Ablaut (RE: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system)

[BARudes at aol.com]

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