TTA irrealis allomorph spread

[Rankin, Robert L]

>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