Predicative (?)e (was RE: Nominal Ablaut, ...)

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Thu Sep 13 23:27:21 UTC 2001


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



More information about the Siouan mailing list