what do speakers use as citation forms, which you recall, one could approach the matter from the point of view of which form seemed simplest in various senses. The a-grade occurs with the third person singular as the most common variant, of course, but only with following =i or =bi, albeit the former is often lost in modern Omaha speech. There are forms - the ones I call obviative - in which the e occurs with nothing following it. 90:345.9 wadhi'xdhe dhe=the 'he went chasing (buffalo)' This is also the form that occurs when an article follows (forming a relative clause or indicating the imperfective), or kki 'if', or another verb embedding the e-grade under it as a complement, etc. When cases occur, as they do, in which dhe=kki is opposed to dha=i=kki, it seems logical to see the a-variant as derived from the e-variant under the conditioning of the presence of i. There are also Siouan languages - Ioway-Otoe, for example - in which e is the usual grade for the third person singular, because the unique Dhegiha pattern with the plural as proximate doesn't occur. This needn't imply anything for Omaha-Ponca, of course, but it does show that Siouan languages can work either way. In the end, of course, it probably doesn't make much difference which grade is basic except for linguistic purposes (in writing the stem). I do, think, however, that considering the logic of akhe vs. akha and ame vs. ama without insisting on a particular analysis of akhe and ame, it is still clear that the alternation of e vs. a works differently for these than it does for (more typical) verbs, and that this is apparent even without addressing cases like akh(=)e=i where it works in quite the opposite way from, say, (a)dha=i. JEK From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Thu Sep 20 00:26:47 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:26:47 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: >> No, actually I've been reading it, and akha, that way for quite a while. >> You may be right in your view that it is simply a contraction of akha=e; >> I just didn't think of that possibility at the time I discovered akhe. >> Another possibility, perhaps, is that it is a merging of akha=i. ... > John: > Actually, it appears that akh(=)e=bi=ama and akh(=)e=i both occur in the > texts - search for AKE*-BIAMA AKE*I in the Siouan Archives version. This > tends to militate against seeing akhe as from akha=i, though you could try > to rescue matters by appealing to analogy or error or assuming two > separate i morphemes. However, I think it's just an akha at the end of an > NP followed by e'=i 'it is' or e=bi=ama 'it is they say'. Treated as a > verb e 'that; it is' doesn't ablaut. Actually, I agree with you that akhe' as derived from akha=i is not likely. I had included that as one possibility among several, but I wasn't really plumping for it. Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. [snip] > I do, think, however, that considering the logic of akhe vs. akha and ame > vs. ama without insisting on a particular analysis of akhe and ame, it is > still clear that the alternation of e vs. a works differently for these > than it does for (more typical) verbs, and that this is apparent even > without addressing cases like akh(=)e=i where it works in quite the > opposite way from, say, (a)dha=i. Again, I agree. The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? Rory From rankin at ku.edu Thu Sep 20 14:42:30 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:42:30 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: > Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. 1. "as 'the' does in ... frequent form" Actually, this is the "the" that is not historically a positional I think. It's the one that some linguists have translated 'narrative' and which has the cognate in Hidatsa "rahe" 'rumored'. John's 2000 Siouan Conf. paper was on synchronic aspects of this particle and my ICHL paper last month was on diachronic aspects of it. 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. > The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? 3. In those instances where 'lying/horizontal' persons/objects are involved I think the identity of the /khe/ part of akhe is clearly the reclining positional, not a derivation from akha. In dealing with form and meaning, meaning is of equal or greater importance. Other than those 3 points, I don't have anything to add to the discussion because the languages I've worked on just don't have /akhe/ apparently. Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) does not mean that they are semantically or morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he didn't always understand everything. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 20 15:00:34 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:00:34 -0600 Subject: akhe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote: > Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to > come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the > sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] > bi=the'=ama. This is a good point that I had overlooked. In analyzing akhe=i as akh[a]=e=i, you have to assume that the [... akha] is embedded under the e=i. This would be a Siouan case of enclitics not respecting the phrase structure of the sentence. The e=i is attached phonologically to the "... akh[a]" but the akha forms a constituent with the preceding NP, not with the e=i. > This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X > akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? I didn't specifically address 4, but I think that any additional akha after akhe is functional, so that "... akhe" and "... akhe akha" are separate cases. I think Bob was arguing at least that at least some akhe were a-khe, where khe was the 'horizontal definite article' khe used with inanimates and some animates (typically, ex-animates). I'm not sure I buy that for most akhe, but the two examples he suggested this for at least deserve another look on my part. Actually, at the risk of confusing matters, let me add that historically I do actually think that akha might well be from a + khe and ama from a + ma. I can't account for the final vowel shift in the first case. I assume the initial a is another instance of the *(r)a that occurs so widely after nouns or between then and other things. However, there is no sign of initial h with this a in Osage, Kaw or Quapaw, e.g., the Osage articles are akha and apa. The lack of h poses a problem in associating these various post-nominal/pre-articlar/etc. a's with the forms that serve as the indefinite demonstrative stem in Osage, etc. In OP the indefinite stem is is a, too, but in Osage, etc., it's ha as I've mentioned before. One possibility is that there is no such association, of course. From rankin at ku.edu Thu Sep 20 15:16:39 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:16:39 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha -akhe. Message-ID: > Another argument against it is that akha', as a positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. 1. "as 'the' does in ... frequent form" Actually, this is the "the" that is not historically a positional I think. It's the one that some linguists have translated 'narrative' and which has the cognate in Hidatsa "rahe" 'rumored'. John's 2000 Siouan Conf. paper was on synchronic aspects of this particle and my ICHL paper last month was on diachronic aspects of it. 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. > The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did you have another one? 3. Yes, in those instances where 'lying/horizontal' persons/objects are involved I think the identity of the /khe/ part of akhe is clearly the reclining positional, not a derivation from akha. In dealing with form and meaning, meaning is of equal or greater importance. Other than those 3 points, I don't have anything to add to the discussion because the languages I've worked on just don't have /akhe/ apparently. Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) does not mean that they are semantically or morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he didn't always understand everything. Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Sep 20 19:43:10 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:43:10 -0600 Subject: Dhegiha -akhe. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote: > Rory: Another argument against it is that akha', as a > positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) > particle if it occurs at the end of the sentence, as > "the" does in the fairly frequent form [Sentence] > bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above > indicate that akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e > stem verb, however it was derived. > > Bob: 1. "as 'the' does in ... frequent form" Actually, this > is the "the" that is not historically a positional I > think. It's the one that some linguists have translated > 'narrative' and which has the cognate in Hidatsa "rahe" > 'rumored'. John's 2000 Siouan Conf. paper was on > synchronic aspects of this particle and my ICHL paper > last month was on diachronic aspects of it. I was thinking of the general positioning of the articles as imperfect auxiliaries, but, on further reflection, I don't believe they ever have a plural before them, either. The future works just like the "imperfective" in this respect, and there, for example, it's ....=tta=akha (typical third person) or ...=tta=miNkhe (typical first person). I've just realized that I'm not positive that the auxiliaries always condition ablaut, or, to phrase it more carefully, the a-grade. In fact, I think they don't, except with the future. (So, maybe the future and the imperfective are *not* exactly the same in formation.) Yet another thing I have to check. I'm also fairly sure that the last stem in a relative clause before a definite article doesn't ablaut. Although the evidential or narrative the (narrative is Dorsey's gloss) probably does have a separate origin from the article the, I've also demonstrated that in OP at least it clearly now alternates with khe, dhaN and even ge in its evidential capacity. On the other hand, this is a rather special use of the and may not parallel uses of the animate articles as imperfective (progressive?) auxiliaries. > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no > non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Actually, I've just demonstrated that neither e (demonstrative) nor tte 'buffalo' ablaut in Omaha-Ponca. Akhe doesn't, either, though I'd argue that this was because it incorporates e. If it doesn't incorporate e, it's a third example. However, exceptions are very limited, and fairly special in nature. I posted something on this just recently, but I've so voluminous I'm not surprised it got lost in the storm. > Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ > ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) > does not mean that they are semantically or > morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual > or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like > some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan > -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional > field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have > tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he > didn't always understand everything. Agreed about Dorsey and understanding and normalization. However, I believe there is nothing chance about the alternation of a=i and a=bi and I don't think e enters into the pattern at all. There are stems in which ai seems to lead to e by contraction (ppe < *ppahi 'sharp' is the only one I can think of). Also, pez^i occurs as an alternate for ppiaz^i. Finally, the a+i => e contraction also occurs with wa-i, wa-gi, dha-i, and a-i in the prefixal system of verbs. These are special cases. On the other hand, There are tons of places where it ai > e could occur with =i, and it never, ever does, unless one insists on including just the akhe and e existential cases for some reason, while ignoring the e=i and akh(=)e=i cases that show that =i actually follows these. In fact the normal development of final ...a=i## is not e, but a, which occurs with most Omaha speakers - including all those I have ever heard personally. From rankin at ku.edu Fri Sep 21 19:13:10 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:13:10 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha -akhe. Message-ID: >Although the evidential or narrative the (narrative is Dorsey's gloss) probably does have a separate origin from the article the, I've also demonstrated that in OP at least it clearly now alternates with khe, dhaN and even ge in its evidential capacity. On the other hand, this is a rather special use of the and may not parallel uses of the animate articles as imperfective (progressive?) auxiliaries. Of course not. That's my whole point. > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no > non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. >Actually, I've just demonstrated that neither e (demonstrative) nor tte 'buffalo' ablaut in Omaha-Ponca. Huh?? But those aren't verbs!! Of course they don't "ablaut". >Akhe doesn't, either, though I'd argue that this was because it incorporates e. If it doesn't incorporate e, it's a third example. No, it's the only example if it's a verb. > Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ > ai ~ abi all occur in the texts (or even the same text) > does not mean that they are semantically or > morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual > or simply fast-speech variants of one another much like > some of the plural allomorphs Connie listed for Dakotan > -- "contractions" if you will. This is why additional > field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have > tried to normalize his notation in publications, but he > didn't always understand everything. >Agreed about Dorsey and understanding and normalization. However, I believe there is nothing chance about the alternation of a=i and a=bi.... If you mean they're different morphemes, I'd have to see minimal pairs come out of elicitation with different meanings to believe that. Synchronically in OP I can't tell, but historically it's pretty clear that /-i/ here is a variant pronunciation of /-bi/, as there are languages like Kaw and Quapaw that haven't lost the labial element and therefore don't have /-i/. >On the other hand, There are tons of places where it ai > e could occur with =i, and it never, ever does,.... In fact the normal development of final ...a=i## is not e, but a, which occurs with most Omaha speakers - including all those I have ever heard personally. If we're talking about the 'plural' and '3sg' forms (and I admit I've lost track) and you want to look at it strictly synchronically, this is because there is an underlying -b- in the sequences that blocks monophthongization. Historically, it's clear that these cases underwent different relative chronologies from older a+i sequences. I think we're getting too permissive in what we allow as evidence in these discussions. There is an *7e: 'demonstrative', a *he 'locative be', an *-e or *-he 'female speech', an 7e 'food', a *he 'horn', a *he 'louse', an *7e:-he ~ *7e: 'say the preceding', and perhaps others. We have begun playing fast and loose with glottal stops, H's, vowel length and sundry other phonological and morphological processes (monophthongization, C-loss, compounding, etc.) and once you do that with a monosyllabic form such as (7/h)e(:), you can interpret it any way you want. Bob From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Sep 22 01:06:26 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:06:26 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> Rory: >> Another argument against it is that akha', as a >> positional, ought to come *after* the (-i | -bi) particle if it occurs at >> the end of the sentence, as "the" does in the fairly frequent form >> [Sentence] bi=the'=ama. I think the examples you cite above indicate that >> akhe' functions as a non-ablauting -e stem verb, however it was derived. > Bob: > > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in > Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the > system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax > meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. I didn't mean to imply that there were other non-ablauting -e stem verbs. In general, the word dhiN means "to be", but "s/he is" cannot be expressed as e' dhiN. In Dorsey, there seem to be two ways of saying this: e'-e; and X akhe'. The latter is probably existential or identity; for set membership I assume you would say X dhiN. In modern Omaha, our speakers do not recognize e'-e, but they do accept akhe'. Functionally, akhe' is a non-ablauting -e stem verb, though it may be the only one in all of Dhegiha. >> The variation of akha' / akhe' and ama' / ame' is not our standard verbal >> ablaut. These words, as you say, need to be analysed separately. Unless >> someone else cares to argue for them, I think we can reject hypothesis 1 >> (ablaut) and hypothesis 3 (X akha=i ==> X akhe). This leaves hypothesis 2 (X >> akha e ==> X akhe) and hypothesis 4 (X akha, e akha ==> X akhe). Bob, did >> you have another one? > 3. In those instances where 'lying/horizontal' persons/objects are involved > I think the identity of the /khe/ part of akhe is clearly the reclining > positional, not a derivation from akha. In dealing with form and meaning, > meaning is of equal or greater importance. That's right. Sorry I was blanking on that when I wrote the above. > Oh yeah, there was one other thing. The fact that e ~ ai ~ abi all occur in > the texts (or even the same text) does not mean that they are semantically > or morphologically distinct forms. They may be individual or simply > fast-speech variants of one another much like some of the plural allomorphs > Connie listed for Dakotan -- "contractions" if you will. This is why > additional field investigation is so important. Dorsey may have tried to > normalize his notation in publications, but he didn't always understand > everything. I agree; this is something we need to watch out for. In Dorsey, though, the -bi is pretty certainly a distinct morpheme from the -i, and there are apparently at least two different versions of -i as well. Rory From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 22 05:39:19 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:39:19 -0600 Subject: Omaha-Ponca bi vs. i with "egaN" Message-ID: This is an installment in support of my hypothesis that i and bi are two morphemes which both mark plurality and third person singular proximate status. We're looking primarily at the third person singular proximate cases. While I believe that i and bi mark the same thing, and are selected between depending on context, I will keep my eyes open for indications that bi marks something like irrealis. I don't see any traces yet of it marking a quotative sense, thought the quotative (or reportative) morpheme ama consistently conditions use of bi (as opposed to i), in cases where one of them would precede it. There are, of course, cases where something else precedes. ========= Use of i vs. bi with conjunctions of the form egaN. In fact, there are two conjunctions here, and recognizing this is critical to the enterprise. As they are written very similarly and seem to have the same etymology, it is easy to overlook the consistently different way Dorsey glosses them, the consistently different contextual semantics that correlate with these glosses, and the difference in accentual patterning. ========= bi before egaN 'having' The stress pattern of egaN 'having' depends on the stress of the preceding verb. The rule is probably alternating syllables, but this involves some assumptions. It does vary, however, and it does seem to depend on the preceding verb. JOD 1890:17.3 We'ahide=xti= atta hi uxdha'=bi egaN', far away very at it arriving [they] overtook him having t?e'=adha=bi= ama. [they] killed him they say Having overtaken him at a very distant location, they killed him. - In this example the bi before egaN 'having' is not glossed 'they say', though sometimes it is. See the next example. - If alternating stress rule for 'having' stress, then this is something like uxdha'=b(i)=egaN'. - Note the -a- between we'ahide=xti and tta DIRECTION. JOD 1890:40.9-10 E'gidhe z^e'=adi=gdhaN ppe'z^i gdhi'za=bi e'gaN, it came to pass loincloth bad he took his own "they say" having we'za= hnaN adha=bi=ama to give the alarm only he went they say Then, having grabbed up his vile loincloth, he just went to given the alarm. - In this example the bi before egaN 'having' does get the gloss 'they say', but I bleieve this is a contamination from biama, which Dorsey always treats as a unit. - If alternating stress rule for 'having' stress, then this is gdhi'za=b(i)=e'gaN. - Note the -a- between z^e' 'penis' and =di LOCATION in 'loincloth'. As far as the accentuation issue, Dorsey does sometimes write bi before egaN 'having' as just b, e.g. JOD 1890:23.4 a'=b egaN 'he said "they say" having' This tends to confirm that the i of =bi elides before egaN 'having'. ========= But i before e'=gaN 'as, because, so'. This conjunction always has initial stress. I interpret it as part of the following clause, though the glosses 'as' (which Dorsey often uses) and 'because' tend to suggest attachment to the preceding clause. In any case, I believe the e' of e'gaN '(that) is so' refers to the subordinated preceding clause. JOD 1890:17.9 "Ga'=ama naghi'de=dhiN'ga=i e'=gaN e'=di dha'=z^i=a he" ehe'= dhaN those they are disobedient as there go not IMP DEC I said PAST s^aN' s^i e'=gaN c^?e'=dhidha=i. yet you went as they killed you 'Those folks are disobedient, so don't go to them!' I said, yet you went, so they killed you. - 'Disobedient' is Dorsey's gloss, but 'wild, unruly' seems to fit better. The form literally means 'they lack inner ears'. - Note the c^?e for t?e in 'kill'. I call this phenomenon "grandmother speech," though that term may miss the essence of it. (The speaker is Rabbit's Grandmother, i.e., the Earth.) ========= It is possible to switch the glosses about. For example, 'as' would work instead of 'having' in the English glossing, but if you think about it, they didn't kill him because they overtook him, but subsequent to overtaking him. It's true they (the Black Bears) couldn't have killed him (Rabbit) if they hadn't overtaken him, but they always intended to kill him, to avenge themselves for his actions (killing their chief and taunting them with it), and were chasing him long and hard with that intent. The emphasis in the context is on sequentiality. In the next 'having' example, if you look at it, 'as' won't work at all. In dealing with Dorsey's texts one has to be cautious about his glosses, but one ignores them at one's peril. Thus, he spuriously glosses many =bi markers as 'they say', working from a false conclusion as to the relation of =bi=ama to the gloss 'they said', but a careful consideration of the evidence suggests that it may provisionally be taken as an error. I have not yet regretted making that provisional assumption, and so I stick with it. On the other hand the consistent pattern of 'having' vs. 'as' does reflect something very real, if easily overlooked, since it corresonds to something real in meaning, morphology, and phonology. Dorsey's very tendency to consistency in glossing makes the one practice a probable error and the other an important distinction. I do not wish to suggest that Dorsey is never inconsistent and if I found a mismatch between the behavior of (b)i and egaN and glossing I would look first to a possibile inconsistency in explaining it. On the other hand, there are some differences that do seem inexplicable. One I have noticed is: Dorsey 1890:15:7-9 AN'haN -- negi'ha -- wa?u'z^iNga aka' -- dhine'gi -- Wasa'be -- dhiNkhe'=tta -- maN'dhiN=a he -- ai' e'gaN -- aN'husa=i egaN' -- phi ha,... Yes -- o mother's brother -- old woman the -- your mother's brother -- Blackbear -- the-to -- walk thou -- she said having -- she scolded me having -- I've come DEC Clearly these are 'having' both by gloss and by context, but they have unexpected i. The one thing noticeably different thing about these examples is the 'crying' intonation indicated by the -- (long dashes) in Dorsey's texts. I can't say at present if that is relevant. I believe this exception and others that may exist are just that. The vast majority of instances (I checked the first 50 pages, albeit hastily) seem to be consistent with the rules I've offered. I didn't count them, but it seemed like dozens, even hundreds, that met the patterns, and perhaps this one set that didn't. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 22 06:03:20 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:03:20 -0600 Subject: Consideration of Rory Larson's egaN Exceptions Message-ID: I promised Rory I'd try to address his proposed cases of =bi appearing and not appearing before egaN depending on whether the occurrence was seen or not seen, and hence dubitative or non-dubitative. I think these were the examples. Please point out any I've missed, Rory. ==== Rory: 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. ==== These are cases in which there is no bi before egaN. Note that I claim that =bi should occur if egaN is 'having' and that =i should occur if egaN is 'as'. But I claim this only in cases where the preceding verb is a third person singular proximate or a plural. Note also that Rory has reglossed 'having' as 'so' in the first case. This said, my explanations are: The first example is 'having', and should have =bi if it is proximate, but it is evidently (consistent with the context) obviative and has neither =i nor =bi. The second example has two intances of egaN which were glossed 'because' in the original, cf. 'as', fairly reglossed as 'so', As we are dealing with the 'as', and the first case is a third person plural it predictably has =i, while the second case is a first person singular and so lacks both =i and =bi. ==== Rory: 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. ==== These examples are all third person singular proximate or third person plural 'having' examples with =bi (mostly recorded in this text as =b). These is one case of e'=gaN=i 'it is [=these things are] so' later in the line in line 4, and this is sentence initial (following a vocative), so it's irrelevant whether =i or =bi appends to a the last verb of the embedded clause preceding it. I hope this helps. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sat Sep 22 06:34:47 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:34:47 -0600 Subject: Other Contexts that Condition =bi Message-ID: 1) We've mentioned names, cf. I's^kada=bi 2) and old song texts. 3) Infamous is following ama QUOTATIVE (or REPORTATIVE). Sometimes Dorsey records this as =b ama, but mostly as =bi=ama, glossed 'they say'. By a sort of contagion various other =bi or =b get glossed as 'they say', too. 4) The 'heraldic' or 'announcement by authority' or 'formal' declarative particles a'dha (male) and e'dhe (female) (sometimes ano (anau) in songs or modern speech, I think) also condition =bi. Dorsey often glosses these as 'indeed'. Dorsey 1890:33.10-11 "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED - Note that 'Rabbit' is consistently Mas^c^iN'ge in Dorsey's texts, whereas modern Omahas seem to much prefer Mas^tiN'ge. - This form of the future, with =i (if needed) and no positional is used for polite requests. You might call it the precative. ==== A few following contexts and/or morphemes that seem never to take =bi: - 'I think' - edaN 'apt; in thought', ethedaN 'shall' - a'haN 'indeed' (also the feminine ehaN) (a sort of emphatic declarative) - a'naN 'in thought' (different from a'dhaN?) - i'naNhiN 'truely' (an inflectable verb) - e'skaN 'perhaps' The 'think' and 'in thought' cases are significant, because some thought complements do take =bi, of which more, I hope, anon (no pun intended). From rankin at ku.edu Sat Sep 22 15:50:15 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:50:15 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: >> There are no non-ablauting -e stems in Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". >In general, the word dhiN means "to be", but "s/he is" cannot be expressed as e' dhiN. Wow. That's interesting. It would be a homophone with 'be moving' in the 3rd person and perhaps others. >In Dorsey, there seem to be two ways of saying this: e'-e; and X akhe'. The latter is probably existential or identity; for set membership I assume you would say X dhiN. In modern Omaha, our speakers do not recognize e'-e, but they do accept akhe'. Functionally, akhe' is a non-ablauting -e stem verb, though it may be the only one in all of Dhegiha. I'm not sure what your last sentence means. If you mean "predicate" in the larger sense, then I can't argue with it, since nouns can be predicates and don't "ablaut" like verbs. But if you feel it really is a verb, then I'd be curious to know what happens with (1) the plural (-a{b}i), (2) the negative (-azhi) and the imperative (-a). That would be the test of whether it ablauts or not. If it doesn't occur with any of these, then at least formally, I'd be willing just to say it isn't a verb. I'm also curious to know if the -akhe/-ame constructions are found in Osage, or, even more interestingly, in Oklahoma Ponca. This would give us a handle on whether we're dealing with an otherwise-unattested older development or whether it's a recent Omaha grammaticalization. Same for the -abi ~ -ai alternations (vs. possibly separate morphemes). Bob From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 04:09:36 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 22:09:36 -0600 Subject: Ablaut in Dheigha (was Re: Dhegiha -akhe) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > I've just realized that I'm not positive that the auxiliaries always > condition ablaut, or, to phrase it more carefully, the a-grade. In fact, > I think they don't, except with the future. I've checked and the imperfective (or progressive) auxiliaries do not condition ablaut. Examples: JOD 1890:356. ... wadha'the dhatha=i[=]dhaN e' he'be dhath*e'[=] akha* food they eat the that piece he has eaten AUX Here [=] represents replacing a space with =. JOD 1890:578.5-6 T[t]ena! Na'=uha=xti ttaNg=e'gaN[=]aN'gadhiN s^e'na=awadhe Why! almost big like we-the he is exterminating us *adhe'[=]akha* ha he goes AUX DEC Hey! He's destroying those of us who at all big! Most examples of auxiliary akha are in the form akh=ama, with the ama quotative appended. Like this: JOD 1890:155.9 Xdhabe' maN's^i=adi[=]the maNa' kkaN'ha[=]khe Tree tall the cliff edge the *a'gdhe[=] akha*=a'ma it was standing on AUX QUOTE Note: maN's^i=adi 'tall' is a postpositional phrase 'in the sky'. Notice again the inserted -a- before the locative postposition =di. There are plenty of examples of am=a'ma imperfectives, but examples of just ama are rare. Frankly, I suspect Dorsey glossed most of them as quotatives by accident. There a lot of examples of quotatives (to judge from the gloss) after verbs ending in e. I imagine some of them are obviative quotatives, but a few are presumably imperfectives mistaken for quotatives. > (So, maybe the future and the imperfective are *not* exactly the same > in formation.) In fact they are different in formation. The auxiliary after the future =tte conditions the a-grade =tta, but the auxiliary after a non-future verb does not. The auxiliaries are the same (or both based on articles), but in one case they form the future, in the other the imperfective or progressive - I still don't claim to exactly understand the semantics of thAt construction. Incidentally, =the the 'evidently' evidential, also conditions ablaut in the future, since the 'shall surely' future is =tta=the. Given this last, I'm not sure if I'd say that the difference was in the future (or irrealis) morpheme, or the auxiliary sense. > Yet another thing I have to check. I'm also fairly sure that the last > stem in a relative clause before a definite article doesn't ablaut. And it doesn't: JOD 1890:421.1 S^i ni'kkagahi ahi'=bi *ehe'[=]akha* Again chief he arrived I said the Again the chief whom I said had arived ... (Interesting to notice the =bi under ehe'!) JOD 1890:362.5 E'gidhe ... tti'=i= the ha, dhe' wahaN' *adhe'[=]akha.* Finally he camped EVID DEC this set off he goes the Finally ... this camp-mover camped. ===== I believe this resolves two gaps in my knowledge of Omaha-Ponca that have been embarassing me for a long time. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:30:15 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:30:15 -0600 Subject: Indefinite Demonstratives in Siouan Message-ID: In looking to see what Boas et al. had to say about (Omaha-)Ponca ablaut - not as much as I thought I recalled - I happened upon this Boasian assessment of Dakotan demonstratives. It is interesting because it seems to take the view that the indefinite or interrogative stem to is a demonstrative on a par with e, le, he, and ka. It probably underlies my own views in the matter, not because I had assimilated it directly, or even necessarily read it before, but because it determines the approach used in Boas & Deloria, which I have assimilated. Boas & Swanton, 1911, pp. 944-45 "The demonstrative pronouns proper are *e*, *le*, *he*, *ka*, and *to*. The first of these always refers to something that has just been said, and its use is more syntactic than local; *le* ... to indicates that what is referred to is indefinite; and it would not have been classes as a demonstative had it not been employed in a manner absolutely parallel with that of the other demonstratives. ... "... "The definite article *kiN* is probably formed from the demonstrative *ka* by rendering the phonetic change to *iN* permanent. ... "In the plural, and when combined with certain particles, *to* performs the function of an interrogative pronoun. ... "In fact, the regular interrogative and relative pronouns *tu'wa* or *tu'we* WHO, and *ta'ku* WHAT, are properly indefinites, and so related to *to*; ..." ==== The comment on kiN seems a bit doubtful, and is included to show than even appealing to established authority has its pitfalls. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:34:36 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:34:36 -0600 Subject: An Omaha-Ponca Idiom for 'awhile', 'at length' Message-ID: Also in Boas & Swanton, 1911, pp. 944: "In addition to these terms, there is a syllable *tHe-* meaning FAR in space or time, which is employed in an analogous manner: *tHehaN* a long time, *tHehaNl* 'far'." I thought this *tHe* was interesting because I had noticed something perhaps reminiscent of it in Omaha-Ponca just yesterday. The demonstrative (?) syllable in the examples below is obviously homophonous with gaN 'so', and may be an idiomatic development of it. The article that follows when an article follows agrees with the article of a preceding noun, e.g., NOUN=the gaN'=the, which may support this. I wonder if anyone knows of a similar idiom in other Siouan languages? 90:36.3, 90:46.20, 90:297.5 gaN'=akh(a) '(after) standing/sitting a while' 90:601.3 gaN'=ama=i=the 'they were so for some time' 90:563.2 gaN'=dhiNkhe 'was there for a while' 90:311.3 gaN'=dhaNkha 'after they (stood) [sic] awhile' 90:211.12 gaN'=miNkhe 'I have ... been sitting for some time' 90:51.10 gaN'=thaN 'he was standing awhile' 90:278.1 gaN'=dhaN 'in a curvilinear heap for some time' 90:21.8, 90:152.18, 90:141.4, 90:345.12, 90:359.9 gaN'=the 'a (long) while; for some time; had lain [sic] there some time; it had stood for awhile (of a lodge)' 90:581.7 gaN'=ge=xti 'a long time' 90:265.4 gaN' maN'dhiN=bi(=ama) 'he walked for awhile (they say)' Note that gaN + gdhiN 'to sit' and gaN + naNz^iN 'to stand' are rendered 'so' + ... 90:58.19 gaN' e'=di 'still there' 90:771.1 gaN'=adi 'now' (intrusive -a- again) 90:396.11 gaN' gdhe'=tta 'at length will go away' From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:39:10 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:39:10 -0600 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie Message-ID: It might be interesting to know that Boas's "Notes on the Ponka Grammar" in the Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists of 1906, heavily reprised in Boas & Swanton 1911, is credited to a seminar led by Boas and involving "Miss Martha W. Beckwith, Mr. Albert B. Lewis, and Mr. R.A. Lowie." I don't recognize Beckwith or Lewis. From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:43:28 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:43:28 -0600 Subject: Other Contexts that Condition =bi In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: > 4) The 'heraldic' or 'announcement by authority' or 'formal' declarative > particles a'dha (male) and e'dhe (female) (sometimes ano (anau) in > songs or modern speech, I think) also condition =bi. Dorsey often > glosses these as 'indeed'. > > Dorsey 1890:33.10-11 > > "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. > "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED > > - Note that 'Rabbit' is consistently Mas^c^iN'ge in Dorsey's texts, > whereas modern Omahas seem to much prefer Mas^tiN'ge. > > - This form of the future, with =i (if needed) and no positional is used > for polite requests. You might call it the precative. I spoke too soon, cf. 90:144.14 s^aN'= s^kaghe=tta=i a'dha enough you do FUT PL indeed 'you will finish, indeed' From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Sep 23 17:52:32 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:52:32 -0600 Subject: Omaha-Ponca a/e Sentence Finals Message-ID: And, incidentally, Boas reminds me that a and e occur as male and female sentence finals in Omaha-Ponca 'to mark emphasis'. His examples (corrected somewhat): male: aNs^iN' idha'naNhiN a'! 'truely I am fat!' (567.9) female: dhi't?adhe=wadhe i'dhanaHniN e'! 'truely you are a hateful one!' (152.2-3) This is different from the *a *question final and the *a* female imperative final. And incidentally, this pair are a nice example of the inflected i'na(N)hiN 'be truely', idha'- and i'dha- are the regular first and second persons of i'- verbs. From rankin at ku.edu Sun Sep 23 20:53:55 2001 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 15:53:55 -0500 Subject: TTA irrealis allomorph spread Message-ID: >Incidentally, =the the 'evidently' evidential, also conditions ablaut in the future, since the 'shall surely' future is =tta=the. Given this last, I'm not sure if I'd say that the difference was in the future (or irrealis) morpheme, or the auxiliary sense. In Kaw I don't think I *ever* heard the E allomorph of 'irrealis/future'. It would palatalize to /cce/ in contrast to /tta/ with the non-front V. So for Kaw, it looks very much as though the more common "A" allomorph has spread analogically at the expense of the E allomorph. It may be that in Omaha any new contexts for 'irrealis' get the A form from speakers. I do recall both /tte/ and /tta/ in Quapaw texts. It's interesting that -akha is often thought of as the 3rd person of certain AUX's in the class with /miNkhe, ayiNhe, athaN/, etc. But it does not seem to be in this case, since those AUX's always condition the tta form of the future. Akha seems to have been a more recent development, since Quapaw seems to lack it entirely. Messy. Bob From jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu Mon Sep 24 13:05:48 2001 From: jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu (John Boyle) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 08:05:48 -0500 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Martha Beckwith was a student of Boas' who worked on the Ft. Berthold Reservation among many other places. She recorded a number of Mandan and Hidatsa stories. Although they are published in English there is a chance that she might have had notes or original transcriptions in Mandan and Hidatsa. I'm still working on this. >It might be interesting to know that Boas's "Notes on the Ponka Grammar" >in the Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists of 1906, >heavily reprised in Boas & Swanton 1911, is credited to a seminar led by >Boas and involving "Miss Martha W. Beckwith, Mr. Albert B. Lewis, and Mr. >R.A. Lowie." I don't recognize Beckwith or Lewis. From egooding at iupui.edu Mon Sep 24 15:27:22 2001 From: egooding at iupui.edu (Erik D Gooding) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:27:22 -0500 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: M. Beckwith also published in 1930 a collection of Lakota and Yankton materials which I refer to in my work all the time but, of course, now I cannot remember the title. It's a series of "tales", ethnographic sketches, as well as a Lakota winter count. Erik On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, John Boyle wrote: > Martha Beckwith was a student of Boas' who worked on the Ft. Berthold > Reservation among many other places. She recorded a number of Mandan > and Hidatsa stories. Although they are published in English there is > a chance that she might have had notes or original transcriptions in > Mandan and Hidatsa. I'm still working on this. > > >It might be interesting to know that Boas's "Notes on the Ponka Grammar" > >in the Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists of 1906, > >heavily reprised in Boas & Swanton 1911, is credited to a seminar led by > >Boas and involving "Miss Martha W. Beckwith, Mr. Albert B. Lewis, and Mr. > >R.A. Lowie." I don't recognize Beckwith or Lewis. > > From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Sep 24 17:18:47 2001 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:18:47 -0600 Subject: The Early Career of Robert Lowie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Erik D Gooding wrote: > M. Beckwith also published in 1930 a collection of Lakota and Yankton > materials which I refer to in my work all the time but, of course, now I > cannot remember the title. It's a series of "tales", ethnographic > sketches, as well as a Lakota winter count. It sounds like Beckwith's activities may have to some degree paralleled those of (Edward?) Kennard, who worked with Dakotan and Mandan in the 30s. Is that a coincidence? From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 25 03:44:31 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 22:44:31 -0500 Subject: Omaha-Ponca bi vs. i with "egaN" Message-ID: > John: > JOD 1890:17.3 > We'ahide=xti= atta hi uxdha'=bi egaN', > far away very at it arriving [they] overtook him having > t?e'=adha=bi= ama. > [they] killed him they say > Having overtaken him at a very distant location, they killed him. This is a narrative statement. The thing stated cannot be directly attested by the narrator. Hence, both the main clause and the subordinate clause are marked with -bi. > JOD 1890:40.9-10 > E'gidhe z^e'=adi=gdhaN ppe'z^i gdhi'za=bi e'gaN, > it came to pass loincloth bad he took his own "they say" having > we'za= hnaN adha=bi=ama > to give the alarm only he went they say > Then, having grabbed up his vile loincloth, he just went to given the > alarm. This is another narrative statement from a myth. Again, both clauses are marked with -bi, because the narrator cannot claim positive knowledge of what he is saying. > JOD 1890:23.4 > a'=b egaN > 'he said "they say" having' This, again, will be part of the narrative of a myth. Hence, we find the -bi (==> b) disclaimer as usual. > JOD 1890:17.9 > "Ga'=ama naghi'de=dhiN'ga=i e'=gaN e'=di dha'=z^i=a he" ehe'= dhaN > those they are disobedient as there go not IMP DEC I said PAST > s^aN' s^i e'=gaN c^?e'=dhidha=i. > yet you went as they killed you > 'Those folks are disobedient, so don't go to them!' I said, yet you went, > so they killed you. This is a dialogue statement. The Rabbit's grandmother claims positive knowledge that those folks are disobedient, and that "you" (the Rabbit) went. Hence, these clauses are not marked with the suppositional particle -bi. The third person clauses are marked with the "factual" declarative -i. > Dorsey 1890:15:7-9 > AN'haN -- negi'ha -- wa?u'z^iNga aka' -- dhine'gi -- Wasa'be -- > dhiNkhe'=tta -- maN'dhiN=a he -- ai' e'gaN -- aN'husa=i egaN' -- > phi ha,... > Yes -- o mother's brother -- old woman the -- your mother's brother -- > Blackbear -- the-to -- walk thou -- she said having -- she scolded me > having -- I've come DEC This is another dialogue statement. The Rabbit claims to know from personal experience that the old woman told him to go to his mother's brother, and that she scolded him. The third person clauses preceding both of these egaNs ends in the factual declarative particle -i, rather than the suppositional -bi which would be used if the narrator were to make these claims directly. As I've noted before, there is a substantial minority of cases where third-person narrative clauses fail to be marked with -bi, but I think the examples you have given illustrate the rule. As you do your analysis, I would strongly urge you to divide the narrative statements from the dialogue statements into separate piles, and keep a tally of which ones use -bi and which use -i or neither before the conjunction egaN. I think you will find that most narrative statements use -bi, and that virtually all dialogue statements do not. Next, you might want to try the same test with the conjunction ki; I think you will get the same result. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Tue Sep 25 23:31:56 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:31:56 -0500 Subject: akhe Message-ID: > Bob: > 2. "non-ablauting -e stem verb" There are no non-ablauting -e stems in > Dhegiha as far as I know. Only Dakotan, which has totally restructured the > system, has "non-ablauting -a stems". If you're going to be at the syntax > meeting, I'll distribute my paper on this there. Did you mean "non-ablauting -a stems", or did you mean to type "-e stems", in your reference to Dakotan? There certainly seem to be plenty of non-ablauting -a stems in OP, notably gaNdha, "want, wish", and udha', "tell". I'd certainly be interested in seeing your paper. I don't know anything about the meeting though. Rory From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Wed Sep 26 02:02:28 2001 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 21:02:28 -0500 Subject: Other Contexts that Condition =bi Message-ID: > On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, Koontz John E wrote: >> 4) The 'heraldic' or 'announcement by authority' or 'formal' declarative >> particles a'dha (male) and e'dhe (female) (sometimes ano (anau) in >> songs or modern speech, I think) also condition =bi. Dorsey often >> glosses these as 'indeed'. >> >> Dorsey 1890:33.10-11 >> >> "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. >> "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED >> >> - Note that 'Rabbit' is consistently Mas^c^iN'ge in Dorsey's texts, >> whereas modern Omahas seem to much prefer Mas^tiN'ge. >> >> - This form of the future, with =i (if needed) and no positional is used >> for polite requests. You might call it the precative. > I spoke too soon, cf. > 90:144.14 > s^aN'= s^kaghe=tta=i a'dha > enough you do FUT PL indeed > 'you will finish, indeed' Yes. I don't think that a'dha will predict -bi any more than ki or egaN do. The -i vs. -bi relate to the preceding thought, not to the conjunctions or emotional modifiers that follow. The second example is clear enough. The -i there is either PL, as you have it marked, or the factual declarative -i. This is a declaration (or veiled command) in the dialogue, addressed to a group, of what they are to do. There is no reason to use the suppositional, dubitative, subjunctive particle -bi in this case. Your first example is much more interesting. I have said in an earlier posting that you would find virtually no examples of -bi used in the dialogue. Here you have found one that I hadn't noticed before. >> "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe=tta=i" a'=bi a'dha. >> "Rabbit chief you will make him" he says INDEED If this is to be taken as a straight, deadpan statement "He says (or They say) you will make Rabbit a chief, indeed." then I would predict a=i rather than a=bi. But the Rabbit's dialogue here is subtile. The people he has freed from the Devouring Hill had started homeward, and then gathered together with the thought of making him chief. "Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi aNga'ghe tta=i", a'=bi=ama. "We will make Rabbit chief," they said (supposedly). The Rabbit may or may not be with them at the time; this isn't clear. In any case, he addresses the people and scornfully spikes the proposal as an absurdity. Mas^c^iN'ge ni'kkagahi s^ka'ghe tta=i a' =bi a'dha. Rabbit chief you make will he says, they say INDEED Wi' ni'kkagahi kaN'bdha a'dhiNhe'iNthe. I chief I wish I who move, it may be. Dorsey has a note on page 34: 33, 11. mas^c^iNge - - - a'bi a'dha, the words of the crier going through the camp, quoted by the Rabbit. kaN'bdha a'dhiNhe'iNthe (i. e., kaNbdha achiNhe eiNthe) is not in the *form* of a question, though it *implies* one, according to Sanssouci. His free translation runs: "It is said, 'You shall make the Rabbit chief.' As if *I*, for my part, had been desiring to be chief!! (Or, Have I been behaving as if I wished to be chief?) We all seem to be having a little trouble here. Dorsey's note implies that the entire first sentence is a quote by Rabbit of what the camp crier had said. But the people's words were already quoted in the previous sentence as a group proposal rather than as a command issued by a crier. Dorsey's own translation breaks out the a'bi a'dha as the Rabbit's assertion "It is said", and makes the rest of the sentence a direct quote, which contradicts the note. On page 83-84, we have a couple of examples of a herald issuing the chief's commands to the camp. They take the form: [Sentence] tte a=i' a'dha u+! will he says INDEED halloo! (Note the use of tte in this case as referencing a plurality.) This is closely parallel to what the Rabbit says, but takes the definite -i form rather than the dubitative -bi form. Also, the "he says" presumably refers to the chief; the people in the case of the Rabbit have as yet no chief. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this sentence, and I would like to see some more comparable examples. However, if I read it by the rule of suppositional -bi, I get: "You shall make Rabbit chief," they supposedly say, indeed. As if *I* wanted to be chief! Perhaps this can be best understood as a device commonly used by leading figures in the community to refuse an office that is about to be thrust upon them. If they use the definite form a=i' to reference the proposal, they make the proposal real. This is embarrassing to everyone if it should happen that it isn't. Furthermore, it clearly implies that some particular people that could be named are actually making the proposal. This association would be embarrassing to those implied parties, likely the leader's fondest friends, given that the proposal is being rejected. In this circumstance, it is probably better all around to pretend that the proposal is only a rumor, or the speaker's own misunderstanding of what has been said. While the Rabbit is certainly not going out of his way to be polite in this case, his lead-in to his rejection speech may just reflect the standard courteous formula of any leader in the circumstance of trying to reject an unwanted office. Rory