From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec  1 01:16:11 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 18:16:11 -0700
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
Message-ID: <SAT.30.NOV.2002.181611.0700.>

This is actually, oddly enough, a query for the Muskoeanists on the list.
It arises out of some on and off discussion that has been going on among
some Algonquianists (Costa, Rhodes, Pentland) and Siouanists (Rankin,
Koontz) about the 'nine' (and related) forms in Algonquian, Siouan,
Muskogean, and, maybe, Tunica.  Bob Rankin is, of course, quite familiar
with Muskogean (and Tunica, for that matter), so it was really just now
that it occurred to me to wonder what other Muskogeanists thought about
'nine' and the relevant fricative corrspondences.  As there isn't a
Muskogean list and I'm not in any sort of regular communication with any
students of the family who aren't on this list, maybe I can ask the
question here, with apologies to those who quite reasonably might prefer
to discuss, say, Dakota syntax instead.

Any stray Algonquianists and Siouanists on the list are welcome to tackle
this, too, of course!

So the question isn't too mysterious, relevant forms would be:

Choctaw and Chickasaw c^akka:li 'nine'
Tunica sahku 'one', tohkusahku 'nine'   (I'm the only one who wonders
                        about this, in all honesty!)

Costa:  "Proto-Algonquian */$a:nka/ will account for *all* the reflexes
found in Algonquian *except* Shawnee, which has initial /c/ ('ch'):
/caakat0wi/ '9', /caaka/ '90' ..."  [$ = s^, c = c^, 0 = theta  JEK]

Omaha-Ponca s^aNkka    (typical of Dhegiha)
IO ?saNkhe             (that's glottal stop + s,
                        from earlier ? + s^ < *ks^)

Biloxi c^kane 'nine'   (perhaps a loan from Choctaw/Chickasaw)
Ofo kis^taNs^ka        (perhaps reformulated from *kis^aNhka)
Tutelo k(i)saNhka

====

A note of more general Siouan interest is that the IO form here is one of
the first in which Siouanists detected IO ?s as a reflex of *ks^.  Most
listeners have missed the ?.

JEK


From jbmart at wm.edu  Sun Dec  1 20:18:14 2002
From: jbmart at wm.edu (Jack Martin)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 15:18:14 -0500
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0211301710370.27178-100000@spot.colorado.edu >
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.151814.0500.>

John,

There is a division within the Muskogean languages on the number nine, but
we have to start with 'four'.  My data here are partly based on the
unpublished Muskogean cognates sets that Pam Munro and others have been
working on (well, sort of).

Each branch of the family has a related word for 'four':  Creek o^:stin,
Mikasuki si:ta^:kin, Alabama o'sta^:ka, Koasati osta:ka, Choctaw, Chickasaw
o$ta. (^=falling tone, '=acute accent, $=s with hachek).  These may point
to a form *ostaka or *ositaka.

In Creek and Mikasuki, the word for 'nine' is based on 'four':  Creek
ostapa^:kin [ost- 'four' + apa^:kin 'added in'], Mikasuki
ostapa^:kin.  (I'm not sure if the Mikasuki form is analyzable in
Mikasuki--it may be a loan from Creek.)

In the other languages (sometimes called the "Southwest" group), we see a
different form used:  Alabama ca'kka^:li, Koasati cakka:li, Choctaw
cakka:li, Chickasaw cakka?li.  (c=<ch>, ?=glottal stop)  Pam, in the
cognates sets, connects this to Choctaw, Chickasaw cakali 'pregnant' (i.e.,
about to become ten).  Numbers are in the "geminating grade" (an aspectual
form marked by gemination) in Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Alabama, so cakali >
cakka:li in Choctaw is a normal development.  As far as I know, Alabama and
Koasati to do not have a cognate for 'pregnant', though, so they may have
borrowed from Choctaw or Chickasaw, if the proposed etymology is right.

Where does this leave us?
-the similarities you observe are limited within Muskogean to what might be
called the more western/northern languages
-if Pam's etymology for 'nine' is accepted, and the forms in other
languages are cognate, then Choctaw or Chickasaw would be the most likely
source

Hope this helps.  I'm not sure why 'nine' would be borrowed.  As Haas and
others have noticed, the word for 'seven' was borrowed from Creek into
Cherokee, but seven is the special number for the Cherokee, so that sort of
makes sense (four is the special number in the Muskogean languages).

Incidentally, I've had some fun recently eliciting an old system of numbers
in Creek used for gambling.  I have several of these recorded now, but each
person remembers a slightly different version.  It seems like this sort of
thing might have passed easily between groups.

Jack


From munro at ucla.edu  Sun Dec  1 22:14:18 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 14:14:18 -0800
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.141418.0800.>

The only thing I can add to what Jack's written is to clarify that this
word for '(be) pregnant', Choctaw chakali, has a somewhat odd status.
It's not the normal way any modern speaker I've consulted with expresses
this concept, but is used in Byington's translation of the Bible
(expressing 'great with child', which in the numbers, if I am correct on
this connection, would be extended to 'great with ten' (!)). Speakers
know the word, but perhaps only because of this use. It's possible,
though, that it has some other, earlier meaning we haven't discovered.

Pam


From enichol4 at attbi.com  Sun Dec  1 22:46:33 2002
From: enichol4 at attbi.com (Eric)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 16:46:33 -0600
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.164633.0600.ENICHOL4@ATTBI.COM>

Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
is in?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Pamela Munro" <munro at ucla.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: John Lennon Memorial Query: No. 9


> The only thing I can add to what Jack's written is to clarify that this
> word for '(be) pregnant', Choctaw chakali, has a somewhat odd status.
> It's not the normal way any modern speaker I've consulted with expresses
> this concept, but is used in Byington's translation of the Bible
> (expressing 'great with child', which in the numbers, if I am correct on
> this connection, would be extended to 'great with ten' (!)). Speakers
> know the word, but perhaps only because of this use. It's possible,
> though, that it has some other, earlier meaning we haven't discovered.
>
> Pam
>


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 00:38:59 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 17:38:59 -0700
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
In-Reply-To: <007401c2998b$aef438e0$a096fb0c@cb530802a>
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.173859.0700.>

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002, Eric wrote:
> Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning
> with the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the
> pregnancy is in?

Actually, that didn't occur to me, I'm embarassed to say.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 17:55:57 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 10:55:57 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.105557.0700.>

I had to foward this one again because the Subject included the phrase
"please ignore."

John E. Koontz
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz

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Subject: Error Condition Re: Re: Muskogean 9; Siouanists please ignore.


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> > Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
> > the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
> > is in?

This would require looking at the time-keeping structure of the Choctaws
(et al.), which was probably lunar, although I'm in near total ignorance
of it.  All I know is that Dhegiha "month" terms are most often not
cognate and aren't really months -- they are descriptive terms for "short
seasons" that have sort of coalesced around Euro-month names since
contact.  But Eric's point is well taken as is Pam's.  Anything is
possible.  I just think that, at the moment, everything is unproven.  A
comprehensive search in other Muskogean languages for cognates of
'pregnant' in Choctaw/Chickasaw might well shed badly needed light on the
semantics of any earlier term.

Right now I still think of the "shanhka" word as a Wanderwort, native to
none of the three families where we find it.

 Bob


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 22:08:42 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 15:08:42 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212021052570.5945-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.150842.0700.>

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Eric wrote:
> Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
> the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
> is in?

Bob Rankin replies:
> This would require looking at the time-keeping structure of the Choctaws
> (et al.), which was probably lunar, although I'm in near total ignorance
> of it.  ...

Or it might not.  If it was something like "at nine (months)" the form
could arise solely from the context of Bible translation (per Pam Munro:
"used in Byington's translation of the Bible (expressing 'great with
child',...)").  That is, the term could be a neologism created to express
a particular conception of the meaning of "great with child."  The
potential for this sort of problem - neologisms to handle an alien concept
- is one of the reasons linguists are often reluctant to consider
linguistic data from Bible translations or any comparable in-translation
full of alien concepts, of course).  Another reason would be the
possibility of imported syntax - the syntactic equivalent of a neologism -
a neosyntagmism?

> All I know is that Dhegiha "month" terms are most often not cognate
> and aren't really months -- they are descriptive terms for "short
> seasons" that have sort of coalesced around Euro-month names since
> contact.

Somewhere I read an assessment of this that suggested that underlying
these systems in languages of the Old Northwest was probably a fairly
standard lunar calendar, in which the basically there were 12-13 month
names and some local authority would intercalate the extra month whenever
the lunar months difted too far out of synchrony with the solar year, not
unlike a lot of pre-Classical European systems.

I suppose the descriptive names of the months might vary from place to
place, too.

> Right now I still think of the "shanhka" word as a Wanderwort, native to
> none of the three families where we find it.

I agree, except that I wonder about the forms in a fourth family - Tunica.
The significance of the Tunica forms is that there sahku 'one' looks like
it connected with tohkusahku 'nine', and I wonder if the latter isn't
derived from the former along the usual lines of 'one less (than ten)'.
I don't know if tohku- can be analyzed in terms of the existing Tunica
data.  The phonology isn't too far out of line, especially if you consider
that Tunica might easily be an isolated remnant of something larger.

I'm curious whether the term Wanderwort implies that the source language
is uncertain.  Is it sufficient for the word to be widely distributed?


From jbmart at wm.edu  Mon Dec  2 22:55:41 2002
From: jbmart at wm.edu (Jack Martin)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 17:55:41 -0500
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212021443320.2093-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.175541.0500.>

Looking at Byington, it's hard for me to see that chakali means 'great with
child' rather than just 'pregnant'.  He cites Matt. 1:23 (Behold a virgin
shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name
Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us), where 'great with
child' doesn't really fit well, I think.

He also defines it as 'to teem', so my feeling is that Eric's connection to
nine months is funny but doubtful.

As for Tunica:  Haas compared to'hkusa'hku 'nine' to sa'hku 'one' in her
dictionary, but was apparently doubtful of what to'hku- meant.  Two
possibilities include to'hku 'to strike ... together' and t-o'hku-sa'hku
'the-offspring-one' (which she evidently didn't think of or rejected).  But
I'm confused about this:  if the word for 'nine' is a "Wanderwort", I don't
see how it could also be derived from 'one' in Tunica...

Jack



At 03:08 PM 12/2/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Eric wrote:
> > Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
> > the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
> > is in?
>
>Bob Rankin replies:
> > This would require looking at the time-keeping structure of the Choctaws
> > (et al.), which was probably lunar, although I'm in near total ignorance
> > of it.  ...
>
>Or it might not.  If it was something like "at nine (months)" the form
>could arise solely from the context of Bible translation (per Pam Munro:
>"used in Byington's translation of the Bible (expressing 'great with
>child',...)").  That is, the term could be a neologism created to express
>a particular conception of the meaning of "great with child."  The
>potential for this sort of problem - neologisms to handle an alien concept
>- is one of the reasons linguists are often reluctant to consider
>linguistic data from Bible translations or any comparable in-translation
>full of alien concepts, of course).  Another reason would be the
>possibility of imported syntax - the syntactic equivalent of a neologism -
>a neosyntagmism?
>
> > All I know is that Dhegiha "month" terms are most often not cognate
> > and aren't really months -- they are descriptive terms for "short
> > seasons" that have sort of coalesced around Euro-month names since
> > contact.
>
>Somewhere I read an assessment of this that suggested that underlying
>these systems in languages of the Old Northwest was probably a fairly
>standard lunar calendar, in which the basically there were 12-13 month
>names and some local authority would intercalate the extra month whenever
>the lunar months difted too far out of synchrony with the solar year, not
>unlike a lot of pre-Classical European systems.
>
>I suppose the descriptive names of the months might vary from place to
>place, too.
>
> > Right now I still think of the "shanhka" word as a Wanderwort, native to
> > none of the three families where we find it.
>
>I agree, except that I wonder about the forms in a fourth family - Tunica.
>The significance of the Tunica forms is that there sahku 'one' looks like
>it connected with tohkusahku 'nine', and I wonder if the latter isn't
>derived from the former along the usual lines of 'one less (than ten)'.
>I don't know if tohku- can be analyzed in terms of the existing Tunica
>data.  The phonology isn't too far out of line, especially if you consider
>that Tunica might easily be an isolated remnant of something larger.
>
>I'm curious whether the term Wanderwort implies that the source language
>is uncertain.  Is it sufficient for the word to be widely distributed?


From munro at ucla.edu  Mon Dec  2 23:13:21 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 15:13:21 -0800
Subject: Muskogean 9
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.151321.0800.>

I should not have mentioned 'great with child' -- I was just identifying
the Choctaw Bible passage most speakers appear to associate with this
word (where in fact I learned it). I don't think there's any evidence
that this is a neologism or that it has any (derivative) connection with
'nine', myself.

Pam

--
Pamela Munro
Professor
Department of Linguistics
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles Ca 90095-1543
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguistics/people/munro/munro.htm


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 23:53:32 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 16:53:32 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021202174353.01763778@mail.wm.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.165332.0700.>

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Jack Martin wrote:
> As for Tunica:  Haas compared to'hkusa'hku 'nine' to sa'hku 'one' in her
> dictionary, but was apparently doubtful of what to'hku- meant.  Two
> possibilities include to'hku 'to strike ... together' and t-o'hku-sa'hku
> 'the-offspring-one' (which she evidently didn't think of or rejected).  But
> I'm confused about this:  if the word for 'nine' is a "Wanderwort", I don't
> see how it could also be derived from 'one' in Tunica...

Actually, Siouan forms have something more like *kis^aNhka (refer back to
the list in the original post), and I was comparing that to (toh)kusahku.
The only virtue of sahku is in perhaps suggesting that the form tohkusahku
is native.  This would work with a progression from Tunica to Siouan to
Algonquian and Muskogean (and back to Siouan for Biloxi).

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec  3 00:03:02 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 17:03:02 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021202174353.01763778@mail.wm.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.170302.0700.>

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Jack Martin wrote:
> As for Tunica:  Haas compared to'hkusa'hku 'nine' to sa'hku 'one' in her
> dictionary, but was apparently doubtful of what to'hku- meant.  Two
> possibilities include to'hku 'to strike ... together' and t-o'hku-sa'hku
> 'the-offspring-one' (which she evidently didn't think of or rejected).

Offspring again, huh?  Interesting, but doesn't really seem to work.  For
analogy I was thinking of the Osage form '[(ten the) one it-lacks]' which
is the inverse of the various teen constructions '[ten sitting-on-it]
one', etc.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec  3 06:31:11 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 23:31:11 -0700
Subject: No, 7 (was Re: ... No. 9)
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021201144642.017d76e0@mail.wm.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.233111.0700.>

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002, Jack Martin wrote:
> Hope this helps.  I'm not sure why 'nine' would be borrowed.  As Haas and
> others have noticed, the word for 'seven' was borrowed from Creek into
> Cherokee, but seven is the special number for the Cherokee, so that sort of
> makes sense (four is the special number in the Muskogean languages).

Oddly enough a Siouan term for 'seven' was borrowed into Miami-Illinois.
And, actually, a fair number of numeral terms in Midwwestern languages
seem to be borrowed or innovated.  Indications of the former are usually
in the form of obvious similarities of form between otherwise unrelated or
only very distinatly related families, like the nine group.  But sometimes
forms within a particular family fail to obey sound laws in suspicious
ways.  For example, PS *raa'priN 'three' (cf. Dakota ya'mni(N)) is
da(a)'niN in Ioway-Otoe and daaniN' in Winnebago, but for 'eight' IO has
krera'briN in which -rabriN looks more like, say, Omaha-Ponca dha(a)'bdhiN
or Os dha(a)'briN 'three', or even Dakota ya'mni(N).  Maybe we just don't
understand the sound laws, but it sure looks like Ioway-Otoe 'eight'
borrows at least the 'three' part form some other Siouan language.

Indications of innovation are usually the occurrence of transparent
descriptions of hand signs, or additive or multiplicative terms, without
precedent elsewhere in the family, for example, the Osage 'nine' form
le(e)'braN=che wiN(iN)' dhiNke' 'lacking one of the ten' for 'nine' in
contast with Omaha-Ponca s^aN(aN)'kka 'nine' (attested everywhere else in
Dhegiha and in Ioway-Otoe), or Omaha-Ponca s^a(a)'ppe naN(aN)'ba 'two
sixes' for 'twelve' in contrast with more regular Kaw a(a)'liNnoNba
'sitting on it two' (the pattern for 'twelve' elsewhere in Dheigha, or for
teens in Dhegiha generally).

By the way, all those parenthetical vowels are places where I'm practicing
deducing the location of long vowels people haven't noted in the past.

Sometimes numbers are irregular with no particularly obvious reason for
it, for example, Da s^a'kpe, Dh *s^aa'ppe (or *s^aa'hpe), and IO saa'gwe
would be accounted for by PS s^aa'kpe, but Winnebago hakewe' (suggesting
*ha'kpe) doesn't fit, though it's obviously connected.

JEK


From pankihtamwa at earthlink.net  Tue Dec  3 17:10:24 2002
From: pankihtamwa at earthlink.net (David Costa)
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 09:10:24 -0800
Subject: 'nine' again
Message-ID: <TUE.3.DEC.2002.091024.0800.>

>> Hope this helps.  I'm not sure why 'nine' would be borrowed.  As Haas and
>> others have noticed, the word for 'seven' was borrowed from Creek into
>> Cherokee, but seven is the special number for the Cherokee, so that sort of
>> makes sense (four is the special number in the Muskogean languages).

> Oddly enough a Siouan term for 'seven' was borrowed into Miami-Illinois.

Not to be nitpicky, but it was 'eight', actually. :-)

As a matter of fact, 'nine' is borrowed quite often. The reason this whole
discussion began is because Rich Rhodes and I are cowriting a big paper on
the history of number words in Algonquian. A couple of larger points have
become quite clear from this paper which we didn't quite predict going into
it: (1) the notion that lower numbers (1-10) are resistant to borrowing has
to be thrown right out the window when doing comparative work on North
American languages. Numbers and various innovations among numbers
(especially 5-10) are *constantly* passed around among Algonquian languages.
And point (2), 'nine' is by far the least stable number among the Algonquian
languages. It's the most prone to borrowing and the most prone to innovation
with new neologisms getting passed around for it. Several widely separated
Algonquian languages have independently innovated phrases translating as
'missing one' or 'one left' for the number, though with wildly varying
material for the 'missing' or 'left' part (sometimes even for the 'one'
part).

That said, it *does* look as though a word can be reconstructed in
Proto-Algonquian for 'nine', PA */$a:nka/ ('$' = s-hacek; no known
etymology). An unsettlingly large number of the languages lack it (all the
Eastern languages, for starters), but the geographic spread on it is such
that it's probably not really feasible to attribute it to borrowing: it's
shared by Ojibwe-Potawatomi, Fox, Cree, Cheyenne, and, perhaps most
compellingly, one Arapahoan dialect. Granted, Shawnee screwed up the initial
consonant of the word, but other words have been reconstructed for
Proto-Algonquian on much flimsier evidence. (If it weren't for the Arapahoan
form, I'd lean towards calling it a very early loan from god-knows-where.)

So, then, this gets us back to the main question: if this word is
reconstructible in Proto-Algonquian, what's it doing in Siouan? And,
moreover, are the resemblant forms in Western Muskogean and Tunica related
in any way? For the latter, the question is whether Choctaw /cakka:li/~
Chickasaw /cakka?li/ is connected to Shawnee /ca:kat0wi/ '9' or /ca:ka/ '90'
in any way, or, secondarily, to Proto-Algonquian */$a:nka/. My current hunch
is that the Proto-Algonquian form and the Western Muskogean form(s) are
unrelated and just coincidentally similar, BUT that the Shawnee form changed
its initial consonant of 'under the influence' of the Western Muskogean
form. So it's sort of a quasi-loan.

One thing that might sway me away from thinking that the Proto-Algonquian
form and the Muskogean forms are just coincidentally similar is if a
scenario could be shown for how Western Muskogean could borrow a word with
s-hacek and eventually turn it into c-hacek. If this is an old loan within
Muskogean, and if there is an old sound law within the correct Muskogean
languages taking 'sh' to 'ch', then perhaps Muskogean did borrow it (note I
don't say from where). But the geography necessary for such a scenario isn't
very easy to visualize. At least not for me.

As far as the Siouan forms are concerned, the message Bob has given me
several times is that the word just cannot be reconstructed for Proto-
Siouan. So Chiwere, Dhegiha, and Tutelo probably got it from Algonquian (tho
Biloxi got it from Western Muskogean). As Bob has pointed out, this would
explain why the sibilants don't match among the Siouan forms. Tho I leave it
to the Siouanists to explain why Siouan seems to have borrowed it with an
initial */kV-/ syllable tacked on, which no Algonquian language has.

Thanks for listening. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. :-)

Dave Costa


From hhgarvin at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 12 18:35:39 2002
From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:35:39 -0600
Subject: Positionals
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.123539.0600.>

Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.

I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the prominence
and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I have
noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes, I
would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
Thank You


Henning Garvin
University of WIsconsin-Madison
Linguistics/Anthropology


_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 12 19:20:21 2002
From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 19:20:21 -0000
Subject: Positionals
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.192021.0000.ANTHONY.GRANT3@BTINTERNET.COM>

Dear Mr Garvin:

As I understand it, our fellow list-member Bob Rankin has worked on these
positionals in Dhegiha Siouan, though I don't know that he's published
anything.  he has given conference papers on them, though.

Best wishes

Anthony Grant.
----- Original Message -----
From: Henning Garvin <hhgarvin at hotmail.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 6:35 PM
Subject: Positionals


>
> Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.
>
> I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
> form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the
prominence
> and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I
have
> noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes,
I
> would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
> unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
> can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
> Thank You
>
>
> Henning Garvin
> University of WIsconsin-Madison
> Linguistics/Anthropology
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
>


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 12 20:27:22 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:27:22 -0800
Subject: Job opps?
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.122722.0800.>

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone out there knows of any positions for an MA Linguistics with an interest in Native American languages, Siouan or otherwise.  Teaching and/or researching?  I'm currently living in Sacramento, CA, but would be willing to relocate for the right job.  I'm essentially unemployed although I've been working on some telecommuting projects with voice recognition companies in San José, and I've published a couple of articles with Language Magazine this past year (I'm now working on another article).   

Please let me know if you hear of anything out there.  Thanks!

Dave Kaufman
916-971-1507
dvklinguist at hotmail.com
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html
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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 12 20:39:20 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:39:20 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.123920.0800.>

Hi,

I'm currently working on an article regarding the "verby" aspect of many Native American languages vs. the "nouny" aspect of Indo-European languages.  I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like "It is bowl-ing."  Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"!  (John B.--please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, since you're the Hidatsa expert!)  I'm wondering if other Siouan languages and even non-Siouan languages might have similar grammatical constructs where an English noun or adjective actually becomes a verb form in the Native American language.

Any info will be appreciated!  Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Dave Kaufman
dvklinguist at hotmail.com
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From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 12 21:27:43 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 14:27:43 -0700
Subject: No Subject (fwd)
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.142743.0700.>

A note from Lloyd Anderson:

Powell's book store is having a sale,
Dorsey's Cegiha Language
is available for $180

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-1299551106-0

Lloyd


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 12 21:29:30 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 15:29:30 -0600
Subject: Fw: Book sale.
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.152930.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <ECOLING at aol.com>
To: <rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu>; <John.Koontz at Colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 1:12 PM
Subject: No Subject


> Powell's book store is having a sale,
> Dorsey's Cegiha Language
> is available for $180

> http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-1299551106-0

> Lloyd


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 12 21:41:03 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 15:41:03 -0600
Subject: Positionals
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.154103.0600.>

I have a longish paper on Siouan positionals that should appear before the end of the year in _Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung_.  Despite the journal name the papers are in English.  The UW library ought to have it when it comes out.  In the meantime, I can send a copy if you need it.  I'd need a mailing address.

I cover Dhegiha especially, but also deal with the positionals in several other Siouan languages.  I have very little on Ho Chunk however, and there is MUCH yet to be done with the positionals.  I hope you'll contribute to knowledge of how they work in Ho Chunk.

I had an older paper in the Mid-America Linguistics conference proceedings way back in the mid '70's, but the newer one in S.T.U.F. is the one to read.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Henning Garvin <hhgarvin at hotmail.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 12:35 PM
Subject: Positionals


>
> Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.
>
> I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
> form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the prominence
> and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I have
> noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes, I
> would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
> unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
> can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
> Thank You
>
>
> Henning Garvin
> University of WIsconsin-Madison
> Linguistics/Anthropology
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Thu Dec 12 22:38:05 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 16:38:05 -0600
Subject: Positionals
In-Reply-To: <004901c2a227$2eeb6c00$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.163805.0600.>

I have a paper on positionals in Osage.  From the Spearfish conference this
past summer 2002.  Were these papers being made available as a group?  If
not, I can send a copy snailmail, as the special characters don't seem to
email well.
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of R. Rankin
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:41 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Positionals


I have a longish paper on Siouan positionals that should appear before the
end of the year in _Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung_.  Despite the
journal name the papers are in English.  The UW library ought to have it
when it comes out.  In the meantime, I can send a copy if you need it.  I'd
need a mailing address.

I cover Dhegiha especially, but also deal with the positionals in several
other Siouan languages.  I have very little on Ho Chunk however, and there
is MUCH yet to be done with the positionals.  I hope you'll contribute to
knowledge of how they work in Ho Chunk.

I had an older paper in the Mid-America Linguistics conference proceedings
way back in the mid '70's, but the newer one in S.T.U.F. is the one to read.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Henning Garvin <hhgarvin at hotmail.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 12:35 PM
Subject: Positionals


>
> Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.
>
> I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
> form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the
prominence
> and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I
have
> noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes,
I
> would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
> unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
> can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
> Thank You
>
>
> Henning Garvin
> University of WIsconsin-Madison
> Linguistics/Anthropology
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>


From BARudes at aol.com  Thu Dec 12 23:01:13 2002
From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 18:01:13 EST
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.180113.EST.>

Dave,

Although not a Siouan language, in the distantly related Catawban language,
Catawba, any part of speech may be turned into a verb form by adding a modal
suffix.  Typically, it is the independent (or indicative) modal suffix -re:
that is used, but there are also examples of verbalization involving other
modal suffixes, in particular the interrogative modal -ne. Thus, one finds
kiN 'the', k'iNre: 'it is the one', k'iNne 'is it the one?'; h'i:ya: 'that
(yonder), hi:y'a:re: ' it is out of sight'; n'aNpari 'two', n'aNparire:
'there are two (of them)'; ar'i: 'true', ar'i:re: 'it is true'; de: 'I
(emphatic)', d'e:re: 'it is I'; w'i:ba: 'barred owl', wi:b'a:re: 'it is
(the/a) barred owl'.

Blair
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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 13 00:15:08 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 16:15:08 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.161508.0800.>

Blair,

Thanks for the info!!!

D.

----- Original Message -----
From: BARudes at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:03 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Information

Dave,

Although not a Siouan language, in the distantly related Catawban language, Catawba, any part of speech may be turned into a verb form by adding a modal suffix.  Typically, it is the independent (or indicative) modal suffix -re: that is used, but there are also examples of verbalization involving other modal suffixes, in particular the interrogative modal -ne. Thus, one finds kiN 'the', k'iNre: 'it is the one', k'iNne 'is it the one?'; h'i:ya: 'that (yonder), hi:y'a:re: ' it is out of sight'; n'aNpari 'two', n'aNparire: 'there are two (of them)'; ar'i: 'true', ar'i:re: 'it is true'; de: 'I (emphatic)', d'e:re: 'it is I'; w'i:ba: 'barred owl', wi:b'a:re: 'it is (the/a) barred owl'.

Blair        
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From mmccaffe at indiana.edu  Fri Dec 13 00:23:19 2002
From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 19:23:19 -0500
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE21hoQlXJRqujpghmP00010d9d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.192319.0500.>

absolutamente. In Nahuatl verbs are a way to satisfy the English palate
for adjectives. Nitlatta = 'i see something' but can mean 'i am attentive,
observant' Nahuatl has many verb formations of this nature. Also, nouns
serve as adjectives, too. oquechtli = 'it is a man' but can mean
'masculine'. In cihua:tl oquechtli = 'she is a mannish woman'.

Michael Mccafferty

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm currently working on an article regarding the "verby" aspect of many Native American languages vs. the "nouny" aspect of Indo-European languages.  I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like "It is bowl-ing."  Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"!  (John B.--please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, since you're the Hidatsa expert!)  I'm wondering if other Siouan languages and even non-Siouan languages might have similar grammatical constructs where an English noun or adjective actually becomes a verb form in the Native American language.
>
> Any info will be appreciated!  Thanks, and Happy Holidays!
>
> Dave Kaufman
> dvklinguist at hotmail.com
>


Michael McCafferty
307 Memorial Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu

"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you
will keep saying again and again, "This is certainly not like we thought
it was".

--Rumi


From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Fri Dec 13 06:01:44 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 07:01:44 +0100
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.1021212191947.16357B-100000@ariel.ucs.indian a.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.070144.0100.>

At 19:23 12.12.02 -0500, Michael Mccafferty wrote:
>In Nahuatl verbs are a way to satisfy the English palate for adjectives.

I must say I'd regard the formal preference for verbs vs. nouns
(substantives, adjectives), or expressions involving one or the other, only
as one side of the coin.

As for adjectives, as Dixon had pointed out long ago, many languages have
only a not too large and closed class of true adjectives, while the rest of
adjectival *concepts* is denoted by (lexical) verbs. In the Old World e.g.
Dravidian could serve as an example. So this would be a systemic constraint
that leaves little room for choices or preferences.

As for nouns, so far it mostly seems to have been about a combination with
some kind of predicative suffix. In so far this could be regarded as
functionally equivalent to the copula in an Aristotelean predication (say
as opposed to conversion as with English hammer).

At the same time about nouns and verbs there could be many more aspects
mentioned. E.g., do verbs constitute a larger lexical class than verbs?
could one then say that there are much more concepts denoting events than
there are concepts denoting entities involved in such events? (In such a
case it again wouldn't be a preference but just what one reasonably might
have expected anyway). Similar with verbal vs. nominal grammatical
categories (also language families like Algonquian come to mind which have
a lot to offer in *both* departments).

Not to speak of the classical problem of lacking or weakly developed
noun-verb-distinctions and the question whether such words from a typology
& universals perspective could (should) be said to display more of noun- or
verb-like properties.

Also, what happens in discourse? Do larger sentences packed with nominal
terms for actants and circumstants make a language "nouny"? etc. etc.

And probably still many facets more...

All the best,

Heike


From bi1 at soas.ac.uk  Fri Dec 13 12:18:55 2002
From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (bi1 at soas.ac.uk)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 12:18:55 -0000
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE21hoQlXJRqujpghmP00010d9d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.121855.0000.>

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From munro at ucla.edu  Fri Dec 13 15:36:57 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 07:36:57 -0800
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.073657.0800.>

The verbiness of certain American Indian languages is a topic I've long
thought about -- it's absolutely true that in some languages there
simply are more verbs than in others.

However, I would like to know the evidence that Lakhota thípi is still a
verb in all uses (of course it can certainly be a main verb expressing
'they live'). (Translation is not evidence, of course. Certainly many
concepts both concrete and (especially) abstract that are nouns in
familiar European languages are expressed with verbs in languages like
Lakhota.)

However, unless I am mistaken there are certainly a few (!) tests for
nominal vs. verbal status in Lakhota. One of these, I'd say, would be
occurrence with the possessive prefixes tha- etc. Of course not all
things that (I'd say) were nouns do occur with these, but my belief is
that anything that does occur with them is (in that usage) not a verb.
And thathípi is the possessed form of 'house' that I've recorded.

Pam


From rankin at ku.edu  Fri Dec 13 15:57:56 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 09:57:56 -0600
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.095756.0600.>

>However, I would like to know the evidence that Lakhota thípi is still a
verb in all uses (of course it can certainly be a main verb expressing
'they live').

Thipi fills the technical bill as a verb, but I wonder if you don't tend to
get some additional derivation when it REALLY functions as the V in the
sentence.  In other Siouan languages at least one might tend to get the
local equivalent of o-thi-pi "they live IN it" or some other locative
prefix.  And the expression that means 'they are alive' would call for an
entirely different verb.

I have to admit though, that, after the Siouan syntax meeting a year ago, I
began to wonder if there were ANY hard and fast lexical classes in Siouan
languages.  For example, Lakhota is conjugated, la-ma-khota, la-ni-khota,
etc.  Can it also be possessed?  That I don't know.

Just to muddy the water. . . .

Bob


From munro at ucla.edu  Fri Dec 13 16:11:38 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 08:11:38 -0800
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.081138.0800.>

I need to reiterate that I think that the same word can sometimes be a
verb and sometimes be a noun. Of course in many sentences thípi is a
verb (it too can be conjugated, of course). I am simply suggesting that
in some cases it is not a verb.

I have not thought about these specific questions for Lakhota
extensively, but I think another strictly nominal occurrence is as a
possessor or as the first element in a Noun-Noun compound. I don't
believe that verbs can occur in these types of constructions. Thus, when
we say Lakhóta wíyan 'Lakhota woman' or Lakhóta thathipi 'the Lakhota's
house', I think Lakhota is a noun.

In terms of the status of Lakhota when it is inflected as a predicate,
my feeling is a bit less clear. I guess I would say that this word can
be both a stative verb and a noun, but I'd have to think about it a bit
more.

Pam


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Fri Dec 13 18:20:43 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:20:43 -0500
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <3DFA06B9.BA0339FD@ucla.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.132043.0500.>

Here are some Assiniboine examples where thi and thipi are clearly
nouns:

huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'

tuwe thi mahen phi'iNch'iyac  'someone was moving around in the lodge'

thi kaNyena knapi  'they were going back near the camp'

And an example with Bob's suggested locative o-:

"maz'othi, maz'othi" eya. HiN! zhechen maz'othi cha eyash knihe
huNshta
'"Iron lodge, iron lodge!" he said. Oh! then an iron lodge (like that)
dropped down, it is said.'

Linda



-------------------
> I need to reiterate that I think that the same word can sometimes be
a
> verb and sometimes be a noun. Of course in many sentences thípi is a
> verb (it too can be conjugated, of course). I am simply suggesting
that
> in some cases it is not a verb.
>
> I have not thought about these specific questions for Lakhota
> extensively, but I think another strictly nominal occurrence is as a
> possessor or as the first element in a Noun-Noun compound. I don't
> believe that verbs can occur in these types of constructions. Thus,
when
> we say Lakhóta wíyan 'Lakhota woman' or Lakhóta thathipi 'the
Lakhota's
> house', I think Lakhota is a noun.
>
> In terms of the status of Lakhota when it is inflected as a
predicate,
> my feeling is a bit less clear. I guess I would say that this word
can
> be both a stative verb and a noun, but I'd have to think about it a
bit
> more.
>
> Pam
>
>
>


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Fri Dec 13 19:45:18 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 12:45:18 -0700
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <F73B91BED37FD5119F970008C7CF50FC0C9C2013@skylark.mail.ukans.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.124518.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> Thipi fills the technical bill as a verb, but I wonder if you don't tend to
> get some additional derivation when it REALLY functions as the V in the
> sentence.  In other Siouan languages at least one might tend to get the
> local equivalent of o-thi-pi "they live IN it" or some other locative
> prefix.  And the expression that means 'they are alive' would call for an
> entirely different verb.

Actually, it's usually just something analogous with *othi or even
underived thi.  In Dhegiha in particular one of the marks of nominality is
lack of plural marking (which tends to occur with third singular as well
as plural).


From Rgraczyk at aol.com  Fri Dec 13 19:54:35 2002
From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Randolph Graczyk)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 14:54:35 EST
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.145435.EST.>

In a message dated 12/12/2002 1:45:29 PM Mountain Standard Time,
dvklinguist at hotmail.com writes:

> I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially
> makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a
> sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become
> wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like
> "It is bowl-ing."


> In constructions like these, Hidatsa and Crow simply lack a copula.  I don't
> think it's accurate to say that this construction transforms a noun into a
> verb; perhaps it would be better to say that the noun functions as a
> predicate.  Wacawiric is best translated 'it is a bowl', not 'it is
> bowl-ing.'
>
> Randy

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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 13 21:51:25 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:51:25 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.135125.0800.>

Your point is well taken.  But at the risk of perhaps sounding too "Whorfian," I can't help but wonder if there is a different concept at work in many Native American languages which display this type of grammatical construct.  I hark back to Whorf's example from Hopi in which he says that the English version of rehpi, "flashed," must be translated into English as "It flashed" or "a light flashed" as if there is a separate entity doing the flashing, even though the English "it," "light," and "flash" are one and the same.  And this is only because we MUST have a noun and a verb for a "complete" English sentence, forced by English grammar, which is obviously not true in many of these Native languages.  There seems to be ample evidence from several Native languages that there is a much more "fluid" thought process going on, including a story I heard that a Mikmaq speaker, when translating from English into his own language, did not utter a single noun in his translation, even though the English version was full of them!  The crux of my proposed article is that there may indeed be a different thought process among many Native American speakers in which they think in a more verby way, with the grammars of their languages permitting an implicit sense of a perceiver-perceived relationship and process/systems thinking not grammatically permitted in Indo-European languages where we tend to ignore fluidity and process and focus more on concrete "objects."  I keep wondering if this indeed could lead to a different "thought" process based on the inherent differences in grammar.

Perhaps I'm too "out there" with this, but it is an interesting question and debate and might make for good reading!

Dave

----- Original Message -----
From: Rgraczyk at aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 11:55 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Information

In a message dated 12/12/2002 1:45:29 PM Mountain Standard Time, dvklinguist at hotmail.com writes:


I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like "It is bowl-ing."




In constructions like these, Hidatsa and Crow simply lack a copula.  I don't think it's accurate to say that this construction transforms a noun into a verb; perhaps it would be better to say that the noun functions as a predicate.  Wacawiric is best translated 'it is a bowl', not 'it is bowl-ing.'

Randy
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From rankin at ku.edu  Fri Dec 13 22:33:43 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 16:33:43 -0600
Subject: live = be alive.
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.163343.0600.>

I'm not sure what John was referring to in his reply to my post about 'be alive' requiring a different verb from thi or othi, but the normal way to say 'live' in the sense of 'be alive' is /ni/ or /nitta/.  It's a verb conjugated anitta, dhanitta, etc. in Dhegiha.  'live in a place' is the (o)-tti verb.  I can't speak for Dakotan.

Bob


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 07:03:14 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:03:14 -0700
Subject: Siouan & Caddoan Conference
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.000314.0700.>

I thought it might be appropriate to repost this from the SSILA Newsletter
Online.  JEK

* Siouan-Caddoan Conference (Michigan State U, August 8-10)
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>From Ardis Eschenberg (ardise at hotmail.com) 1 Dec 2002:

The 23rd annual Siouan and Caddoan Languages Conference will be held in
conjunction with the 2003 LSA Institute on August 8-10, 2003, at Michigan
State University, East Lansing.  Papers concerning any topic in Siouan
and Caddoan languages and linguistics are welcome.  Abstracts should be
no longer than 250 words and can be submitted in hard copy or email form.
Abstracts must be received by July 3, 2003.

Address for hard copies:

                        John P. Boyle
                        Department of Linguistics
                        University of Chicago
                        1010 East 59th St.
                        Chicago, IL  60613

Address for email copies (MSWord and PDF versions preferred):

                        jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu

Website: http://wings.buffalo.edu/linguistics/ssila/SACCweb/SACC.htm


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 07:35:13 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:35:13 -0700
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20021213061216.009e7bb0@nc-boedekan@pop3.netcologne.de>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.003513.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Heike Bödeker wrote:
> As for adjectives, as Dixon had pointed out long ago, many languages have
> only a not too large and closed class of true adjectives, ...

And, effectively, essentially all Siouan languages seem to have an
adjective class so closed as to be nonexistant, with essentially all
adjectival modifiers being either (a) objectively inflected verbs
(statives), (b) preposed nouns, or (c) preposed nominalized clauses
(relative clauses).  I say 'essentially all' several times because at
least Biloxi seems to lack stative verbs per se (but doesn't have
adjectives) and I'm not positive that there might not be some Siouan
language with an adjective or two (in some sense), though I don't know of
anything in tha line.

> As for nouns, so far it mostly seems to have been about a combination with
> some kind of predicative suffix. In so far this could be regarded as
> functionally equivalent to the copula in an Aristotelean predication (say
> as opposed to conversion as with English hammer).

Incidentally, Dixon has just published a typology of copulas in
Anthropological Linguistics 44.1 (Spring 2002):  "Copular clauses in
Australian languages:  a typological perspective."

I agree with Heike that there are a number of dimensions to the question
of nouniness vs. verbiness in language.  Stative verbs and predicative use
of nominals is only part of it.  Beside the issues Heike raises, an issue
here is the extent to which a language exhibits nominal vs. verbal
morphology.

To some extent I thought that this might be what David Kaufman was getting
at.  Siouan languages are very short of nominal inflectional and
derivational patterns.  Some form of inalienable possessor marking is
about the only inflectional pattern exhibited widely (and even this is
moribund in languages like Winnebago).  There are usually only a very few
noun to noun derivational patterns.  And typically the mark of
nominalization of verbs (a common event) is zero (excluding the potential
co-occurrence of determiners with the now nominalized verb form).  The
absence of nominalizing morphology leads to the striking absence of
participial and infinitival forms, though copious use of conjunctions and
determiners makes up for this.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:09:57 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:09:57 -0700
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <200212131820.NAA18249@iupui.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.010957.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Linda Cumberland wrote:
> Here are some Assiniboine examples where thi and thipi are clearly
> nouns:
>
> huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'
>
> tuwe thi mahen phi'iNch'iyac  'someone was moving around in the lodge'

I take it that the idea is that these postpositions can only govern nouns
in Dakota syntax?  Is this true of all postpositions though?  I'd think
that this certainly wouldn't work as a test in Omaha-Ponca.  And without a
contrast between noun-governing and verb-, or rather clause-, governing
postpositions it might be possible (in at least some theories of
linguistics) to object that this mini-clause 'they live [there]', though
it has a potentially more general meaning than '(their) lodge' is still to
be taken in the context as the conventional mode of referring to the more
restricted meaning.

How would one distinguish in Dakotan languages between 'he went back to
his mother's lodge' and 'he went back toward where his mother lives (or
lived)'?

I have the impression that the way to do this in OP might involve some
sort of focus construction, i.e, 'to her house' vs. 'to there where she
lived'.  Actually, at least in some contexts there is a special possessed
form of 'house', which is etti 'his/her house' vs. tti 'house'.

One special postpositional formation you can detect in OP is the special
adverbialized form of 'to the house', which is ttiatta 'to/at the house'
(like Dakotan thiyata)  or ttiadi 'in(to)  the house' as opposed to
tti=the=tta or tti=the=di, with an article (one of the possible articles).
I claim this is historically a special variant of ablaut, in effect, as
tta (cf. Da -k-ta)  and di (cf. Da -tu ~ -l) condition ablaut in OP
(though this is becoming optional in the texts).  An example would be
maNthe 'inside, beneath' vs. maNthadi 'in the interior of', which would be
cognate with the mahen in Assiniboine.


> And an example with Bob's suggested locative o-:
>
> "maz'othi, maz'othi" eya. HiN! zhechen maz'othi cha eyash knihe
> huNshta '"Iron lodge, iron lodge!" he said. Oh! then an iron lodge
> (like that) dropped down, it is said.'

With rather a thud, I imagine!

This could be interpreted as maza + othi 'iron' + 'lodge', but what about
'iron' + 'they live in (it)', i.e., something like 'iron that they live
in' or nore nominally 'iron for living in'?  I take it that othi doesn't
occur alone in the sense of lodge?

I can't tell you how odd it seems to me for that locative to be missing,
though it is missing in Dhegiha, too!

I can say how nice it is to see Assiniboine examples!  The zhe
demonstrative is very homelike to a Dhegiha student.  I've never forgotten
it, not since I fell over it while trying to explain southern Dakotan he
as the regular phonological correspondant of Dhegiha s^e.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:17:37 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:17:37 -0700
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE51BQOUHXMrmffD3Rg0000522a@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.011737.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> ...
> I hark back to Whorf's example from Hopi in
> which he says that the English version of rehpi, "flashed," must be
> translated into English as "It flashed" or "a light flashed" as if
> there is a separate entity doing the flashing, even though the English
> "it," "light," and "flash" are one and the same.  And this is only
> because we MUST have a noun and a verb for a "complete" English
> sentence, forced by English grammar, which is obviously not true in
> many of these Native languages. ...

For that matter an independent subject pronominal is not required in some
European languages.  I'm not sure that says anything much about the
conceptualization of the activity.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:20:32 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:20:32 -0700
Subject: live = be alive.
In-Reply-To: <000201c2a384$167879c0$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.012032.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, R. Rankin wrote:

> I'm not sure what John was referring to in his reply to my post about
> 'be alive' requiring a different verb from thi or othi, ...

Did I say that? I thought I was saying that reflexes of *hti 'dwell' in
the sense 'house, lodge, etc.' occurred with or without o-, and generally
without an pluralization.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:26:21 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:26:21 -0700
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE21hoQlXJRqujpghmP00010d9d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.012621.0700.>

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace
> wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"! ... I'm
> wondering if other Siouan languages and even non-Siouan languages
> might have similar grammatical constructs where an English noun or
> adjective actually becomes a verb form in the Native American
> language.

Is this a stative verb in Hidatsa?  I wonder about the wa- in light of
some past discussions of experiencer verbs.  For example, one normally
thinks of wakhega 'sick' or was^us^e 'brave, generous' as statives in OP<
and they do inflect objectively, but, in effect, the wa- seems to refer to
a de-emphasized patient, the thing in which the sickness is felt, or the
process by which the courage is exhibited (giving away things one might
well need oneself).

Interestingly, the OP verb snede 'long, tall' is avoided in favor of a
postpositional form maNs^iadi 'in the sky/clouds' with intrusive -a-
again.

JEK


From rankin at ku.edu  Sun Dec 15 16:03:52 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 10:03:52 -0600
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.100352.0600.>

> Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace
> wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"!

I think that's just a function of the English translation -- the sort of thing Pam mentioned.  Mary Haas used to say "You can't translate a language into English and then analyze the English."  It's probably better to translate all of these Siouan stative verbs not as "to tall", "to cold" etc. but rather "to BE tall", etc.  The "be" is simply included in the semantics of the Siouan stative verb (or modifier, if you like).

Bob


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Sun Dec 15 18:10:12 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 13:10:12 -0500
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212150039300.19095-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.131012.0500.>

>How would one distinguish in Dakotan languages between 'he went back
to
>his mother's lodge' and 'he went back toward where his mother lives
(or lived)'?

	My first reaction is to observe that the apparent mis-match in number
agreement would be evidence:  ‘huNku’ (singular), thipi (plural):

	huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'

If you analyze =pi as a nominalizer, there’s no mis-match.  On the
other hand, we have an example from the same text where a character
says, “ina owiNchakiciyaga” where the literal translations of ina
‘mother’ and wiNcha ‘them’ don’t agree - it’s
untranslatable unless you read “ina” as meaning “my mother’s
people”: ‘tell(-them) my mother’s people for me’ (female
speaking: Assiniboine lacks a female imperative enclitic).

So, back to “huNku thipi ekta” - if this refers to ‘the lodge of
his mother’s people’ then you could consider thipi as a plural,
and the phrase would mean “the lodge where his mother’s people
live” (although you would then expect the locative o-).  But I think
this is an unnecessary complication. +pi as a nominalizing morpheme
clearly derives from the 3rd plural enclitic =pi, but it is so
consistently used in NPs that it seems acrobatic to have to analyze it
as a plural in those positions.  (I recall David’s having argued
this somewhere, too, but I can’t remember where, offhand.)

Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but the whole non-verb question, at least
in Assiniboine and its close relatives, seems to me to be handled in
the syntax - the position determines the grammatical class within the
clause, and the position in the clause determines whether the lexical
item may be inflected or not.  English does this, too: “He  tabled
the proposal for later consideration” (verb), “The tabled proposal
will be reconsidered on Monday” (adjective), “He put his proposal
on the table” (noun).  How do *we* distinguish the grammatical class
of “table” in these cases?

Sometimes I get the impression that when we look at other languages we
make things seem more exotic than they really are - or we fail to
notice that our own language is (oxymoronically) equally exotic. There
is a fine line between this view and the ancient ethnocentric practice
of analyzing an unfamiliar grammar in terms of familiar categories,
but I don’t think I’m falling into that bad habit here. (nor into
Mary Haas's dictum that Bob just shared.)

> And an example with Bob's suggested locative o-:
>
> "maz'othi, maz'othi" eya. HiN! zhechen maz'othi cha eyash knihe
> huNshta '"Iron lodge, iron lodge!" he said. Oh! then an iron lodge
> (like that) dropped down, it is said.'

>With rather a thud, I imagine!

Indeed! This is from a story in which Inktomi magically calls down a
lodge made of iron to protect a group from the onslaught of a charging
buffalo monster that butts against the iron lodge and mashes it.

>This could be interpreted as maza + othi 'iron' + 'lodge', but what
about
>'iron' + 'they live in (it)', i.e., something like 'iron that they
live
>in' or nore nominally 'iron for living in'?  I take it that othi
doesn't
>occur alone in the sense of lodge?

I think it in this case it does - no one in the story ever lived in
(or would contemplate living in) the iron lodge - it was invoked as a
temporary protection in a temporary dangerous situation.  (Imagine
trying to take an iron tipi down and moving it anywhere!)  It seems to
me to be pretty clear example of ‘lodge’ rather than ‘they lived
there’

>I can say how nice it is to see Assiniboine examples!  The zhe
>demonstrative is very homelike to a Dhegiha student.

Assiniboine lacks a definite article, so the demonstratives “stand
in” when definiteness is required, and also as the relative clause
marker.

Linda


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 15 18:31:32 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 10:31:32 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.103132.0800.>

John,

That's true if you're referring to Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, for instance:

(noi) andiamo = we go (Italian)
(él) va = he goes (Spanish)
(ele) vai = he goes (Portuguese)

where the subject pronominal can be left off and just the verb form is stated.  But remember that these languages also change the verb conjugation form for each person or number (ex. voy, vas, va, vamos, van in Spanish) so that it's really not necessary to use the pronoun except for emphasis.  Still, they MUST choose the correct verb form to reflect person and number, meaning they are still thinking of a subject (actor/s) doing the verb action and must choose the verb conjugation form accordingly.  In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at all--just the verb form--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?  Who or what is doing the flashing??  There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or Nature is doing it).  This is what I find interesting about the Native American and Indo-European thought process in using or not using subjects or nouns.

Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: Koontz John E
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:18 AM
To: Siouan List
Subject: Re: Information

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> ...
> I hark back to Whorf's example from Hopi in
> which he says that the English version of rehpi, "flashed," must be
> translated into English as "It flashed" or "a light flashed" as if
> there is a separate entity doing the flashing, even though the English
> "it," "light," and "flash" are one and the same.  And this is only
> because we MUST have a noun and a verb for a "complete" English
> sentence, forced by English grammar, which is obviously not true in
> many of these Native languages. ...

For that matter an independent subject pronominal is not required in some
European languages.  I'm not sure that says anything much about the
conceptualization of the activity.

JEK
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From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Sun Dec 15 19:56:02 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 20:56:02 +0100
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <OE47hVsI47ahWo5DVBX000128fc@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.205602.0100.>

At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
>In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
>all--just the verb form

Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
Chukchi (i)ne-)?

>--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like
>a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?

Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
itself well... <g>

>There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or
>Nature is doing it).

This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...

Best,

Heike


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 15 20:50:55 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 20:50:55 +0000
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.205055.0000.>

Hi all:

Thanks for your responses--I've kept copies of your emails and references so
that I may do some further research.  Just a couple more thoughts I had:

As with many aspects of linguistics, there is a lot of theory but how much
can really be proven?  (We're really dealing with the brain, and who knows
exactly how the brain works, even with all our modern technology?!)  Even
though I'm just starting (hopefully!) my career as a linguist, I think we
need to be careful when we examine another language's grammatical structure
from our own native language perspective (i.e., English).  (The fact that we
have to use language (specifically our OWN language) to analyze language can
create circular arguments!)  Perhaps what is labeled a NOUN or a VERB in one
language is never quite the same as in another.  One comment made was that
Hidatsa and similar languages simply lack a copula, so the noun is acting as
copula because that's the only way they can do it.  But, if we extend our
thinking beyond the box of English grammar, we could just as logically
"re-interpret" the Native construct on a different thought level--perhaps
they perceive "talling" in the sense of it not being a state as it appears
to us in English "The man is tall"--end of story--but perhaps they view
"tall" as a process--focusing on the continual process of growing taller.
In this way, these languages could be considered closer to reflecting
"reality" better than most European languages, since they could perceive
someone as being in a constant state of flux and change, which is the "real"
physiological reality!  This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages
might be more in tune to nature and thinking in processes (being more
fluidly verb- and process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
  Perhaps it would be interesting to get a bilingual Native American
speaker's perception on this: how do they really perceive this in English
vs. their own way of thinking in their own language?  Is there actually a
different thought process at work reflected in the language, OR is it indeed
just a different way of stating the same thing?

Has anyone asked Native American speakers about this??  Just curious.

Dave






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From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Sun Dec 15 22:11:46 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 23:11:46 +0100
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
In-Reply-To: <F14841TVGm2Riy87mdW000152f0@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.231146.0100.>

At 20:50 15.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>But, if we extend our thinking beyond the box of English grammar, we could
>just as logically "re-interpret" the Native construct on a different
>thought level--perhaps they perceive "talling" in the sense of it not
>being a state as it appears to us in English "The man is tall"--end of
>story--but perhaps they view "tall" as a process--focusing on the
>continual process of growing taller.

But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller) as
a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too, e.g. in
Akkadian there's a separate category called stative for the former
(mar.sâku "I'm sick") while the latter is one of the functions of the
perfect (šumma bâb ekallim irtapiš "when the gate of the palace [name of a
liver omen] has widened").

Also it is not just a question of what reality really is like, but how I
choose to describe things. Of course, when I say "I'm sick" that implies
that I've fallen sick somewhen. Just that it's a different statement from
"I've fallen sick more than 4 weeks ago". And, still worse, I can't see it
as an advantage if some language didn't provide me the means of expressing
both differently.

>This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
>to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
>process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.

It is a romantic though understandable view, and Findeisen even had
speculated about Paleolithic hunter-gatherers already having gotten tired
of their kind of civilization. But then, where does *your* idea of nature
being more adequately described in terms of processes rather than states
derive from? Is it some time-honored wisdom or 20th century physics? And
which criteria should we use in determining whether say North American
Natives, Tropical Lowland South American Natives, New Guinean Papuas or
Northern San peoples (too large categories anyway) were closer to nature?

All the best,

Heike


From napshawin at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 16 15:08:49 2002
From: napshawin at hotmail.com (Violet Catches)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:08:49 -0600
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.090849.0600.>

Hi
thipi means that it is a place being lived in, there is movement, and all
the things that include a dweling, it is an act  of living in the present
thipi is also a structure, but an erect structure, a home, a place being
dwelled in, so an empty house is referred to as a thi-ohe, where there is no
dwelling
thi-ohe means a place once dwelled in that no longer exists, there is no
movement, no dwelling no life..
iyapi means that they are speaking, the words are flowing, stopping and
flowing in a continual manner, except of course when one sleeps, another
meaning for iyapi is that they are complaining...
As a native american it was extremely difficult for me to understand verbs
as defined and nouns, It was the nouns that gave me the most problems,
because I use to think that 'thipi' and 'iyapi'  and other words like that
were 'verbs', but it was really the English that was confusing...
in the old way, I think, the word for the structure of a thipi (as we know
it today) was thiyuktan, but that also looks like a verb,  but was actually
the structure. Do you know other Sioux speakers? if you do they may recall
that  as well.





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From bcoon at montana.edu  Mon Dec 16 16:47:12 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:47:12 -0700
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.094712.0700.>

Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
materials.

Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
lg
today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
language.
Brad Coon

-----Original Message-----
From: Heike Bödeker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)


At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
>In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
>all--just the verb form

Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
Chukchi (i)ne-)?

>--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like
>a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?

Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
itself well... <g>

>There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or
>Nature is doing it).

This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...

Best,

Heike


From bcoon at montana.edu  Mon Dec 16 22:17:04 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 15:17:04 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.151704.0700.>

My quick, off the cuff, answer is a reminder to me to check my sources
before answering.
The grammatical sketch in the Hopi Dictionary discusses Hopi verb inflection
at length. It does
indeed inflect for subject and sometimes object number, but not for person.
Some verbs do not have subjects, particularly those dealing with the
weather.
Sorry for the misinformation,

Brad Coon
Reference Librarian
The Libraries-Montana State University
bcoon at montana.edu       (406) 994-6026


-----Original Message-----
From: Coon, Brad [mailto:bcoon at montana.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 9:47 AM
To: 'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'
Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)


Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
materials.

Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
lg
today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
language.
Brad Coon

-----Original Message-----
From: Heike Bödeker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)


At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
>In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
>all--just the verb form

Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
Chukchi (i)ne-)?

>--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like
>a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?

Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
itself well... <g>

>There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or
>Nature is doing it).

This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...

Best,

Heike


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 17 00:01:48 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 18:01:48 -0600
Subject: Positionals
In-Reply-To: <F76KkpLTkUD5euwdUTa00000150@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.180148.0600.>

I have a paper listing the positionals in Osage, if you're interested.
Carolyn Quintero

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Henning Garvin
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 12:36 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Positionals



Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.

I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the prominence
and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I have
noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes, I
would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
Thank You


Henning Garvin
University of WIsconsin-Madison
Linguistics/Anthropology


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From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Tue Dec 17 05:49:25 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 23:49:25 -0600
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.234925.0600.>

In light of Dave's challenge to question the equivalence of the
concepts "noun" and "verb" between different languages, I'd like
to present a view I've been developing on verbs and sentence
structure in MVS vs. IE.  My formal knowledge of linguistics is
admittedly sophomoric; if there are proper terms that I should
be using but am not, I apologize, and would appreciate being
informed of the correct ones.  In any case, since I've already
dropped this on two classes of beginning Omaha students, it's
probably about time to get some feedback from real linguists!

I start from the premise that the purpose of any directed
utterance is to get the party spoken to to do something to
further the agenda of the speaker.  I call this imposition on
the listener the "demand".  There are at least three basic
types of demand:

  1. Command.    The demand is that the listener perform some
                 action.

  2. Statement.  The demand is that the listener update his
                 mental database with information supplied
                 by the speaker.

  3. Question.   The demand is that the listener supply the
                 speaker with information requested.

The demand is the core of any complete sentence.  The remainder,
and usually the bulk, of the sentence is a verbal encoding of a
mental model of reality in the brain of the speaker, which is to
be decoded into a (hopefully) equivalent mental model in the
brain of the listener.  I call this mental model or its encoding
the "concept".  A complete sentence is one that ties a concept
to a demand, so that the listener is given both a mental map of
reality, and instructions as to what to do with it.

The English utterance

   The black cat on the porch.

is not considered a complete sentence, because it contains no
demand.  (It is a valid utterance in the context of a prior
question, e.g. "What are you looking at?", however, because
the expected demand form of the response to a question is a
statement, and hence we can save time by expressing the concept
alone and assuming the default demand.)  Note that the problem
here is not simply the lack of a verb, for we could just as well
say

   The black cat sitting on the porch, eating a mouse.

and we would be no better off, despite the addition of two verbs
which both describe the action of our subject.  The problem
remains that we have not told our listener what we want him to
do about the concept we have transmitted; there is still no
demand.

In English, and I think IE generally, we distinguish a special
version of the verb, called the "finite verb", which must be
present in every complete sentence.  (Actually, I'm not sure if
the command form is traditionally considered "finite" or not;
I'm assuming it to be so here for the purpose of this discussion.)
The importance of the finite verb is that the demand rides upon
it, and is indicated by the relationship of the finite verb to
other elements of the sentence.

  1. Command:
        Put the black cat on the porch!
        Look at the black cat sitting on the porch, eating a mouse!

  2. Statement:
        The black cat is on the porch.
        The black cat sitting on the porch is eating a mouse.

  3. Question:
        What is the black cat on the porch doing?
        Is the black cat sitting on the porch eating a mouse?

A verb is a word that indicates an action or a state of being.
As such, it is part of the concept exactly as is a noun.  A finite
verb, however, indicates a demand, as well as functioning as the
crux of the concept code.  All pieces of the sentence (or maybe I
should say independent clause) tie to it as the verb that heads
the concept, and its relationships help to indicate the demand.
This complicated system is fundamental to our whole English/IE
way of speaking and thinking, and I think we may tend to attribute
it to other languages where it doesn't really exist.

In MVS, the sentence structure typically runs somewhat as follows:

     [Topic]* [Verb]* [ModalParticle]*

where

     Topic => NounPhrase
           => PostpositionalPhrase
           => Adverb

None of these is absolutely essential.  In Omaha, there are
sentences without topics, sentences without modal particles,
and even sentences without verbs.  Verbs chain in inverse order
from that of English, so the final verb in the chain corresponds
to the IE finite verb in the sense of being the head of the verb
chain.  Unlike English, however, Omaha does not change the
position of this verb when the demand changes, nor does this
verb look or behave inflectionally any differently from other
verbs in the chain.

In MVS, a modal particle, usually the final one in the chain,
and usually distinctive according to whether the speaker is or
is not man, expresses the demand.  In other words, MVS codes
the demand as a separate element of the sentence, and does not
confuse verbs with the demand function as we do.

Admittedly, many sentences do not have modal particles at all,
and end in verbs.  Here, we feel at home in Indo-European land.
I would argue, though, that here the demand simply defaults,
usually to statement form in the absence of a command or question
particle.  (It may default to question if the utterance concerns
"you".)

The term "predication" has been mentioned a few times in the
discussion.  Insofar as I understand the term, I think it
approximates what I mean by the statement form of "demand",
but with an IE constraint.  In IE, everything hinges on the
finite verb.  In a statement, we first reference a topic the
listener can relate to, and then we say something about it
using the finite verb.  Since everything we can say hinges on
that one finite verb, we can make just one overt attribution
per sentence (ignoring and-ed finite verbs and so forth).
We can make any number of covert attributions, however, using
non-predicate adjectives, adjectival constructions and
subordinate clauses.

Trying to "grok" the non-trivial Omaha in Dorsey using my
predicating prejudices from IE about drove me nuts before I
began to suspect that they just don't predicate like we do,
and that they don't distinguish between overt and covert
attribution.  For them, attribution is all the same, verbs
are no more special than nouns, and you can use as many nouns
and verbs as you like to construct your concept.  When you
end it all, either by stating your demand, or by implying it
by default by ceasing to talk, your demand applies to the
whole concept structure you built, not to any one special
attribution that we IE speakers would call a predication.

Consider the following sentence sequence.  I made it up and
presented it to our speakers a few months ago, and they
accepted it at every stage.  (They were in an indulgent mood
that day!)

  ShoN'ge ska.
  The horse is white.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN.
  The white horse is beautiful.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN'.
  I have a beautiful white horse.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga.
  The beautiful white horse that I have is sick.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e.
  The beautiful white horse that I have which is sick is sound asleep.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe.
  I love the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
    sound asleep.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
    gini' koNbdhe'goN.
  I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
    sound asleep, which I love, will recover.

To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

Anyway, that's my current conception of verbs in IE vs Siouan.
Comments, anybody?

Rory


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec 17 17:13:25 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 10:13:25 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <95AC7052DE4A78488DCFB615F7A49EA4070C699D@jewels.msu.montana.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.17.DEC.2002.101325.0700.>

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Coon, Brad wrote:
> My quick, off the cuff, answer is a reminder to me to check my sources
> before answering. The grammatical sketch in the Hopi Dictionary
> discusses Hopi verb inflection at length. It does indeed inflect for
> subject and sometimes object number, but not for person. Some verbs do
> not have subjects, particularly those dealing with the weather. Sorry
> for the misinformation,

What's the usual practice with independent pronominals?


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 17 23:43:48 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 23:43:48 +0000
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <TUE.17.DEC.2002.234348.0000.>

Heike,

Good points.  I guess I'm basing my assumptions on the "basic" laws of
physics as we know them currently--meaning that everything is constantly
changing and nothing is ever really static--kind of like the old adage that
the only constant in life is change itself!

I also agree with your last statement about whose criteria we should use in
correlating nature with a group of people.  I actually was wondering how
many African languages, for instance, would compare to the Native American
in this respect (i.e., are they more verb-oriented than noun-oriented,
process-thinking?).  What limited exposure I have to the Ewe language of
West Africa seemed to me more like IE languages in having both nouns and
verbs on equal footing, although I never became an expert on the language
after one semester with a consultant in a Field Methods class!

I think it would be good to get more Native American language-speakers'
perceptions on this, though.  I find Violet's comments very interesting from
a Native American perspective.  There definitely does seem to be a different
thought process about verbs and nouns in her native language vs. English!
Interesting stuff!

Take care,
Dave



Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html





>From: Heike B�deker <heike.boedeker at netcologne.de>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Native American verbs vs. nouns
>Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 23:11:46 +0100
>
>At 20:50 15.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>>But, if we extend our thinking beyond the box of English grammar, we could
>>just as logically "re-interpret" the Native construct on a different
>>thought level--perhaps they perceive "talling" in the sense of it not
>>being a state as it appears to us in English "The man is tall"--end of
>>story--but perhaps they view "tall" as a process--focusing on the
>>continual process of growing taller.
>
>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller) as
>a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
>which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
>What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
>category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
>resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too, e.g. in
>Akkadian there's a separate category called stative for the former
>(mar.s�ku "I'm sick") while the latter is one of the functions of the
>perfect (�umma b�b ekallim irtapi� "when the gate of the palace [name of a
>liver omen] has widened").
>
>Also it is not just a question of what reality really is like, but how I
>choose to describe things. Of course, when I say "I'm sick" that implies
>that I've fallen sick somewhen. Just that it's a different statement from
>"I've fallen sick more than 4 weeks ago". And, still worse, I can't see it
>as an advantage if some language didn't provide me the means of expressing
>both differently.
>
>>This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
>>to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
>>process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
>
>It is a romantic though understandable view, and Findeisen even had
>speculated about Paleolithic hunter-gatherers already having gotten tired
>of their kind of civilization. But then, where does *your* idea of nature
>being more adequately described in terms of processes rather than states
>derive from? Is it some time-honored wisdom or 20th century physics? And
>which criteria should we use in determining whether say North American
>Natives, Tropical Lowland South American Natives, New Guinean Papuas or
>Northern San peoples (too large categories anyway) were closer to nature?
>
>All the best,
>
>Heike


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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 18 00:00:27 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:00:27 +0000
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.000027.0000.>

Hi Violet,

Thanks for your insights!  It looks like "-pi" is actually a verbal suffix
since both "thipi" and "iyapi" both have the same endings?  What exactly
would be the meaning of "-ohe"?  I wonder if this difference between "thipi"
and "thi-ohe" is similar perhaps to our difference in English between
"house" and "home"--where "home" usually indicates that someone lives in it
as opposed to a "house" which is generic or could be an empty
house?--although I'm not sure how much of a distinction we make in English
between these two, since I think the two are frequently used
interchangeably.

What about an attribute like "tall"?  Would you express this as we do in
English ("He is tall") or would "tall" be a verb form as it appears to be in
Hidatsa (and Mojave)?

Can you think of other instances where you might express what is a noun in
English as a verb form in your native language or where you might think of
something as a verb that appears as a noun in English?

I know I'm full of questions!  Curiosity gets the best of me....

Thank you and take care,
Dave








>From: "Violet Catches" <napshawin at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Information
>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:08:49 -0600
>
>Hi
>thipi means that it is a place being lived in, there is movement, and all
>the things that include a dweling, it is an act  of living in the present
>thipi is also a structure, but an erect structure, a home, a place being
>dwelled in, so an empty house is referred to as a thi-ohe, where there is
>no dwelling
>thi-ohe means a place once dwelled in that no longer exists, there is no
>movement, no dwelling no life..
>iyapi means that they are speaking, the words are flowing, stopping and
>flowing in a continual manner, except of course when one sleeps, another
>meaning for iyapi is that they are complaining...
>As a native american it was extremely difficult for me to understand verbs
>as defined and nouns, It was the nouns that gave me the most problems,
>because I use to think that 'thipi' and 'iyapi'  and other words like that
>were 'verbs', but it was really the English that was confusing...
>in the old way, I think, the word for the structure of a thipi (as we know
>it today) was thiyuktan, but that also looks like a verb,  but was actually
>the structure. Do you know other Sioux speakers? if you do they may recall
>that  as well.
>
>
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
>http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 18 19:57:41 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 19:57:41 +0000
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.195741.0000.>

Hi Brad,

Do you feel that Whorf adequately portrayed the Hopi language as having a
different thought process than SAE (Standard Average European [Whorf's
term])?  I know one of his famous examples was "rehpi" in that it would be
translated simply as "flashed" (referring I imagine to lightning) without
specifying any subject or actor.  It sounds like you've confirmed this with
what you say about verbs of natural phenomena having no actor or subject
prefix.  I wonder though if Hopi has a separate noun form for "lightning
flash" or simply any kind of "flash" (i.e., camera flash).  I wonder if one
would say "I see a lightning flash" or "I see (something) flashed" without
specifying *what* flashed.  I wonder how Siouan and other Native American
languages compare in this regard dealing with weather or otherwise.

Regards,
Dave








>From: "Coon, Brad" <bcoon at montana.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: "'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)
>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:47:12 -0700
>
>Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
>yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
>form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
>materials.
>
>Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
>lg
>today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
>language.
>Brad Coon
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Heike B�deker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
>Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
>
>
>At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
> >In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
> >all--just the verb form
>
>Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
>Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
>Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
>marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
>formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
>case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
>Chukchi (i)ne-)?
>
> >--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena
>like
> >a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?
>
>Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
>really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
>1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
>queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
>Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
>itself well... <g>
>
> >There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God
>or
> >Nature is doing it).
>
>This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
>rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
>a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
>the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
>hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
>so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
>might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
>luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
>climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...
>
>Best,
>
>Heike


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From dunni001 at umn.edu  Wed Dec 18 21:23:52 2002
From: dunni001 at umn.edu (Timothy Dunnigan)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:23:52 -0600
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <F115GiHG5uc3PZdo1c9000050d1@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.152352.0600.>

Dave,

May I recommend that you read Einar Haugen's critique of the Whorfian
Hypothesis.  It can be found in a volume edited by William C. McCormack and
Stephen A. Wurm and titled Approaches to Language: Anthropological Issues
(1973).  If I remember correctly, Einar felt that Whorf's characterizations
of SAE were overdrawn, and the differences with Hopi inadequately documented.

Tim

At 07:57 PM 12/18/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi Brad,
>
>Do you feel that Whorf adequately portrayed the Hopi language as having a
>different thought process than SAE (Standard Average European [Whorf's
>term])?  I know one of his famous examples was "rehpi" in that it would be
>translated simply as "flashed" (referring I imagine to lightning) without
>specifying any subject or actor.  It sounds like you've confirmed this
>with what you say about verbs of natural phenomena having no actor or
>subject prefix.  I wonder though if Hopi has a separate noun form for
>"lightning flash" or simply any kind of "flash" (i.e., camera flash).  I
>wonder if one would say "I see a lightning flash" or "I see (something)
>flashed" without specifying *what* flashed.  I wonder how Siouan and other
>Native American languages compare in this regard dealing with weather or
>otherwise.
>
>Regards,
>Dave


From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Wed Dec 18 21:29:59 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 22:29:59 +0100
Subject: person indexing
In-Reply-To: <F115GiHG5uc3PZdo1c9000050d1@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.222959.0100.>

At 19:57 18.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>It sounds like you've confirmed this with what you say about verbs of
>natural phenomena having no actor or subject prefix.

I must say I took it (the post "Hopi correction" actually) more as
indicating that the criterion was not applicable to Hopi because verbs
generally didn't receive personal desinences.

>  I wonder how Siouan and other Native American languages compare in this
> regard dealing with weather or otherwise.

Cree, which may be regarded as illustrative for Algonquian at large, has
inaminate intransitive verb forms for environmental stuff such as kimiwan
"it is raining", kišitêw "it is hot", tahkâyâw "it is cold", kîšikaw "it is
day", otâkošin "it is evening", tipiskâw "it is dark/night" (inanimate
singular is -w, which drops after n). So it's not formally different from
say kicimân milwâšin "your canoe is fine", just that no syntactically
ouvert subject is appearing. An impersonal form is not available in this
paradigm, a depersonal (to pick up a term once suggested for Blackfoot by
Regina Pustet for something like being stripped off any inherent
relationality) form is not available in the whole language. Otherwise the
noun-verb-distinction is well developed on the lexical, morphological and
syntactic planes. Actually I used to scare people by telling them Cree and
Blackfoot had still more morphosyntactic différence than Sanskrit and Greek ;-)

On the other hand, I do agree that it's probably not all the same. I can't
remember native speakers of NAN lgs. having talked about "thought
processes", but the means provided to express things, and with this I only
can agree. Interestingly, a guy who was from a subarctic Athapaskan
community and also knew French and Latin said English was really the
language he liked least... so much on SAE <g>.

All the best,

Heike


From rankin at ku.edu  Wed Dec 18 21:54:40 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:54:40 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.155440.0600.>

>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller) as
a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too,

Indeed.  It seems to be the case that every language capable, using one mechanism or another, to convey all the nuances of other languages.

>This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
>to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
>process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.

>It is a romantic though understandable view, . . .

To me, that sums it up nicely.  When I was a student in the early '60's the Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis was mentioned, but understood to be unprovable.  It was essentially dropped from the linguistics curriculum (but not always from Anthropology).  Now, thanks to Post Modernism and the like, it has returned.  But there are still no tests that would enable one to prove the theory.  So, the very same theory can be totally "out" one year but be totally "in" another year, with no evidence adduced for either view really.  This fact doesn't tell us a lot about the nature of language, but it says a great deal about the state of American social science.

Taking one view allows the "scholar" to emphasize the similarities among all speakers of natural languages and denigrate his "touchy-feely" colleagues.  Taking the other view allows people to give in to romantic prejudices and popular stereotypes and feel all warm and fuzzy about essentially Rousseauesque views of natural man.  Obviously there are those who gravitate to one or the other of these extremes.  I have never felt comfortable with either one.

I have had bilingual students, especially one American girl who had been raised in Japan and was about as close to bilingualism as you can get, who insisted that she reacted to stimuli quite differently depending on the language milieu she was interacting in.  But, of course, these were subjective statements, and she couldn't really describe exactly what it was that was different.  I took her feelings and statements seriously, but couldn't verify them.

I've been a linguist for 35 or 40 years and still don't have answers to these connundrums.  But I think that, as scientists, we have to ask one or two questions.

1)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be falsified?  If the answer is "no", then it is useless as a scientific theory.

2)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be proved?  If not, then it's still a useless theory.  If experiments are possible, then they should be designed and performed, preferably by someone with a neutral outlook.

Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.

By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.  So I tend to leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee Whorf.

Bob


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 18 22:23:45 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 22:23:45 +0000
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.222345.0000.>

>>>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
>>>as a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be,
>>>and which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical
>>>investigations).  What comes closest to your proposal is the category of
>>>resultative, i.e. a category denoing a state resultant from a process.
>>>Again, stative and resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old
>>>World, too.<<<

I guess what I'm curious to know here is whether there would be an
alternative in Hidatsa/Crow/Mojave and any other language that expresses
"(The) man talls" construct to distinguish between the state of BEING tall
and the process of GROWING TALLER.  Unfortunately all I have is the
dictionary from 1886 by Matthew Washington in Hidatsa, and nothing from
these other languages, and we haven't heard from our Hidatsa expert yet,
John Boyle, who would probably know best from his research on Hidatsa.  If
there are alternate methods depending on whether one is referring to a state
or process, then that would correlate with IE languages (i.e., he is tall,
he is getting taller).  If not, then I'm still left wondering why this
attribute would be stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's
because they don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead,
unless an adjective has much in common with a verb (?).

I agree that both of these polarized views are too extreme and the real
answer lies somewhere in the middle in a big "grey" area.  I believe, as
Pinker says, we can think without words and remember "gists" of
conversations which are not the same as remembering a bunch of words, but I
also believe that spoken or written language has to fit into a grammatical
construct template in order for our thoughts to make sense to another
speaker of the same language.  How much our grammatical construct template
limits us in how we think or expresses nuances in different languages I'm
not sure about.

After several years of studying different languages (mostly European and now
just beginning Native American) I too find it difficult to come up with
adequate answers, and I only hope that as my multilingual and mutlicultural
awareness increases I will be able to find more answers!

Thanks for the input!

Dave






>From: "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:54:40 -0600
>
>
> >But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
>as
>a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
>which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
>What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
>category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
>resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too,
>
>Indeed.  It seems to be the case that every language capable, using one
>mechanism or another, to convey all the nuances of other languages.
>
> >This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
> >to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
> >process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
>
> >It is a romantic though understandable view, . . .
>
>To me, that sums it up nicely.  When I was a student in the early '60's the
>Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis was mentioned, but understood to be
>unprovable.  It was essentially dropped from the linguistics curriculum
>(but not always from Anthropology).  Now, thanks to Post Modernism and the
>like, it has returned.  But there are still no tests that would enable one
>to prove the theory.  So, the very same theory can be totally "out" one
>year but be totally "in" another year, with no evidence adduced for either
>view really.  This fact doesn't tell us a lot about the nature of language,
>but it says a great deal about the state of American social science.
>
>Taking one view allows the "scholar" to emphasize the similarities among
>all speakers of natural languages and denigrate his "touchy-feely"
>colleagues.  Taking the other view allows people to give in to romantic
>prejudices and popular stereotypes and feel all warm and fuzzy about
>essentially Rousseauesque views of natural man.  Obviously there are those
>who gravitate to one or the other of these extremes.  I have never felt
>comfortable with either one.
>
>I have had bilingual students, especially one American girl who had been
>raised in Japan and was about as close to bilingualism as you can get, who
>insisted that she reacted to stimuli quite differently depending on the
>language milieu she was interacting in.  But, of course, these were
>subjective statements, and she couldn't really describe exactly what it was
>that was different.  I took her feelings and statements seriously, but
>couldn't verify them.
>
>I've been a linguist for 35 or 40 years and still don't have answers to
>these connundrums.  But I think that, as scientists, we have to ask one or
>two questions.
>
>1)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be falsified?  If the answer
>is "no", then it is useless as a scientific theory.
>
>2)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be proved?  If not, then it's
>still a useless theory.  If experiments are possible, then they should be
>designed and performed, preferably by someone with a neutral outlook.
>
>Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.
>
>By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't
>find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.  So I tend to
>leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee Whorf.
>
>Bob


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From rankin at ku.edu  Wed Dec 18 23:21:01 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:21:01 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.172101.0600.>

> ... If not, then I'm still left wondering why this
> attribute would be stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's
> because they don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead,
> unless an adjective has much in common with a verb (?).

> I agree that both of these polarized views are too extreme and the real
> answer lies somewhere in the middle in a big "grey" area.

I wish I knew.  :-)  I'm not sure any amount of experience can answer these questions.  As for adjectives, a couple of points.  (1) The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology in Melbourne held a workshop on adjectives (their universality, etc.) this past August and the proceedings should be published in a year or two.  A couple of friends of mine participated.  There are probably other good references.  I use Whaley's typology textbook in the functional grammar course I teach.  He takes the view that adjectives are not a universal category in languages, but, that in languages that have them, they are sometimes more like nouns (agreeing for number, gender, etc. as in IE languages) and sometimes more like verbs (inflecting for tense, aspect, mode, etc. as in Siouan).  Using the notion of "time-stable" and "time-non-stable" (which he didn't develop himself) he has a continuum between nouns and verbs, with adjectives somewhere along the continuum in given languages:

NOUNS----------------------(adjs.)-----------------------------------VERBS
time-stable                                                                                            time-mobile

So every language has ways of expressing the concept(s).  If adjectives are more like states, then there are ways of encoding inchoatives, etc. in the language (sick/get sick).  If they are more like actions, there are ways of encoding resultatives, etc (sit/be seated).  One way or another, the job gets done.

As for how "nouny-ness", "verby-ness", "stative-ness" or "active-ness", I have no idea if or how these affect speakers' perception of the world.  What I actually *teach* is that language does not hold speakers' thoughts in a "vice-like grip" (as some used to describe the Whorf Hypothesis), but linguistic categories may tend to *direct the speaker's attention* or *spotlight*, so to speak, certain features of reality and sort of loosely deemphasize others.  Whorf tended to think that this affected speakers a great deal.  I tend to think not so much.  But that's where the experimentation and proof is necessary.  Without it, we're still treading water.

Whorf talked about sensitivity to "time" in tense-marking languages (like European lgs.) and lack of such in "tenseless" languages.  Personally, I think he had adopted the stereotype of the Indian who does everything on "Indian Time".  I simply don't believe that that aspect of culture relates to language at all.  Those languages that don't mark tense DO mark "time" using temporal conjunctions and adverbs.  I would bet large sums that, if we could go back to Western Europe before timepieces became common, that we would find that the speakers of those IE languages did everything on "Indian Time" too.  Hell, I'm semi retired and seldom bother to wear a watch, and I find that *I* operate on a very loose notion of time.  It's my culture that had conditioned me otherwise, not my English with all its futures, pasts, perfects and progressives.

Bob


From chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu  Thu Dec 19 01:54:13 2002
From: chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Wallace Chafe)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:54:13 -0800
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <009101c2a6e0$11cb0c80$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.175413.0800.>

I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".

I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
(he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
but the rest of us certainly should care.
Wally


From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Thu Dec 19 05:28:03 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 06:28:03 +0100
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <009101c2a6e0$11cb0c80$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.062803.0100.>

At 15:54 18.12.02 -0600, R. Rankin wrote:
...
>Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.

Probably. It largely seems about ideological preferences. We just needed to
do the same with culture/thought to be able to substitute the Marxist credo
"Das Sein bestimmt das Bewußtsein." (Being determines consciousness).

>By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't
>find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.

My impression, too.

>  So I tend to leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee
> Whorf.

Yeah, there's also more to linguistic relativity hypotheses (e.g. Vïgotskiy
just to mention another classic) or language/"thought" (for which various
Cognitivist approaches would be relevant).


At 22:23 18.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>but I also believe that spoken or written language has to fit into a
>grammatical construct template in order for our thoughts to make sense to
>another speaker of the same language.  How much our grammatical construct
>template limits us in how we think or expresses nuances in different
>languages I'm not sure about.

But what is such a template? I think the notion could very nicely
challenged using various NAN data. E.g. Mithun (Lgs. of Native NA, pp. 152,
163) points to TAM categories not being obligatory (as in fully
grammaticalized) which increased (while an analogous interp to Whorf's Hopi
probably might have suggested otherwise) their pragmatic force.


At 17:21 18.12.02 -0600, R. Rankin wrote:
>I would bet large sums that, if we could go back to Western Europe before
>timepieces became common, that we would find that the speakers of those IE
>languages did everything on "Indian Time" too.

There's still some gradients within Europe, too. Probably this is a very
late thing as in industrialization or something. Machines are most
profitable when running 24/7, so cancel the wage slaves' siesta. And, of
course, now in the Silicon Age (at least of N America) you can drive from a
lovely air-conditioned home in an AC'ed car to an AC'ed bureau to an AC'ed
shopping mall and back again.

All the best,

Heike


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 08:10:42 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 01:10:42 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <F128fvbmcf4irFUYsri00004cbe@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.011042.0700.>

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> I guess what I'm curious to know here is whether there would be an
> alternative in Hidatsa/Crow/Mojave and any other language that expresses
> "(The) man talls" construct to distinguish between the state of BEING tall
> and the process of GROWING TALLER.  Unfortunately all I have is the
> dictionary from 1886 by Matthew Washington in Hidatsa, and nothing from
> these other languages, and we haven't heard from our Hidatsa expert yet,
> John Boyle, who would probably know best from his research on Hidatsa.

[There's a good place to look for the example "getting taller" in stories
in which a spell is uttered that causes a tree in which the hero is
located to get taller.]

The Omaha-Ponca construction is to use snede' 'tall' or maN's^i 'high'
plus a verb of motion, perhaps combined with a positional, perhaps
causativized, e.g., 'arrive high', 'send high', etc.  In the texts these
constructions are sometimes translated '(suddenly) become', or, with other
verbs '(suddenly) begin/start', but the construction is precisely what
I've called 'suddenly' auxiliaries or "aorist"/inceptive/iterative
auxiliaries.  (Someone once told me a Latinate term for "suddenly" verbs,
but I've lost it!) These forms are particularly well developed and
documented in Dhegiha and Ioway-Otoe, but the situation seems similar in
Winnebago and there are a reduced set of obviously cognate forms in
Dakotan, too.  Crow has some auxiliaries (punctual? I forget) that look
like highly rediuced forms of some of these.

Note that OP snede' 'tall' is a stative verb, but maN's^i 'high' is
something different.  It appears by itself as 'high', 'high in the air',
'on high', etc., but also combines with postpositions to produce at least
maN's^iadi and maN's^iatta.  There's also maNs^ia'ha.  This is basically a
directional adverb or maybe directional would suffice.  There are some
comparable forms, I think, with other senses, though I admit I have never
tried to nail down this impression of mine.  The bare form and the
postposition-augmented forms function as predicates, though they are never
inflected.

Also, the construction 'that high' (and similar ones) is ga=thaN' that +
thaN, where thaN behaves morphosyntactically like a postposition, but is
not at all locative.  There are a small set of similar enclitics,
including =naN 'many', as in ga'=naN 'that many', and so on. I can't
explain the difference in accentuation.  The =naN is obviously the cognate
of the demonstrative plural marker in Dakotan.

Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget some
examples provided by Dorsey.

Incidentally, the gloss 'grown' (probably 'mature') is attached by Dorsey
to the OP stem naN.

> If there are alternate methods depending on whether one is referring
> to a state or process, then that would correlate with IE languages
> (i.e., he is tall, he is getting taller).

Returning to David's point, as far as OP is concerned there are alternate
methods, though the processual alternative requires an auxiliary.

> If not, then I'm still left wondering why this attribute would be
> stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's because they
> don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead, unless an
> adjective has much in common with a verb (?).

For me the explanation is that adjectives are functionally intermediate
between nouns and verbs, so that particular concepts in this intermediate
range may in some languages that distinguish all three categories fall in
a category other than the one in which similar concepts fall in English.
In extreme cases, very few concepts may be realized as adjectives.  In
fact, a language may eliminate the intermediate category adjective
completely, and transfer all modifier concepts to noun and verbs.  The
verbs of this sort may be inflected objectively, in which case you end up
with what is called an active/stative language.  Essentially all Siouan
languages are of this type.

Of course, this is just a classificatory or typological approach to
analysis, founded on an imprecise "intermediate between noun and verb"
characterization of the underlying mechanics. Obviously logical categories
like "static/state", "entity", and "process" are lurking in the
background.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 08:22:52 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 01:22:52 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <002901c2a6ec$22046040$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.012252.0700.>

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, R. Rankin wrote:
> Personally, I think he had adopted the stereotype of the Indian who
> does everything on "Indian Time".  I simply don't believe that that
> aspect of culture relates to language at all.  Those languages that
> don't mark tense DO mark "time" using temporal conjunctions and
> adverbs.  I would bet large sums that, if we could go back to Western
> Europe before timepieces became common, that we would find that the
> speakers of those IE languages did everything on "Indian Time" too.

Someone asked me something like this recently and I came to about the same
conclusions.  How anal you are about time depends on how easily you have
access to instruments for measuring it precisely.  The availability of
such instruments is a very recent phenomenon.  In spite of this, Dakota
has plenty of idioms for 'on time', 'at the appointed time', 'in good
time' and so on.  Everyone appreciates timeliness.  They just differ in
how precisely they reckon it.

Even with fairly ready access to time pieces, several members of my family
are well known to operate on a less precise definition of time than
others.  People often tell me to arrive an hour before they expect to need
me, for example.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 08:28:09 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 01:28:09 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <26909668.1040234053@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.012809.0700.>

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Wallace Chafe wrote:
> I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, ...

For what it's worth, the subject has been discussed at length (and
certainly in better depth) on the Linguist List, back when it was more
discursive, and even since.  All this is accessible in the Linguist List
Archives.


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 19 15:12:07 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:12:07 -0600
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.091207.0600.>

I think John's examples illustrate nicely my point that languages with stative verbs have morphology (or other mechanisms) that allow them to show the concomitant action, etc.

> Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
> grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
> second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
> mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget some
> examples provided by Dorsey.

That's really interesting, given that Siouan languages don't tend to be "fluid-S" languages.  Are these examples from Dorsey 1890?  Carolyn gave me another example from her Osage speakers.

OS form of 'be' (Carolyn Quintero, personal comm.)
1s  briN
2s    niN  OR $ciN
3s    ðiN  OR maybe just ðí
BUT
1pl  wa-ðiN-pe  with a stative pronominal, wa- 'us, 1pl patient'.
E.g., Scéce waðiNpe 'we are tall'

Bob


From jmcbride at kayserv.net  Thu Dec 19 15:44:50 2002
From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:44:50 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.094450.0600.>

> Whorf talked about sensitivity to "time" in tense-marking languages (like
European lgs.) and lack of such in "tenseless" languages.  Personally, I
think he had adopted the stereotype of the Indian who does everything on
"Indian Time".

I don't think Whorf is saying the speaker of a Native language has lost the
notion of time, or even that time is blurry as a concept.  On the contrary,
in his paper "An American Indian Model of the Universe," he basically
asserts that time is perceived very intensely for the Hopi speaker, but that
the notion of space and distance seems to be intimately tied to the
grammatical categories of time and tense.  He gives very little linguistic
evidence to back his assertion, but it seems to revolve around the
correlation of tense and inceptive elements to expressions of depth and
distance from the speaker.  From this (and a few other grammatical features
of Hopi) he comes to the conclusion that Hopi is a more adequate language
for use in hard science.  I suppose Whorf thought that the Hopi speaker
would react to some of the more abstract concepts of General Relativity with
the Hopi equivalent of "Well, duh."  :)

Apparently this sort of thing (regardless of its truth or applicability)
really struck his as an underlying psychological reality for all Hopi
speakers, affecting their perceptions at almost every level.  For instance,
he noted elsewhere that Hopi speakers describe all repetitive patterns--from
the rolling hills on the horizon, the distribution of clouds in the sky, to
the teeth of a serated knife--with certain punctual/segmentative affixes.
>>From this he gathered that Hopis were natural born scientists.  A famous
quote from this period:  "The Hopi actually have a language better equipped
to deal with such vibratile phenomena [described as including the "movements
of machinery and mechanism, wave processes and vibrations, electrical and
chemical phenomena" etc.] than is our latest scientific terminology."

To me, it seems obvious that Whorf suffered from the Information Age
equivalent of what I call "Noble Savage Syndrome."  He was overly romantic
about Native Americans in general, and just wasn't prepared to see Native
folks as everyday ordinary people with common faults and strengths.  The
only fault he would attribute to the Hopis is that they weren't the rightful
founders of NASA.  A very romantic notion, indeed!  But what do you expect
from a guy who shared an office with the poet Wallace Stevens?

As thought out as his methodology is, Whorf is clearly a poor linguistic
scientist.  His writings in general are just brimming with contradictions:
"Thus, the Hopi language gets along perfectly without tenses for its verbs."
And elsewhere:
"Hopi also has three tenses: factual or present-past, future, and
generalized or usitative."
And he ALWAYS violates the cardinal rule of our Siouan list; he translates
languages to English, and then analyzes the English.  One of my favorites of
these is where he goes to great, great lengths describing how utterly
foreign the Shawnee word for 'to clean with a ramrod' would be to a speaker
of English (read: Whorf, himself).

Nevertheless, I think he's on to something... not sure what exactly.  Of
course there are quite often no 1:1 correspondences of certain grammatical
features between languages, and often times translation gets bogged down in
going the distance to express everything at all times in one language as it
was in another.  I suppose that's why the Bible sounds either haughty or
sparse depending on the edition.  Surely, the concepts are there in all
languages, but their distribution in the mind is clearly not uniform between
languages.  I think that's what he would call culture. That's a very strange
definition as far as I'm concerned, but that only goes to strengthen his
claim in some bizarre way (language deconstructs to idiolect which
deconstructs to personality which... you get the idea).  Sure, it's a
reductio.  But it's HIS reductio.

Linguistic relativity might help someone attempt to wrap his/her mind around
new concepts in a second or third language, by bluntly reminding us of
potentially skewed perceptions (or at least grammatical constructions).  But
is it provable?  Whorf's ideas may in fact lend themselves to testing, but
I'm not sure how it could be done.  All evidence that would support or
refute his claims would rely on bilingualism in some way, and that seems to
be something that Whorf isn't prepared to allow in his hypothesis.   Final
word:  HELPFUL BUNK.


From bcoon at montana.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:19:18 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:19:18 -0700
Subject: Hopi 'lightning', was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.091918.0700.>

Whorf worked with only a single informant who spoke Second Mesa Hopi whereas
almost all other work, including the lexical materials I still have deal
with Third Mesa Hopi.  Although I have been away from Hopi for many years, I
do not recall any real analysis of the differences.
I felt Whorf's descriptions helped me to see past similarities of
nomenclature into subtle differences.  Now the caveats here are that I had
read Whorf long before I went to college and actually studied Hopi, and as I
said, Hopi was the first Native American Lg I studied.  Over the years, I
have often perceived students having a kind of language shock when they
first plunge into serious study of any language outside of their native lg's
family.  Whether this lg shock is real or not, I will leave for others, I
certainly felt something like it the first time around.

I am too far from my Hopi work to even attempt to generate sentences for
you, I will note that "rehpi" does not appear in either the massive "Hopi
Dictionary" or in the Voegelins' "Hopi Domain", both of which treat 3rd Mesa
Hopi.  Kalectaca (1978) produced a pedagogical work for 2nd Mesa Hopi which
lacks "rehpi" as well but the work's limited scope serves only as negative
evidence.

Here are some examples of "lightning" from the dictionary,
Third Mesa has a noun for lightning, 'talwiipiki', Pu' kur i' talwiikpiki
piw kiihut mu'a, "Then it appeared that lightning also struck the house."
This is from the verb, 'talwiipi(k)-, an intransitive verb meaning "for
lightning to flash, occur as a lightning flash", Talwiipikkyangqw pu' yaaw
pay hin'ur umu, "The lightning flashed and it thundered loudly."
Without further turning this into a Hopi listserv, I will note that Hopi,
like most Uto-Aztecan lgs, has an extensive number of forms derived from
Proto-Uto-Aztecan forms of the shape *ta(C)- which gloss as fire, star, sun,
summer, heat, lightning, etc.  (I will be happy to suggest some sources if
anyone is interested but would rather do it privately, i.e., not on the
SIOUAN list.)

There is a fairly detailed criticism of Whorf's methodology of eliciting
examples in the Voegelins' "Hopi Domains" and before citing Whorf's work on
Hopi, I encourage folks to read it, but as always, read it with an open
mind.

Brad Coon
Reference Librarian
The Libraries-Montana State University
bcoon at montana.edu       (406) 994-6026


-----Original Message-----
From: David Kaufman [mailto:dvklinguist at hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 12:58 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)


Hi Brad,

Do you feel that Whorf adequately portrayed the Hopi language as having a
different thought process than SAE (Standard Average European [Whorf's
term])?  I know one of his famous examples was "rehpi" in that it would be
translated simply as "flashed" (referring I imagine to lightning) without
specifying any subject or actor.  It sounds like you've confirmed this with
what you say about verbs of natural phenomena having no actor or subject
prefix.  I wonder though if Hopi has a separate noun form for "lightning
flash" or simply any kind of "flash" (i.e., camera flash).  I wonder if one
would say "I see a lightning flash" or "I see (something) flashed" without
specifying *what* flashed.  I wonder how Siouan and other Native American
languages compare in this regard dealing with weather or otherwise.

Regards,
Dave








>From: "Coon, Brad" <bcoon at montana.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: "'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)
>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:47:12 -0700
>
>Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
>yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
>form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
>materials.
>
>Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
>lg
>today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
>language.
>Brad Coon
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Heike Bödeker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
>Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
>
>
>At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
> >In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
> >all--just the verb form
>
>Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
>Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
>Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
>marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
>formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
>case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
>Chukchi (i)ne-)?
>
> >--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena
>like
> >a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?
>
>Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
>really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
>1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
>queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
>Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
>itself well... <g>
>
> >There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God
>or
> >Nature is doing it).
>
>This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
>rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
>a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
>the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
>hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
>so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
>might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
>luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
>climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...
>
>Best,
>
>Heike


_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
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From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:04:03 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:04:03 -0600
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.100403.0600.>

>> Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
>> grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
>> second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
>> mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget
some
>> examples provided by Dorsey.

> That's really interesting, given that Siouan languages don't tend to be
> "fluid-S" languages.  Are these examples from Dorsey 1890?  Carolyn gave
> me another example from her Osage speakers.

> OS form of 'be' (Carolyn Quintero, personal comm.)
> 1s  briN
> 2s    niN  OR $ciN
> 3s    ðiN  OR maybe just ðí
> BUT
> 1pl  wa-ðiN-pe  with a stative pronominal, wa- 'us, 1pl patient'.
> E.g., Scéce waðiNpe 'we are tall'

We seem to have elicited a couple more of these from our Omaha speakers.
In my class notes, I have:

  ashka'de      I play
  dhishkade     you play
  shka'de       s/he plays
  oNshka'de     we play

I also find:

  niu'woN       swim
  niu'awoN      I swim
  dhini'uwoN    you swim

In these two examples, the dhi- could be the emphatic/independent pronoun
rather than the affixed you-object pronoun.  That would seem especially
likely in the "swim" case.  But compare the word for "crawl", which seems
to be entirely stative(!):

  mide'         crawl
  oN'mide       I crawl
  dhi'mide      you crawl

I don't know if I have the accent correct on the last two.  Perhaps they
had to emphasize the first syllable to convince me that that was what
they really meant!

Also, what about the word for die/dead?  We have two separate words for
this in our language, but they seem to handle the distinction by treating
the same word as either active or stative, don't they?

  at?e'         I die
  oNt?e'        I am dead

(The above two are going off memory/supposition!)

Rory


From bcoon at montana.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:35:37 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:35:37 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.093537.0700.>

Sorry for delay in answering, its Finals week here and students are
panicking as usual with papers that were due yesterday problems.

Hopi has a nominal SOV sentence order but it is possible to leave out
pronominal subjects and objects if either or both is understood by context
or previous utterance.  Third person subject omission is most common, but
the dictionary gives an example of 2s subject, 3s object, and 3s implied
ind.object pronominals all being omitted.
Citation,
Hopi Dictionary, Hopi Dictionary Project, 1998, p.868.

Brad Coon
Reference Librarian
The Libraries-Montana State University
bcoon at montana.edu       (406) 994-6026


-----Original Message-----
From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 10:13 AM
To: 'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'
Subject: Re: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)


On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Coon, Brad wrote:
> My quick, off the cuff, answer is a reminder to me to check my sources
> before answering. The grammatical sketch in the Hopi Dictionary
> discusses Hopi verb inflection at length. It does indeed inflect for
> subject and sometimes object number, but not for person. Some verbs do
> not have subjects, particularly those dealing with the weather. Sorry
> for the misinformation,

What's the usual practice with independent pronominals?


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:43:12 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:43:12 -0700
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
In-Reply-To: <001c01c2a771$004bb5e0$e1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.094312.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, R. Rankin wrote:
> I think John's examples illustrate nicely my point that languages with
> stative verbs have morphology (or other mechanisms) that allow them to
> show the concomitant action, etc.

On reflection, I didn't actually provide examples, but I can if anyone is
interested.

> > Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
> > grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
> > second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
> > mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget some
> > examples provided by Dorsey.

> That's really interesting, given that Siouan languages don't tend to
> be "fluid-S" languages.  Are these examples from Dorsey 1890?

It was, and there were two cases of each person.  I didn't search under
possible forms of the stem, so I have only forms glossed "grew."  Since
there were two cases of each person I'd say this wasn't fluid-S (S in
agent or patient form as required by semantics, I assume) but a mixed
paradigm, in which the first person is always active (agent pronominal)
and the second always stative (patient pronominal).  I don't know the
other persons' forms.

> Carolyn gave me another example from her Osage speakers.
>
> OS form of 'be' (Carolyn Quintero, personal comm.)
> 1s  briN
> 2s    niN  OR $ciN
> 3s    ðiN  OR maybe just ðí
> BUT
> 1pl  wa-ðiN-pe  with a stative pronominal, wa- 'us, 1pl patient'.
> E.g., Scéce waðiNpe 'we are tall'

For what it's worth, the OP cognate of this verb (Os sce'ce : OP snede')
is not inflected with the aid of an auxiliary or copula.

I assume this inclusive example isn't dhiN, the animate motion positional?
Of course, that would be expected to be active in form in the inclusive,
too.  (I think it's (?) aNgadhiNhe in OP, but I don't trust my memory on
the =he coauxiliary.)

Of course, with or without a positional, in OP the verb would be inflected
- wasneda=i 'we are long;  we are tall'. I do recall that this is a verb
for which speakers were uncomfortable with the first person.  I was told
it was boastful.  I can think of some possible reasons for this that I
didn't think to investigate at the time.

It's interesting that n- occurs in the second person of Os dhiN 'be'.
This is normal in OP (niN < s^niN), but I thought the variants of the
second person with dh-stems in Osage were something like s^c^- ~ sc-?

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:58:56 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:58:56 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <95AC7052DE4A78488DCFB615F7A49EA4070C69AD@jewels.msu.montana.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.095856.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Coon, Brad wrote:
> Sorry for delay in answering, its Finals week here and students are
> panicking as usual with papers that were due yesterday problems.

I can appreciate that.

> Hopi has a nominal SOV sentence order but it is possible to leave out
> pronominal subjects and objects if either or both is understood by context
> or previous utterance.  Third person subject omission is most common, but
> the dictionary gives an example of 2s subject, 3s object, and 3s implied
> ind.object pronominals all being omitted. ...

I rather expected that - I'd argue that prevalent third person omission
with independent pronominals here would be analogous to a zero coded third
person in a system with pronominal affixes.  In short, that omission of
explicit marking was the encoding of third person.  And, of course, as has
been pointed out, barring various cases of personification or
objectification, we expect third persons and minimal marking with natural
phenomena.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 17:05:56 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:05:56 -0700
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
In-Reply-To: <OF26955C32.C22A71D0-ON86256C94.00566130@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.100556.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
> We seem to have elicited a couple more of these from our Omaha speakers.
...
>   dhishkade     you play
...
>   dhini'uwoN    you swim

It's interesting to note that in these examples and udhihi, it's the
always second persons that are stative in form.

> In these two examples, the dhi- could be the emphatic/independent pronoun
> rather than the affixed you-object pronoun.  That would seem especially
> likely in the "swim" case.

That's certainly possible, and I can think of some parallels around
Siouan, e.g., consistent use of the independent first person plural in the
stative paradigm in Crow, or etti 'his house' in Omaha-Ponca.  Still, I
think this is just what it seems, an unexpected stative second person.

> But compare the word for "crawl", which seems
> to be entirely stative(!):
>
>   mide'         crawl
>   oN'mide       I crawl
>   dhi'mide      you crawl

I don't think I'd ever run across this!

> I don't know if I have the accent correct on the last two.  Perhaps they
> had to emphasize the first syllable to convince me that that was what
> they really meant!

More likely, for some reason pronominals are long with this stem.

> Also, what about the word for die/dead?  We have two separate words for
> this in our language, but they seem to handle the distinction by treating
> the same word as either active or stative, don't they?
>
>   at?e'         I die
>   oNt?e'        I am dead

I now recall you pointing this out before.  And I think this occurs in
Dakotan, too.  However, as far as I can recall Dorsey always has active
forms for this stem.  This would be more like the fluid-S pattern Bpb
Rankin mentioned.


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 19 17:22:36 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 11:22:36 -0600
Subject: Mixed stative.
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.112236.0600.>

These are certainly interesting.  It might be informative to return to them after several months had passed and see if the same distribution emerges, or, alternatively, if it emerges only in certain semantic contexts.

'Die' is, I think, more systematic in that several people mentioned to me at the Siouan Conference where I did the talk on statives across Siouan, that t?e/a could be either active "X is dying" or stative "X is dead".  There was an animated discussion going on until the Navajo wife of one of the participants remarked that she didn't like all the talk of death.  We all stopped in deference to her feeling.  Siouan traditional stories are full of death and dying, but apparently not so with the Navajos....  For another "fluid" verb you might try 'fall' vs. 'drop to the ground' (both referring to humans).  I seem to recall Miner telling me that it was variable in Ho Chunk/Winnebago.  Generally though, verbs in Siouan tend to be one or the other consistently.

Bob

>We seem to have elicited a couple more of these from our Omaha speakers.
In my class notes, I have:

  ashka'de      I play
  dhishkade     you play
  shka'de       s/he plays
  oNshka'de     we play

I also find:

  niu'woN       swim
  niu'awoN      I swim
  dhini'uwoN    you swim

In these two examples, the dhi- could be the emphatic/independent pronoun
rather than the affixed you-object pronoun.  That would seem especially
likely in the "swim" case.  But compare the word for "crawl", which seems
to be entirely stative(!):

  mide'         crawl
  oN'mide       I crawl
  dhi'mide      you crawl

I don't know if I have the accent correct on the last two.  Perhaps they
had to emphasize the first syllable to convince me that that was what
they really meant!

Also, what about the word for die/dead?  We have two separate words for
this in our language, but they seem to handle the distinction by treating
the same word as either active or stative, don't they?

  at?e'         I die
  oNt?e'        I am dead

(The above two are going off memory/supposition!)

Rory


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 17:30:41 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:30:41 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <001a01c2a775$915a4660$1677f0c7@Language>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.103041.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Justin McBride wrote:
> ... For instance, [Whorf] noted elsewhere that Hopi speakers describe
> all repetitive patterns--from the rolling hills on the horizon, the
> distribution of clouds in the sky, to the teeth of a serated
> knife--with certain punctual/segmentative affixes. From this he
> gathered that Hopis were natural born scientists.

My suspicion would be that they spoke a language with a
punctual/segmentative affix and that a high percentage of nouns were
nominalized clauses, even in cases where, say, English would use another
pattern.

It is certainly true that one of the big differences I notice between
different languages, e.g., English and Omaha-Ponca comes out of what is
grammaticalized and thus relatively more implicit.  Even within a language
speakers notice a difficulty when a particular category is missing for
some reason and a circumlocution is required.  I recall observing an
English speaker some years ago who was reaching for a noun meaning "the
act of declining an office" and came up with "declension," as in "please
send in your acceptances or declensions."  This is a clear example of a
paradigmatic hole in English.

Where this trips us up in analyzing another language is when we provide
some sort of word for word translation and then allow ourselves to be
influenced by the grammaticalized associations of the translation.  A
classic example is rendering or glossing an ergative clause as an English
(or other language) passive and then subscribing to the focus implications
of the passive gloss.  I think that thinking of something like OP Sneda=i
as 'he talls' has an analogous difficulty.  Rendered like that it seems
processual, though the process is implicit only in the English formation.
It might be a bit safer to loss it 'he is-tall', though nothing will
completely eliminate the difficulties implicit in the glossing crutch.

For what it's worth, the same problems occur going from English to Omaha.
I remember that speakers always translated 'she' as wa?u 'woman' and
faithfully represented independent pronominals with demonstratives so that
'he saw him' came out 'this one here saw that one there'.  This is one
reason why some authorities entirely reject the approach of offering
phrases for translation.  It's certainly a good reason for being cautious
with the technique.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 21:10:04 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:10:04 -0700
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
In-Reply-To: <OF5D31450F.A979A012-ON86256C92.001C79D2@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.141004.0700.>

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
>   ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
>     gini' koNbdhe'goN.
>   I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
>     sound asleep, which I love, will recover.
>
> To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
> each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
> verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
> to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
> and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
> Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
> toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
> could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
> It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
> attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
> statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
> whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.

As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
languages.  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
(noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
nominalization of inflected forms.  It is possible for a subordination
marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner and/or
a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.  It is possible to
raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.
There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 21:29:11 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:29:11 -0700
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <200212151810.NAA22263@iupui.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.142911.0700.>

On Sun, 15 Dec 2002, Linda Cumberland wrote:

> > How would one distinguish in Dakotan languages between 'he went back
> > to his mother's lodge' and 'he went back toward where his mother lives
> > (or lived)'?
>
> My first reaction is to observe that the apparent mis-match in number
> agreement would be evidence:  ‘huNku’ (singular), thipi (plural):
>
>   huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'
>
> If you analyze =pi as a nominalizer, there’s no mis-match.

OK, this makes sense.  It wouldn't work very well in Dhegiha, but it makes
sense in Dakotan.  I'm embarassed not to have seen it!

> On the other hand, we have an example from the same text where a
> character says, “ina owiNchakiciyaga” where the literal
> translations of ina ‘mother’ and wiNcha ‘them’ don’t agree -
> it’s untranslatable unless you read “ina” as meaning “my
> mother’s people”: ‘tell(-them) my mother’s people for me’
> (female speaking: Assiniboine lacks a female imperative enclitic).

This intepretation is consistent with the idea that =pi is really an
augment marker meaning "and others" and not a pluralizer - a mark
indicating that there are more than one of whatever it is.

> Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but the whole non-verb question, at least
> in Assiniboine and its close relatives, seems to me to be handled in
> the syntax - the position determines the grammatical class within the
> clause, and the position in the clause determines whether the lexical
> item may be inflected or not.

I agree with this.  Things can be morphologically verbal - verbal
inflection, certain derivational markers, etc. - or morphological nominal
- occasional possessive inflection, no or very limited derivational
patterns - and they can also be applied verbally or nominally, indendently
of their morphological class.  Morphological nouns that are applied
verbally (predicatively) may become morphological verbs - inflectable - or
may not, in which case they have only third persons.  Morphological verbs
that are applied nominally may become uninflectable, in which case they
may become possessible (sometimes not), or they may remain inflectable -
'that which I cut with by pushing' = 'my saw'.  Syntactic environments
allow us to see nominal applications of morphological verbs and vice
versa, but the applications can exist outside of syntactic environments,
e.g., "Q.  How do you say 'saw'?  A.  That which he cuts with."


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 19 21:35:15 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 21:35:15 +0000
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.213515.0000.>

>>I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
>>as puerile<<

I apologize for having raised such a �puerile� topic for discussion.  I am
still in the �adolescence� of my career in linguistics and enjoy talking
with more mature-minded experts in the field who will tolerate my
�immaturity� in order to increase my learning curve!  I do find such topics
fascinating, even though they may be considered �worn out� and stale by most
linguists.  I enjoy exploring a whole territory before focusing on any
particular region.  I have learned a lot from this discussion and hope to
learn more about many other things as time goes on.

Dave




Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html





>From: Wallace Chafe <chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:54:13 -0800
>
>I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
>as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
>associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
>with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
>are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
>umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
>book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
>second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
>Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".
>
>I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
>organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
>differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
>structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
>language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
>speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
>languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
>ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
>one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
>surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
>death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
>(he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
>linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
>MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
>but the rest of us certainly should care.
>Wally


_________________________________________________________________
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From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Thu Dec 19 21:57:57 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 22:57:57 +0100
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <F30wG8nlsjH1dsDb7xB0000786e@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.225757.0100.>

At 21:35 19.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>I do find such topics fascinating, even though they may be considered
>"worn out" and stale by most linguists.

Not necessarily. As also had been pointed out there's touchy subjects and
one learns to avoid them. On the other hand, it indeed is interesting that
many beginners and actually also laypersons find topics such as LRHs
fascinating and seemingly also something like "instinctively plausible".
Despite the fact e.g. also Whorf's analysis of some Nootka example is not
particularly helpful in understanding what the language really is like.
Which is a pity as it makes it difficult to actually correlate such "gut"
assessments to linguistic structures. Perhaps Schulze wasn't completely off
the mark when he once said linguistic relativity is like, imagine a
romantic scene, an English couple will softly whisper something like "I
love you", a French couple "Je t'aime"... now the Chechen example I can't
remember, but the sound of pharyngealized vowels made the whole class laugh.

All the best,

Heike


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 19 22:52:24 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 16:52:24 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.165224.0600.>

I don't think most of the discussions here are puerile except in the most technical sense (i.e., reflecting relative innocent inexperience -- Latin puer 'boy'), and Wally isn't the sort to generate put-downs.  I feel it's useful to jump into discussions and try both to educate and to get an education.  Every time I try to explain some concept on the list I have to think through various aspects of it and I usually learn something myself doing it.  That's what makes the Siouan list one of the best around, and useful to experienced and inexperienced alike.  But I take Wally's point that there IS responsible research out there on linguistic relativity.  Whether it proves specific premises or not is a question for each reader to determine.

I'd recommend reading Wally's contribution plus that of Bowerman (if it's Melissa Bowerman).  I'm acquainted with both and trust their scientific objectivity.  Unfortunately, I believe that there is also a lot of "touchy-feelie", errant, personally motivated, non-scholarship on the same topic, much more than there was a few decades ago -- scientism in the service of politics.  Here in the States, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to label it Marxist simply because I'm not convinced many of the offenders are bright enough to read Marx.  And since 1991 he's less and less relevant anyway.  It's especially useful, then, to have Wally's recommendations for further reading.  My own not-very-technical view was expressed in my posting yesterday.

For some reason I'm often unhappy with analogical argument, and I'm not entirely sure I agree with the argument comparing semantics and phonology.  I guess I still have a hard time accepting many of the conclusions of those who take linguistic relativity in its strong form seriously.  Most linguists probably wouldn't argue with a weaker statement though.  Grammatical and semantic categories must have SOME kind of effect.  But what kind?  And how much?  If you want to read some really far-out fiction on the subject, try John Holbrook ("Jack") Vance's _Languages of Pao_ in which a rigid class system is maintained by having each group or trade learn its own language -- a language designed to keep the thoughts of individuals in a straight jacket.  There is other such science fiction, but I can't think of any other titles at the moment.

I'm also a little leary of saying the MIT people are hung up on universals.  If by universals, we mean what they call "UG", [yu: ji:], then I'd agree that a number of prominent practitioners are both narrow and sloppy.  But lots of responsible linguists are engaged in the search for universals, and those who approach it from a combination of field experience and typological comparison in institutions like Max Planck and RCLT are making good progress, I believe.

Bob

> I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
> as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
> associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
> with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
> are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
> umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
> book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
> second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
> Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".
>
> I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
> organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
> differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
> structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
> language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
> speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
> languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
> ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
> one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
> surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
> death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
> (he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
> linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
> MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
> but the rest of us certainly should care.
> Wally
>
>


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 19 23:47:35 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 23:47:35 +0000
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.234735.0000.>

>>the remaining question ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole
>>influenced by the way one organizes them for speaking?<<

Perhaps this should REALLY have been the phrasing for my original question.
When I suggested to Heike that our thoughts must fit into a "template" for
mutual comprehension and communication, I was referring to grammar or syntax
as the template we must use.  And, yes, just how much does the grammatical
or syntactical organization of a particular language "force" one to think or
understand in a certain way?  There's no doubt thought exists without
language--I can picture a concept without necessarily having a word for it
or without even being able to express it very well--which I suppose would be
called the universal form of "mentalese" (a la Pinker or Hansen) all of
humanity seems to share, regardless of their mother tongue or languages they
speak.  I think it is correct that the grammars of some languages may
highlight or emphasize one thing over another not emphasized in another
language.  And I guess the question now would be: HOW MUCH does that
grammatical emphasis or lack thereof from one language to the next affect a
culture's or individual's thought patterns, if at all?

As for the time issue, I find that some languages (especially the IE
languages) are very tense-oriented while others (e.g., perhaps most Native
American and Polynesian languages) are more aspect-oriented.  (Not sure if
these are the correct linguistic terms.)  I would say from what little I
know so far of Native American and Polynesian languages (having studied some
Hawaiian), these languages focus more on whether something is finished or
not (complete vs. incomplete action) without being so hung up on stating the
exact time or period.  In English we must think of the tense-factor before
we utter a single sentence to put it in a correct tense form (past, present,
or future) which is something these native languages don't seem to be so
concerned with.  Yes, they can emphasize time if they want to, but that
doesn't appear to be a standard part of their sentence structure as it is in
English. And, (here we go again!) does that less tense-oriented and more
aspect-oriented perspective affect the culture and how important they
perceive time to be?  Perhaps "Indian-" or "Hawaiian-" time is simply an
influence from their language and culture in that as long as something gets
done they don't care exactly when, as long as it happens (!).  But,
regardless of our language, I think we ourselves as individuals can
determine how important time is to each of us, although OUR society
definitely places a great emphasis on punctuality!

Dave



Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html





>From: Wallace Chafe <chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:54:13 -0800
>
>I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
>as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
>associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
>with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
>are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
>umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
>book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
>second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
>Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".
>
>I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
>organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
>differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
>structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
>language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
>speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
>languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
>ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
>one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
>surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
>death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
>(he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
>linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
>MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
>but the rest of us certainly should care.
>Wally


_________________________________________________________________
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From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Fri Dec 20 00:41:23 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 18:41:23 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.184123.0600.>

> Perhaps Schulze wasn't completely off
> the mark when he once said linguistic relativity is like, imagine a
> romantic scene, an English couple will softly whisper something like "I
> love you", a French couple "Je t'aime"... now the Chechen example I can't
> remember, but the sound of pharyngealized vowels made the whole class
laugh.

Or how about OP "Xta'widhe"?  ;-)

We had a young Omaha student going into heart surgery
this semester, who gleefully memorized the phrase:

      Xta'widhe, noNde'skidhe-haaa'!
      (I love you, sweetheart!)

delivered with vampirically mortuary tone, just to
freak out her doctors when she woke up!

Rory


From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Fri Dec 20 02:38:11 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 20:38:11 -0600
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.203811.0600.>

>On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
>>   ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
>>     gini' koNbdhe'goN.
>>   I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
>>     sound asleep, which I love, will recover.
>>
>> To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
>> each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
>> verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
>> to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
>> and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
>> Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
>> toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
>> could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
>> It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
>> attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
>> statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
>> whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 John Koontz wrote back:
> I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
> still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
> but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
> extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
> embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
> Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
> The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
> clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
> there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.

Thanks, John!  I was going to be disappointed if nobody jumped on me for
that posting!  Now please bear with me while I try to unravel what you
just said, given that I don't savvy most of your key words!

Definitions needed, preferably with examples:

  Head
    (I found a brief discussion of this concept in an article by Johanna
    Nichols, Language 62:1, to which I was referred by another linguist
    in a private email.  It seems the head is the indispensible part, as
    opposed to other parts that are dependent.  The central noun is the
    head of a noun phrase, with adjectives and possessive nouns dependent.
    A predicate is the head of the sentence, an auxilliary verb is head
    with respect to a lexical verb, an adposition is the head of an
    adpositional phrase, and a main clause is head over a subordinate
    clause.  These different "head" designations, as rankings of relative
    importance, do not seem comparable to me; presented like this, I'm
    not yet convinced of the validity of the concept.)

  Embedding/embedded clause

  Context/context clause

  Trace

  Focussed element

  Determiner
    (Would this be, e.g., the positional/article /khe/ in the example
    above?)


> As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
> I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
> languages.

You'd need to define exactly what your criterion is for "finite verb".
If there are no non-finite verbs in Siouan, then the distinction ceases
to be a factor within the language.  In fact, I think we're actually
saying the same thing here.  Your criterion (perhaps inflectability?)
makes them all finite, while mine (singular, demand-bearing, crux of
sentence) may make none of them finite.  Either way, the distinction
between finite and non-finite verbs is critical in Indo-European, but
meaningless in Siouan.


>  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
> (noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
> nominalization of inflected forms.

Could you illustrate this with an example or two?  I'm not sure I see
the connection.


>  It is possible for a subordination
> marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner
and/or
> a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.

For example?

>  It is possible to
> raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
> this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.

And three examples would be?  (Sorry, I'm still lost!)

> There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.

In OP, there are (functionally) four independent pronominals:

      e'          s/he, it, they
      wi'         I
      dhi'        you
      oNgu'       we

and these do not change according to whether they are subject or object.
Is this what you are referring to here?


Sorry if I'm a bit dense on the terminology, but I did lard the original
post with all due disclamatories!  ;-)

Rory


From munro at ucla.edu  Mon Dec 23 04:32:57 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 20:32:57 -0800
Subject: statives and inchoatives
Message-ID: <SUN.22.DEC.2002.203257.0800.>

I've been travelling and am sorry I'm just answering this. (It was originally
called "The Whorf Hypothesis", but I don't think I'm saying anything about that
here.)

I may have missed some earlier reference to Mojave (Mohave), a language I know
something about, which (like Siouan langauges, and many other languages all
around the world), expresses "adjectival" concepts with verbs.

In such languages, I think there are at least three different strategies for
handling stative concepts (e.g. "The man is tall") versus inchoative concepts
(e.g. "The man gets tall").

-- There may be a special auxiliary verb, comparable to English "gets". (This
is true in Chickasaw, for example; Chickasaw is a Muskogean language spoken in
Oklahoma, whose grammar is generally very similar to both Siouan and Yuman.)

-- There may be a special grammatical affix that changes the meaning of the
root verb. (This is true in Pima, a Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Arizona, and
in the Zapotec languages of Oaxaca, for example.) In some languages the
"stative" concept may be basic and the inchoative is derived (I believe this is
the best analysis of Pima), in others, it is the stative meaning that is
derived (I believe this is the best analysis of the Zapotec languages I'm
familiar with).

-- There may be no explicit marking of the difference, and context (the
surrounding discourse, associated adverbs, etc.) may help the speaker
differentiate these meanings. I've reviewed my notes on Mojave, as well as the
fairly closely related Yuman language Tolkapaya Yavapai, and I think that's the
best analysis of the data there.

Of course it is true that each language can differentiate these concepts. They
just do it differently.

Pam



David Kaufman wrote:

> >>>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
> >>>as a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be,
> >>>and which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical
> >>>investigations).  What comes closest to your proposal is the category of
> >>>resultative, i.e. a category denoing a state resultant from a process.
> >>>Again, stative and resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old
> >>>World, too.<<<
>
> I guess what I'm curious to know here is whether there would be an
> alternative in Hidatsa/Crow/Mojave and any other language that expresses
> "(The) man talls" construct to distinguish between the state of BEING tall
> and the process of GROWING TALLER.  Unfortunately all I have is the
> dictionary from 1886 by Matthew Washington in Hidatsa, and nothing from
> these other languages, and we haven't heard from our Hidatsa expert yet,
> John Boyle, who would probably know best from his research on Hidatsa.  If
> there are alternate methods depending on whether one is referring to a state
> or process, then that would correlate with IE languages (i.e., he is tall,
> he is getting taller).  If not, then I'm still left wondering why this
> attribute would be stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's
> because they don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead,
> unless an adjective has much in common with a verb (?).
>
> I agree that both of these polarized views are too extreme and the real
> answer lies somewhere in the middle in a big "grey" area.  I believe, as
> Pinker says, we can think without words and remember "gists" of
> conversations which are not the same as remembering a bunch of words, but I
> also believe that spoken or written language has to fit into a grammatical
> construct template in order for our thoughts to make sense to another
> speaker of the same language.  How much our grammatical construct template
> limits us in how we think or expresses nuances in different languages I'm
> not sure about.
>
> After several years of studying different languages (mostly European and now
> just beginning Native American) I too find it difficult to come up with
> adequate answers, and I only hope that as my multilingual and mutlicultural
> awareness increases I will be able to find more answers!
>
> Thanks for the input!
>
> Dave
>
> >From: "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu>
> >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> >To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> >Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
> >Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:54:40 -0600
> >
> >
> > >But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
> >as
> >a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
> >which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
> >What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
> >category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
> >resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too,
> >
> >Indeed.  It seems to be the case that every language capable, using one
> >mechanism or another, to convey all the nuances of other languages.
> >
> > >This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
> > >to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
> > >process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
> >
> > >It is a romantic though understandable view, . . .
> >
> >To me, that sums it up nicely.  When I was a student in the early '60's the
> >Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis was mentioned, but understood to be
> >unprovable.  It was essentially dropped from the linguistics curriculum
> >(but not always from Anthropology).  Now, thanks to Post Modernism and the
> >like, it has returned.  But there are still no tests that would enable one
> >to prove the theory.  So, the very same theory can be totally "out" one
> >year but be totally "in" another year, with no evidence adduced for either
> >view really.  This fact doesn't tell us a lot about the nature of language,
> >but it says a great deal about the state of American social science.
> >
> >Taking one view allows the "scholar" to emphasize the similarities among
> >all speakers of natural languages and denigrate his "touchy-feely"
> >colleagues.  Taking the other view allows people to give in to romantic
> >prejudices and popular stereotypes and feel all warm and fuzzy about
> >essentially Rousseauesque views of natural man.  Obviously there are those
> >who gravitate to one or the other of these extremes.  I have never felt
> >comfortable with either one.
> >
> >I have had bilingual students, especially one American girl who had been
> >raised in Japan and was about as close to bilingualism as you can get, who
> >insisted that she reacted to stimuli quite differently depending on the
> >language milieu she was interacting in.  But, of course, these were
> >subjective statements, and she couldn't really describe exactly what it was
> >that was different.  I took her feelings and statements seriously, but
> >couldn't verify them.
> >
> >I've been a linguist for 35 or 40 years and still don't have answers to
> >these connundrums.  But I think that, as scientists, we have to ask one or
> >two questions.
> >
> >1)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be falsified?  If the answer
> >is "no", then it is useless as a scientific theory.
> >
> >2)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be proved?  If not, then it's
> >still a useless theory.  If experiments are possible, then they should be
> >designed and performed, preferably by someone with a neutral outlook.
> >
> >Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.
> >
> >By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't
> >find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.  So I tend to
> >leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee Whorf.
> >
> >Bob
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

--
Pamela Munro
Professor, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543 USA
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguistics/people/munro/munro.htm


From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com  Wed Dec 25 01:16:44 2002
From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant)
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 01:16:44 -0000
Subject: season's greetings
Message-ID: <WED.25.DEC.2002.011644.0000.ANTHONY.GRANT3@BTINTERNET.COM>

Dear All:

Season's Greetings for Christmas and the New Year from an English Americanist.

Best wishes

Anthony Grant
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From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sat Dec 28 21:50:22 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 14:50:22 -0700
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
In-Reply-To: <OFEDAA9A32.1FE54CBA-ON86256C95.00061B0C@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.28.DEC.2002.145022.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 John Koontz wrote back:
> > I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
> > still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
> > but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
> > extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
> > embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
> > Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
> > The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
> > clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
> > there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.
>
> Thanks, John!  I was going to be disappointed if nobody jumped on me for
> that posting!

I didn't want you to feel that no one was paying attention, though it's a
time of the year when people really aren't paying much attention, I'm
afraid.  Social activities tend to overwhelm everything else.  Not to
mention the end of the Semester.

> Definitions needed, preferably with examples:
>
>   Head ...

Also, the noun described by a relative clause is the head of the relative
clause, which is what I was referring to here.  The concept of head is a
central element of current syntactic theory though not exactly an
innovation within it.  What is, I think characteristic of modern
approaches is an insistence that a head be endocentric, i.e., a variety of
the thing of which it is a head.  This impacts the assessment of what
might be the head of a construction, and of what the boundaries of the
construct might be.

>   Embedding/embedded clause
>   Context/context clause
>   trace

A subordinate clause is embedded in a sentence, which is, of course, a
clause itself - the main clause.  A subordinate clause typically functions
like certain simpler elements of a sentence, e.g., an adverbial clause
acts like an adverb, an adjectival (or relative) clauses acts like an
adjective, a noun clause (or complement clause) as a noun, and so on.
The idea (and this is not new) is that these clauses are embedded within
the higher level or context clause provided by either the sentence or some
other embedded clause.  A typical notation is to put square brackets,
perhaps labelled in some way around the clause.

[[[[[[[[ShoN'ge ska] u'joN] abthiN'] wakHe'ga] zhoN't?e] kHe xta'athe] kHe
gini'] koNbthe'goN]

[I hope [[[[[the [beautiful [white horse]] that I have] which is sick] and
lying sound asleep], which I love], will recover]]

A more parallel construction in English would be:

[I hope that [[[[[[[the horse which is white] which is beautiful] that I
have] which is sick] which is asleep] which I love] will recover]]

I've simplfied here somewhat, but this shows what I mean about OP putting
the most deeply embedded stuff first and then just appending more to it as
it's pushed deeper.  By contrast, the situation in English tends to push
things deeper into the middle.  In more detail:

Things are roughly parallel, but inverted in order with complement clases:

[[shoN'ge gini'] koNbthe'goN]

[I hope [the horse will recover]]

With relative clauses you get the extraction of the head in English and
the English adjectival construction offers a modified noun phrase
alternative without real parallel in OP.

[[shoN'ge ska] kHe xta'athe]     [I love the [white horse]]

[[shoN'ge abthiN'] wakHe'ga]     [(the) [horse that I have] is sick]

You could look at the English in this latter case as:

[(the) [horse [that I have]] is sick]

In the relative clause 'horse' is extracted out of the embedded clause 'I
have (the) horse' and raised into the main clause, leaving the relative
pronoun 'that' behind as its trace in the relative clause proper [that I
have].  And this trace has to be at the beginning (awkwardly sometimes
called the head!) of the embedded clause, rather than after the verb as in
'I have (the) horse'.

In essence, OP substitutes noun clauses for relative clauses.

>   Focussed element

The thing that a sentence (or clause) is about, to which attention is
directed, e.g., in this case the horse.  The focus of a relative clause is
its head.

>   Determiner
>     (Would this be, e.g., the positional/article /khe/ in the example
>     above?)

Yes.  Articles and demonstratives are called determiners.  I've been
simplifying things by not marking determined nouns which their own set of
brackets, but, normally it would be:

I love [the [sick horse]]

[[[shoN'ge wakHe'ga] khe] xtaathe]

> > As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
> > I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
> > languages.
>
> You'd need to define exactly what your criterion is for "finite verb".

Any verb which is inflected for person is finite.  As far as I know, this
is not a practice unique to me.  I would consider an OP third person verb
to be inflected, albeit there is no prefix (or suffix)  to indicate it.
This is one of the crosses that students of languages with "zero" pronouns
(or unmarked personal categories) have to bear.  But in particular, there
is nothing in Omaha-Ponca that I have noticed that seems analogous to a
participle or gerund or infinitive or verbal noun.  I could be wrong,
because I don't feel that I control all of the complementizing verb
structures (I hope that, I think that,  ..., etc.).

I have to be a little careful in saying 'nothing analogous' because I mean
to exclude analogies that rely on what I take to be finite subordinate
clauses, e.g.,

wathatHa=i egoN, noNzhiN=i

which could be translated 'having eaten, he stood up', but is clearly
(to me) structured more analogously to 'when he had eaten, he stood up'.
(I made this example up, and it may fail in some respect, though I think t
is essentially correct.)

I would argue this because, in the first person I believe it would be

wabthatHe egoN, anoNzhiN


with both verbs inflected.  There are, of course, languages in which
things called participles can be inflected or at least possessed, but in
those cases there is something about the language that distinguishes the
sort of forms called participles (or subordinate mood verbs) from main
verbs and there is nothing like that here (apart from the conjunction
egoN).  The inflection follows the main verb pattern, and there is no
additional affix to indicate that the verb is participial or subordinate,
apart from that egoN.

I could repeat this sort of example for forms tantamount to 'I want the
horse to get well', which I would argue were structured like 'I observed
that the horse got well', but I think this might suffice to show where I'm
coming from.

> If there are no non-finite verbs in Siouan, then the distinction ceases
> to be a factor within the language.

Not really.  It might become harder to observe within the context of the
language alone, but the lack, or rather absence, of non-finite forms
imposes and/or reflects a particular structural pattern in the language,
nevertheless.  Finite forms work one way (I observed thathe got well);
non-finite ones work another (I want him to get better).

English offers a variety of subordinating structures, using finite
clauses, participles, infinitives, etc.  The Siouan languages I know all
use finite clauses only.  There are languages which use participles and
infinitives only, e.g., most Eskimo languages.

> >  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
> > (noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
> > nominalization of inflected forms.
>
> Could you illustrate this with an example or two?  I'm not sure I see
> the connection.

I mean that there are no affixes that convert verbs to nouns (infinitives
or other verbal or deverbative nouns) or adjectives (participles).  You
just use the verb (unmodified) as a noun, or you just form a relative
(essentially a noun clause) to produce the modification.

There are no analogs of -tion, -ness, -ity, or even 'to ...'.  There are
no analogs of -ish, -ly, -ing, etc.

So, to say something like 'a working solution' you have to provide a
structure like 'it works that it solves it'.

If you need a new noun in OP you provide a predicate form:  either a verb,
or a noun plus a verb, etc.  The verb can be as elaborately derived as
necessary.  The only non-verbal modifiers are other nouns, in
constructions like poNka wa?u.

> > It is possible for a subordination
> > marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner
> > and/or a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.
>
> For example?

If all relative clauses were marked by e or ga or some article, like

shoNge wakHega e                (not actually required)
the horse which was sick

But you do need e (or some other determiner) with most nouns if you add a
postposition.  A very limited set of nouns will take a postposition like
=di directly, e.g., ttiadi, and the morphology may be peculiar, as it is
in this case:  tti + di => ttiadi.

niugashupa editHoN 'from the pond'
oNnoNzhiN editHoN 'from where we stood'

Examples of subordinators derived from postpositions don't occur in OP.

Examples of subordinators derived from verbs - well, egoN 'be so' is
rampant.

> > It is possible to
> > raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
> > this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.
>
> And three examples would be?  (Sorry, I'm still lost!)

noNghi'de oNska' I hear well (ear I-clear)

thewithe 'I sent you' (go-I:you-cause)

moN gia'gha=i'He made him an arrow'
moN dhia'gha=i 'He made you an arrow'

> > There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.
>
> In OP, there are (functionally) four independent pronominals:
>
>       e'          s/he, it, they
>       wi'         I
>       dhi'        you
>       oNgu'       we
>
> and these do not change according to whether they are subject or object.
> Is this what you are referring to here?

Yes.  Also, there are no locative forms.


From jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu  Mon Dec 30 22:04:19 2002
From: jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu (John Boyle)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:04:19 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.160419.0600.>

Hi All,

I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
could all get together for dinner while we're there.

See many of you soon,

John Boyle


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Mon Dec 30 22:17:35 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:17:35 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <a04320400ba3671c3265d@[68.72.160.42]>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.161735.0600.>

I'm arriving at 4:05 pm on the 1st, from Houston. Staying at the Atlanta
Hilton.  Anybody coming in that evening and wanting to get together a group
for dinner around 7pm?
Carolyn Quintero

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of John Boyle
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Conference programs


Hi All,

I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
could all get together for dinner while we're there.

See many of you soon,

John Boyle


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Mon Dec 30 22:26:37 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:26:37 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <OFAFE56D6A.05BCAA4C-ON86256C95.0002C667@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.162637.0600.>

FYI conference attendees:

The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around $26.00,
takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called The
Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
There is no hotel shuttle.
Carolyn


From rankin at ku.edu  Mon Dec 30 23:11:59 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:11:59 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.171159.0600.>

I know I have some of those around.  If I don't find them in time for LSA, please remind me afterward.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: John Boyle <jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
Subject: Conference programs


> Hi All,
>
> I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
> programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
> need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
> could all get together for dinner while we're there.
>
> See many of you soon,
>
> John Boyle
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Mon Dec 30 23:13:16 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:13:16 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.171316.0600.>

I'll be splitting a room with JEK; feel free to buzz us.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Quintero <cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:17 PM
Subject: RE: Conference programs


> I'm arriving at 4:05 pm on the 1st, from Houston. Staying at the Atlanta
> Hilton.  Anybody coming in that evening and wanting to get together a group
> for dinner around 7pm?
> Carolyn Quintero
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of John Boyle
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: Conference programs
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
> programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
> need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
> could all get together for dinner while we're there.
>
> See many of you soon,
>
> John Boyle
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Mon Dec 30 23:14:38 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:14:38 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.171438.0600.>

Public transport (metro train) comes right to the airport for those who take the time to figger it out.  Much less cost.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Quintero <cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:26 PM
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


> FYI conference attendees:
>
> The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around $26.00,
> takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called The
> Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
> There is no hotel shuttle.
> Carolyn
>


From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU  Mon Dec 30 23:33:39 2002
From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:33:39 -0700
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <002201c2b051$41902340$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.163339.0700.>

Three of us, at least, from Boulder will be arriving around 5:00 at the
airport.  Dinner around 7:00 sounds good to me.  Armik (Mirzayan) and
Hartwell (Francis) will be rooming together, and I'm sharing with Willem
deReuse.  We'll try to make contact with you once we get there.

David

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:

> I'm arriving at 4:05 pm on the 1st, from Houston. Staying at the Atlanta
> Hilton.  Anybody coming in that evening and wanting to get together a group
> for dinner around 7pm?
> Carolyn Quintero
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of John Boyle
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: Conference programs
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
> programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
> need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
> could all get together for dinner while we're there.
>
> See many of you soon,
>
> John Boyle
>


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 00:02:11 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 19:02:11 -0500
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212301631540.12386-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.190211.0500.>

Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at 7:00
(maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet you
there.

Linda
-------------------


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 00:53:50 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 18:53:50 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <200212310002.TAA02849@indiana.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.185350.0600.>

Ok, LInda, let's gather at 7 near the check-in counter and depart at 7:15.
I'll be there!
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Linda Cumberland
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Conference programs


Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at 7:00
(maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet you
there.

Linda
-------------------


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec 31 08:33:56 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 01:33:56 -0700
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <002301c2b052$847ebb20$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.013356.0700.>

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:
> The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around $26.00,
> takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called The
> Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
> There is no hotel shuttle.

I seem to recall a train, but it's been a while, and I'm not sure it was
Atlanta ... or the Hilton, for that matter.


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 14:43:15 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:43:15 -0500
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212310132420.1786-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.094315.0500.>

I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
hassle-free.

Linda
-------------------
> On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:
> > The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around
$26.00,
> > takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called
The
> > Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
> > There is no hotel shuttle.
>
> I seem to recall a train, but it's been a while, and I'm not sure it
was
> Atlanta ... or the Hilton, for that matter.
>
>
>
>
>


From CaRudin1 at wsc.edu  Tue Dec 31 15:02:59 2002
From: CaRudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:02:59 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.090259.0600.>

Thanks!  It's great to have local logistics info.   Like an idiot I'm
coming in at the last minute -- Thursday morning instead of Wednesday
afternoon -- for reasons I can't now recall, it seemed sensible at the time
when I was making reservations.  So I 'll miss the dinner.  Oh well!   You
guys enjoy it.  See you all Thursday.
Catherine


I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
hassle-free.

Linda


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 15:27:17 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:27:17 -0500
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <OF18385808.28E91000-ON86256CA0.0052283B@wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.102717.0500.>

Here's the website for MARTA - it has the rail map.  I think you need
to get off at either Five Points or Peachtree Center, but you can
probably check that against the hotel website, which ought to say
which MARTA stop it's closest to.

http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/getthere.htm

Linda


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 15:59:25 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:59:25 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.095925.0600.>

That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.

B.


----- Original Message -----
From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
Subject: RE: Conference programs


> Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
> Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at 7:00
> (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet you
> there.
>
> Linda
> -------------------
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 16:11:43 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:11:43 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.101143.0600.>

OK, now I'm confused.  Maybe I didn't read the dates properly.  Are people getting together for dinner on Wed. the 1st or Thurs the 2nd?  I'm coming in on Thursday and I think John is too (otherwise he doesn't have a room for Wed. night and is just finding it out).  We'd better clear this up or there'll be a lot of lost souls wandering around LSA on one evening or the other.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC <CaRudin1 at wsc.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


>
> Thanks!  It's great to have local logistics info.   Like an idiot I'm
> coming in at the last minute -- Thursday morning instead of Wednesday
> afternoon -- for reasons I can't now recall, it seemed sensible at the time
> when I was making reservations.  So I 'll miss the dinner.  Oh well!   You
> guys enjoy it.  See you all Thursday.
> Catherine
>
>
> I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
> right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
> from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
> and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
> is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
> convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
> be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
> to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
> You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
> someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
> MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
> hassle-free.
>
> Linda
>
>
>


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 16:16:20 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:16:20 -0500
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <001101c2b0e5$985fa6c0$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.111620.0500.>

Of course it is.  Sorry. And thanks. L.
-------------------
> That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.
>
> B.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
> Subject: RE: Conference programs
>
>
> > Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
> > Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at
7:00
> > (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet
you
> > there.
> >
> > Linda
> > -------------------
> >
>
>
>


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 16:27:06 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:27:06 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <OF18385808.28E91000-ON86256CA0.0052283B@wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.102706.0600.>

It's nice to have this train info.  The fellow at the Hilton knew only
taxis, had to go ask someone about shuttles at my insistence and I got a
vague answer, and he never mentioned trains!
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Catherine
Rudin/HU/AC/WSC
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:03 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi



Thanks!  It's great to have local logistics info.   Like an idiot I'm
coming in at the last minute -- Thursday morning instead of Wednesday
afternoon -- for reasons I can't now recall, it seemed sensible at the time
when I was making reservations.  So I 'll miss the dinner.  Oh well!   You
guys enjoy it.  See you all Thursday.
Catherine


I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
hassle-free.

Linda


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 16:31:52 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:31:52 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <200212311616.LAA19004@indiana.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.103152.0600.>

I was talking about dinner on the 1st, since many seem to be arriving on the
1st.
Carolyn
??

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Linda Cumberland
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 10:16 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Conference programs


Of course it is.  Sorry. And thanks. L.
-------------------
> That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.
>
> B.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
> Subject: RE: Conference programs
>
>
> > Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
> > Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at
7:00
> > (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet
you
> > there.
> >
> > Linda
> > -------------------
> >
>
>
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 17:50:52 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:50:52 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.115052.0600.>

It's coming back to me now.  As I recall, Peachtree Center is sorta-kinda across the street from the Hilton Towers (and maybe south a little?), so that's probably the exit you want.  I *think* you walk east from the MARTA stop, but you'd better check a map.  I'm sure we can find a map of downtown ATL on the web somewhere.

Also, Peachtree Center has a number of places you can get a decent breakfast (as opposed to the $20 breakfasts in the hotel).

I think Linda should pick a restaurant for us, as she's the native.  I lived in Atlanta from 1956-60 when I was in college, but it's totally different now.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Cc: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


> Here's the website for MARTA - it has the rail map.  I think you need
> to get off at either Five Points or Peachtree Center, but you can
> probably check that against the hotel website, which ought to say
> which MARTA stop it's closest to.
>
> http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/getthere.htm
>
> Linda
>


From jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu  Tue Dec 31 17:46:10 2002
From: jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu (John Boyle)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:46:10 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <000301c2b0ea$1ffe71c0$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.114610.0600.>

I'll be arriving Wednesday, but I've already made dinner plans with
my mother (who is coming down from Augusta).  If people are still up
maybe we could meet up after dinner for a drink?  Also, since a
number of people are arriving Thursday morning maybe we could also
get together then as well?  I'm sure we'll all see each other since
we'll probably be going to many of the same talks so it shouldn't be
too hard to organize.  See you all soon.

John Boyle





>I was talking about dinner on the 1st, since many seem to be arriving on the
>1st.
>Carolyn
>??
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Linda Cumberland
>Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 10:16 AM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Conference programs
>
>
>Of course it is.  Sorry. And thanks. L.
>-------------------
>>  That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.
>>
>>  B.
>>
>>
>>  ----- Original Message -----
>>  From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
>>  To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>>  Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
>>  Subject: RE: Conference programs
>>
>>
>>  > Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
>>  > Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at
>7:00
>>  > (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet
>you
>  > > there.
>  > >
>  > > Linda
>  > > -------------------
>  > >
>  >
>  >
>  >


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 18:24:43 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 12:24:43 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.122443.0600.>

OK, this is the sub-map you want (below).  It covers the main downtown area including 5Points and Peachtree Center.  You can click on "zoom" after the map loads until you get good legibility.  Peachtree Center is in big red letters so you can't miss it.  Courtland St. runs N-S basically right thru/under the center.

And it *is* the Peachtree Center stop where you want to get off the train.  The hotel is right close by -- just ask one of the merchants in the Center (it's a big shopping center all indoors) or a cop for directions.

Thanks to Linda this should save everybody flying in a bunch of money.

http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/gridpages/sysmap_806.htm


----- Original Message -----
From: R. Rankin <rankin at KU.EDU>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 11:50 AM
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


> It's coming back to me now.  As I recall, Peachtree Center is sorta-kinda across the street from the Hilton Towers (and maybe south a little?), so that's probably the exit you want.  I *think* you walk east from the MARTA stop, but you'd better check a map.  I'm sure we can find a map of downtown ATL on the web somewhere.
>
> Also, Peachtree Center has a number of places you can get a decent breakfast (as opposed to the $20 breakfasts in the hotel).
>
> I think Linda should pick a restaurant for us, as she's the native.  I lived in Atlanta from 1956-60 when I was in college, but it's totally different now.
>
> Bob
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Cc: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:27 AM
> Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
>
>
> > Here's the website for MARTA - it has the rail map.  I think you need
> > to get off at either Five Points or Peachtree Center, but you can
> > probably check that against the hotel website, which ought to say
> > which MARTA stop it's closest to.
> >
> > http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/getthere.htm
> >
> > Linda
> >
>


From rwd0002 at unt.edu  Tue Dec 31 19:35:08 2002
From: rwd0002 at unt.edu (rwd0002 at unt.edu)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 13:35:08 -0600
Subject: Dinner on the first
In-Reply-To: <002201c2b051$41902340$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.133508.0600.>

Dear all:
I am arriving on the first in the afternoon; and would like to join Siouanists,
for dinner around 7 p.m. I am rooming with David Rood.

Willem de Reuse


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 19:55:41 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 13:55:41 -0600
Subject: Dinner on the first
In-Reply-To: <1041363308.3e11f16c9c463@eaglemail.unt.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.135541.0600.>

Let's all meet on the first at 7 pm near the checkin counter at the Hilton.
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of rwd0002 at unt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 1:35 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu; Carolyn Quintero
Subject: RE: Dinner on the first


Dear all:
I am arriving on the first in the afternoon; and would like to join
Siouanists,
for dinner around 7 p.m. I am rooming with David Rood.

Willem de Reuse


From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU  Tue Dec 31 22:01:36 2002
From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 15:01:36 -0700
Subject: new baggage rules at airports
In-Reply-To: <000001c2b106$98d03fe0$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.150136.0700.>

Yes, the first is what I had in mind -- see you in the lobby about 7 if
all goes smoothly between Denver at that lobby.

Everyone should also be aware that there are new baggage inspection rules
going into effect tomorrow (the first).  All checked baggage has to be
inspected either by xray or by hand, and most airports don't have the xray
machines yet.  Don't put anything into checked luggage that might get hurt
by an xray however (they mention film specifically -- I don't know about
diskettes or cds, etc.), and DO NOT LOCK YOUR SUITCASE unless you want to
have the locks cut off by the inspectors.  I'm waiting to see how much
stuff gets stolen in this process.  Grrrrr.

David



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:

> Let's all meet on the first at 7 pm near the checkin counter at the Hilton.
> Carolyn
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of rwd0002 at unt.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 1:35 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu; Carolyn Quintero
> Subject: RE: Dinner on the first
>
>
> Dear all:
> I am arriving on the first in the afternoon; and would like to join
> Siouanists,
> for dinner around 7 p.m. I am rooming with David Rood.
>
> Willem de Reuse
>


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec  1 01:16:11 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 18:16:11 -0700
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
Message-ID: <SAT.30.NOV.2002.181611.0700.>

This is actually, oddly enough, a query for the Muskoeanists on the list.
It arises out of some on and off discussion that has been going on among
some Algonquianists (Costa, Rhodes, Pentland) and Siouanists (Rankin,
Koontz) about the 'nine' (and related) forms in Algonquian, Siouan,
Muskogean, and, maybe, Tunica.  Bob Rankin is, of course, quite familiar
with Muskogean (and Tunica, for that matter), so it was really just now
that it occurred to me to wonder what other Muskogeanists thought about
'nine' and the relevant fricative corrspondences.  As there isn't a
Muskogean list and I'm not in any sort of regular communication with any
students of the family who aren't on this list, maybe I can ask the
question here, with apologies to those who quite reasonably might prefer
to discuss, say, Dakota syntax instead.

Any stray Algonquianists and Siouanists on the list are welcome to tackle
this, too, of course!

So the question isn't too mysterious, relevant forms would be:

Choctaw and Chickasaw c^akka:li 'nine'
Tunica sahku 'one', tohkusahku 'nine'   (I'm the only one who wonders
                        about this, in all honesty!)

Costa:  "Proto-Algonquian */$a:nka/ will account for *all* the reflexes
found in Algonquian *except* Shawnee, which has initial /c/ ('ch'):
/caakat0wi/ '9', /caaka/ '90' ..."  [$ = s^, c = c^, 0 = theta  JEK]

Omaha-Ponca s^aNkka    (typical of Dhegiha)
IO ?saNkhe             (that's glottal stop + s,
                        from earlier ? + s^ < *ks^)

Biloxi c^kane 'nine'   (perhaps a loan from Choctaw/Chickasaw)
Ofo kis^taNs^ka        (perhaps reformulated from *kis^aNhka)
Tutelo k(i)saNhka

====

A note of more general Siouan interest is that the IO form here is one of
the first in which Siouanists detected IO ?s as a reflex of *ks^.  Most
listeners have missed the ?.

JEK


From jbmart at wm.edu  Sun Dec  1 20:18:14 2002
From: jbmart at wm.edu (Jack Martin)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 15:18:14 -0500
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0211301710370.27178-100000@spot.colorado.edu >
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.151814.0500.>

John,

There is a division within the Muskogean languages on the number nine, but
we have to start with 'four'.  My data here are partly based on the
unpublished Muskogean cognates sets that Pam Munro and others have been
working on (well, sort of).

Each branch of the family has a related word for 'four':  Creek o^:stin,
Mikasuki si:ta^:kin, Alabama o'sta^:ka, Koasati osta:ka, Choctaw, Chickasaw
o$ta. (^=falling tone, '=acute accent, $=s with hachek).  These may point
to a form *ostaka or *ositaka.

In Creek and Mikasuki, the word for 'nine' is based on 'four':  Creek
ostapa^:kin [ost- 'four' + apa^:kin 'added in'], Mikasuki
ostapa^:kin.  (I'm not sure if the Mikasuki form is analyzable in
Mikasuki--it may be a loan from Creek.)

In the other languages (sometimes called the "Southwest" group), we see a
different form used:  Alabama ca'kka^:li, Koasati cakka:li, Choctaw
cakka:li, Chickasaw cakka?li.  (c=<ch>, ?=glottal stop)  Pam, in the
cognates sets, connects this to Choctaw, Chickasaw cakali 'pregnant' (i.e.,
about to become ten).  Numbers are in the "geminating grade" (an aspectual
form marked by gemination) in Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Alabama, so cakali >
cakka:li in Choctaw is a normal development.  As far as I know, Alabama and
Koasati to do not have a cognate for 'pregnant', though, so they may have
borrowed from Choctaw or Chickasaw, if the proposed etymology is right.

Where does this leave us?
-the similarities you observe are limited within Muskogean to what might be
called the more western/northern languages
-if Pam's etymology for 'nine' is accepted, and the forms in other
languages are cognate, then Choctaw or Chickasaw would be the most likely
source

Hope this helps.  I'm not sure why 'nine' would be borrowed.  As Haas and
others have noticed, the word for 'seven' was borrowed from Creek into
Cherokee, but seven is the special number for the Cherokee, so that sort of
makes sense (four is the special number in the Muskogean languages).

Incidentally, I've had some fun recently eliciting an old system of numbers
in Creek used for gambling.  I have several of these recorded now, but each
person remembers a slightly different version.  It seems like this sort of
thing might have passed easily between groups.

Jack


From munro at ucla.edu  Sun Dec  1 22:14:18 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 14:14:18 -0800
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.141418.0800.>

The only thing I can add to what Jack's written is to clarify that this
word for '(be) pregnant', Choctaw chakali, has a somewhat odd status.
It's not the normal way any modern speaker I've consulted with expresses
this concept, but is used in Byington's translation of the Bible
(expressing 'great with child', which in the numbers, if I am correct on
this connection, would be extended to 'great with ten' (!)). Speakers
know the word, but perhaps only because of this use. It's possible,
though, that it has some other, earlier meaning we haven't discovered.

Pam


From enichol4 at attbi.com  Sun Dec  1 22:46:33 2002
From: enichol4 at attbi.com (Eric)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 16:46:33 -0600
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.164633.0600.ENICHOL4@ATTBI.COM>

Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
is in?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Pamela Munro" <munro at ucla.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: John Lennon Memorial Query: No. 9


> The only thing I can add to what Jack's written is to clarify that this
> word for '(be) pregnant', Choctaw chakali, has a somewhat odd status.
> It's not the normal way any modern speaker I've consulted with expresses
> this concept, but is used in Byington's translation of the Bible
> (expressing 'great with child', which in the numbers, if I am correct on
> this connection, would be extended to 'great with ten' (!)). Speakers
> know the word, but perhaps only because of this use. It's possible,
> though, that it has some other, earlier meaning we haven't discovered.
>
> Pam
>


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 00:38:59 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 17:38:59 -0700
Subject: John Lennon Memorial Query:  No. 9
In-Reply-To: <007401c2998b$aef438e0$a096fb0c@cb530802a>
Message-ID: <SUN.1.DEC.2002.173859.0700.>

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002, Eric wrote:
> Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning
> with the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the
> pregnancy is in?

Actually, that didn't occur to me, I'm embarassed to say.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 17:55:57 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 10:55:57 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.105557.0700.>

I had to foward this one again because the Subject included the phrase
"please ignore."

John E. Koontz
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz

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Subject: Error Condition Re: Re: Muskogean 9; Siouanists please ignore.


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From: "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu>
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> > Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
> > the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
> > is in?

This would require looking at the time-keeping structure of the Choctaws
(et al.), which was probably lunar, although I'm in near total ignorance
of it.  All I know is that Dhegiha "month" terms are most often not
cognate and aren't really months -- they are descriptive terms for "short
seasons" that have sort of coalesced around Euro-month names since
contact.  But Eric's point is well taken as is Pam's.  Anything is
possible.  I just think that, at the moment, everything is unproven.  A
comprehensive search in other Muskogean languages for cognates of
'pregnant' in Choctaw/Chickasaw might well shed badly needed light on the
semantics of any earlier term.

Right now I still think of the "shanhka" word as a Wanderwort, native to
none of the three families where we find it.

 Bob


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 22:08:42 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 15:08:42 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212021052570.5945-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.150842.0700.>

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Eric wrote:
> Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
> the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
> is in?

Bob Rankin replies:
> This would require looking at the time-keeping structure of the Choctaws
> (et al.), which was probably lunar, although I'm in near total ignorance
> of it.  ...

Or it might not.  If it was something like "at nine (months)" the form
could arise solely from the context of Bible translation (per Pam Munro:
"used in Byington's translation of the Bible (expressing 'great with
child',...)").  That is, the term could be a neologism created to express
a particular conception of the meaning of "great with child."  The
potential for this sort of problem - neologisms to handle an alien concept
- is one of the reasons linguists are often reluctant to consider
linguistic data from Bible translations or any comparable in-translation
full of alien concepts, of course).  Another reason would be the
possibility of imported syntax - the syntactic equivalent of a neologism -
a neosyntagmism?

> All I know is that Dhegiha "month" terms are most often not cognate
> and aren't really months -- they are descriptive terms for "short
> seasons" that have sort of coalesced around Euro-month names since
> contact.

Somewhere I read an assessment of this that suggested that underlying
these systems in languages of the Old Northwest was probably a fairly
standard lunar calendar, in which the basically there were 12-13 month
names and some local authority would intercalate the extra month whenever
the lunar months difted too far out of synchrony with the solar year, not
unlike a lot of pre-Classical European systems.

I suppose the descriptive names of the months might vary from place to
place, too.

> Right now I still think of the "shanhka" word as a Wanderwort, native to
> none of the three families where we find it.

I agree, except that I wonder about the forms in a fourth family - Tunica.
The significance of the Tunica forms is that there sahku 'one' looks like
it connected with tohkusahku 'nine', and I wonder if the latter isn't
derived from the former along the usual lines of 'one less (than ten)'.
I don't know if tohku- can be analyzed in terms of the existing Tunica
data.  The phonology isn't too far out of line, especially if you consider
that Tunica might easily be an isolated remnant of something larger.

I'm curious whether the term Wanderwort implies that the source language
is uncertain.  Is it sufficient for the word to be widely distributed?


From jbmart at wm.edu  Mon Dec  2 22:55:41 2002
From: jbmart at wm.edu (Jack Martin)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 17:55:41 -0500
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212021443320.2093-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.175541.0500.>

Looking at Byington, it's hard for me to see that chakali means 'great with
child' rather than just 'pregnant'.  He cites Matt. 1:23 (Behold a virgin
shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name
Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us), where 'great with
child' doesn't really fit well, I think.

He also defines it as 'to teem', so my feeling is that Eric's connection to
nine months is funny but doubtful.

As for Tunica:  Haas compared to'hkusa'hku 'nine' to sa'hku 'one' in her
dictionary, but was apparently doubtful of what to'hku- meant.  Two
possibilities include to'hku 'to strike ... together' and t-o'hku-sa'hku
'the-offspring-one' (which she evidently didn't think of or rejected).  But
I'm confused about this:  if the word for 'nine' is a "Wanderwort", I don't
see how it could also be derived from 'one' in Tunica...

Jack



At 03:08 PM 12/2/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Eric wrote:
> > Ok, I'll ask the obvious: could "nine" be the original Choctaw meaning with
> > the "(be) pregnant" meaning referring to number of the month the pregnancy
> > is in?
>
>Bob Rankin replies:
> > This would require looking at the time-keeping structure of the Choctaws
> > (et al.), which was probably lunar, although I'm in near total ignorance
> > of it.  ...
>
>Or it might not.  If it was something like "at nine (months)" the form
>could arise solely from the context of Bible translation (per Pam Munro:
>"used in Byington's translation of the Bible (expressing 'great with
>child',...)").  That is, the term could be a neologism created to express
>a particular conception of the meaning of "great with child."  The
>potential for this sort of problem - neologisms to handle an alien concept
>- is one of the reasons linguists are often reluctant to consider
>linguistic data from Bible translations or any comparable in-translation
>full of alien concepts, of course).  Another reason would be the
>possibility of imported syntax - the syntactic equivalent of a neologism -
>a neosyntagmism?
>
> > All I know is that Dhegiha "month" terms are most often not cognate
> > and aren't really months -- they are descriptive terms for "short
> > seasons" that have sort of coalesced around Euro-month names since
> > contact.
>
>Somewhere I read an assessment of this that suggested that underlying
>these systems in languages of the Old Northwest was probably a fairly
>standard lunar calendar, in which the basically there were 12-13 month
>names and some local authority would intercalate the extra month whenever
>the lunar months difted too far out of synchrony with the solar year, not
>unlike a lot of pre-Classical European systems.
>
>I suppose the descriptive names of the months might vary from place to
>place, too.
>
> > Right now I still think of the "shanhka" word as a Wanderwort, native to
> > none of the three families where we find it.
>
>I agree, except that I wonder about the forms in a fourth family - Tunica.
>The significance of the Tunica forms is that there sahku 'one' looks like
>it connected with tohkusahku 'nine', and I wonder if the latter isn't
>derived from the former along the usual lines of 'one less (than ten)'.
>I don't know if tohku- can be analyzed in terms of the existing Tunica
>data.  The phonology isn't too far out of line, especially if you consider
>that Tunica might easily be an isolated remnant of something larger.
>
>I'm curious whether the term Wanderwort implies that the source language
>is uncertain.  Is it sufficient for the word to be widely distributed?


From munro at ucla.edu  Mon Dec  2 23:13:21 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 15:13:21 -0800
Subject: Muskogean 9
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.151321.0800.>

I should not have mentioned 'great with child' -- I was just identifying
the Choctaw Bible passage most speakers appear to associate with this
word (where in fact I learned it). I don't think there's any evidence
that this is a neologism or that it has any (derivative) connection with
'nine', myself.

Pam

--
Pamela Munro
Professor
Department of Linguistics
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles Ca 90095-1543
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguistics/people/munro/munro.htm


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Mon Dec  2 23:53:32 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 16:53:32 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021202174353.01763778@mail.wm.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.165332.0700.>

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Jack Martin wrote:
> As for Tunica:  Haas compared to'hkusa'hku 'nine' to sa'hku 'one' in her
> dictionary, but was apparently doubtful of what to'hku- meant.  Two
> possibilities include to'hku 'to strike ... together' and t-o'hku-sa'hku
> 'the-offspring-one' (which she evidently didn't think of or rejected).  But
> I'm confused about this:  if the word for 'nine' is a "Wanderwort", I don't
> see how it could also be derived from 'one' in Tunica...

Actually, Siouan forms have something more like *kis^aNhka (refer back to
the list in the original post), and I was comparing that to (toh)kusahku.
The only virtue of sahku is in perhaps suggesting that the form tohkusahku
is native.  This would work with a progression from Tunica to Siouan to
Algonquian and Muskogean (and back to Siouan for Biloxi).

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec  3 00:03:02 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 17:03:02 -0700
Subject: Muskogean 9
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021202174353.01763778@mail.wm.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.170302.0700.>

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Jack Martin wrote:
> As for Tunica:  Haas compared to'hkusa'hku 'nine' to sa'hku 'one' in her
> dictionary, but was apparently doubtful of what to'hku- meant.  Two
> possibilities include to'hku 'to strike ... together' and t-o'hku-sa'hku
> 'the-offspring-one' (which she evidently didn't think of or rejected).

Offspring again, huh?  Interesting, but doesn't really seem to work.  For
analogy I was thinking of the Osage form '[(ten the) one it-lacks]' which
is the inverse of the various teen constructions '[ten sitting-on-it]
one', etc.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec  3 06:31:11 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 23:31:11 -0700
Subject: No, 7 (was Re: ... No. 9)
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021201144642.017d76e0@mail.wm.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.2.DEC.2002.233111.0700.>

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002, Jack Martin wrote:
> Hope this helps.  I'm not sure why 'nine' would be borrowed.  As Haas and
> others have noticed, the word for 'seven' was borrowed from Creek into
> Cherokee, but seven is the special number for the Cherokee, so that sort of
> makes sense (four is the special number in the Muskogean languages).

Oddly enough a Siouan term for 'seven' was borrowed into Miami-Illinois.
And, actually, a fair number of numeral terms in Midwwestern languages
seem to be borrowed or innovated.  Indications of the former are usually
in the form of obvious similarities of form between otherwise unrelated or
only very distinatly related families, like the nine group.  But sometimes
forms within a particular family fail to obey sound laws in suspicious
ways.  For example, PS *raa'priN 'three' (cf. Dakota ya'mni(N)) is
da(a)'niN in Ioway-Otoe and daaniN' in Winnebago, but for 'eight' IO has
krera'briN in which -rabriN looks more like, say, Omaha-Ponca dha(a)'bdhiN
or Os dha(a)'briN 'three', or even Dakota ya'mni(N).  Maybe we just don't
understand the sound laws, but it sure looks like Ioway-Otoe 'eight'
borrows at least the 'three' part form some other Siouan language.

Indications of innovation are usually the occurrence of transparent
descriptions of hand signs, or additive or multiplicative terms, without
precedent elsewhere in the family, for example, the Osage 'nine' form
le(e)'braN=che wiN(iN)' dhiNke' 'lacking one of the ten' for 'nine' in
contast with Omaha-Ponca s^aN(aN)'kka 'nine' (attested everywhere else in
Dhegiha and in Ioway-Otoe), or Omaha-Ponca s^a(a)'ppe naN(aN)'ba 'two
sixes' for 'twelve' in contrast with more regular Kaw a(a)'liNnoNba
'sitting on it two' (the pattern for 'twelve' elsewhere in Dheigha, or for
teens in Dhegiha generally).

By the way, all those parenthetical vowels are places where I'm practicing
deducing the location of long vowels people haven't noted in the past.

Sometimes numbers are irregular with no particularly obvious reason for
it, for example, Da s^a'kpe, Dh *s^aa'ppe (or *s^aa'hpe), and IO saa'gwe
would be accounted for by PS s^aa'kpe, but Winnebago hakewe' (suggesting
*ha'kpe) doesn't fit, though it's obviously connected.

JEK


From pankihtamwa at earthlink.net  Tue Dec  3 17:10:24 2002
From: pankihtamwa at earthlink.net (David Costa)
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 09:10:24 -0800
Subject: 'nine' again
Message-ID: <TUE.3.DEC.2002.091024.0800.>

>> Hope this helps.  I'm not sure why 'nine' would be borrowed.  As Haas and
>> others have noticed, the word for 'seven' was borrowed from Creek into
>> Cherokee, but seven is the special number for the Cherokee, so that sort of
>> makes sense (four is the special number in the Muskogean languages).

> Oddly enough a Siouan term for 'seven' was borrowed into Miami-Illinois.

Not to be nitpicky, but it was 'eight', actually. :-)

As a matter of fact, 'nine' is borrowed quite often. The reason this whole
discussion began is because Rich Rhodes and I are cowriting a big paper on
the history of number words in Algonquian. A couple of larger points have
become quite clear from this paper which we didn't quite predict going into
it: (1) the notion that lower numbers (1-10) are resistant to borrowing has
to be thrown right out the window when doing comparative work on North
American languages. Numbers and various innovations among numbers
(especially 5-10) are *constantly* passed around among Algonquian languages.
And point (2), 'nine' is by far the least stable number among the Algonquian
languages. It's the most prone to borrowing and the most prone to innovation
with new neologisms getting passed around for it. Several widely separated
Algonquian languages have independently innovated phrases translating as
'missing one' or 'one left' for the number, though with wildly varying
material for the 'missing' or 'left' part (sometimes even for the 'one'
part).

That said, it *does* look as though a word can be reconstructed in
Proto-Algonquian for 'nine', PA */$a:nka/ ('$' = s-hacek; no known
etymology). An unsettlingly large number of the languages lack it (all the
Eastern languages, for starters), but the geographic spread on it is such
that it's probably not really feasible to attribute it to borrowing: it's
shared by Ojibwe-Potawatomi, Fox, Cree, Cheyenne, and, perhaps most
compellingly, one Arapahoan dialect. Granted, Shawnee screwed up the initial
consonant of the word, but other words have been reconstructed for
Proto-Algonquian on much flimsier evidence. (If it weren't for the Arapahoan
form, I'd lean towards calling it a very early loan from god-knows-where.)

So, then, this gets us back to the main question: if this word is
reconstructible in Proto-Algonquian, what's it doing in Siouan? And,
moreover, are the resemblant forms in Western Muskogean and Tunica related
in any way? For the latter, the question is whether Choctaw /cakka:li/~
Chickasaw /cakka?li/ is connected to Shawnee /ca:kat0wi/ '9' or /ca:ka/ '90'
in any way, or, secondarily, to Proto-Algonquian */$a:nka/. My current hunch
is that the Proto-Algonquian form and the Western Muskogean form(s) are
unrelated and just coincidentally similar, BUT that the Shawnee form changed
its initial consonant of 'under the influence' of the Western Muskogean
form. So it's sort of a quasi-loan.

One thing that might sway me away from thinking that the Proto-Algonquian
form and the Muskogean forms are just coincidentally similar is if a
scenario could be shown for how Western Muskogean could borrow a word with
s-hacek and eventually turn it into c-hacek. If this is an old loan within
Muskogean, and if there is an old sound law within the correct Muskogean
languages taking 'sh' to 'ch', then perhaps Muskogean did borrow it (note I
don't say from where). But the geography necessary for such a scenario isn't
very easy to visualize. At least not for me.

As far as the Siouan forms are concerned, the message Bob has given me
several times is that the word just cannot be reconstructed for Proto-
Siouan. So Chiwere, Dhegiha, and Tutelo probably got it from Algonquian (tho
Biloxi got it from Western Muskogean). As Bob has pointed out, this would
explain why the sibilants don't match among the Siouan forms. Tho I leave it
to the Siouanists to explain why Siouan seems to have borrowed it with an
initial */kV-/ syllable tacked on, which no Algonquian language has.

Thanks for listening. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. :-)

Dave Costa


From hhgarvin at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 12 18:35:39 2002
From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:35:39 -0600
Subject: Positionals
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.123539.0600.>

Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.

I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the prominence
and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I have
noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes, I
would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
Thank You


Henning Garvin
University of WIsconsin-Madison
Linguistics/Anthropology


_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com  Thu Dec 12 19:20:21 2002
From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 19:20:21 -0000
Subject: Positionals
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.192021.0000.ANTHONY.GRANT3@BTINTERNET.COM>

Dear Mr Garvin:

As I understand it, our fellow list-member Bob Rankin has worked on these
positionals in Dhegiha Siouan, though I don't know that he's published
anything.  he has given conference papers on them, though.

Best wishes

Anthony Grant.
----- Original Message -----
From: Henning Garvin <hhgarvin at hotmail.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 6:35 PM
Subject: Positionals


>
> Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.
>
> I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
> form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the
prominence
> and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I
have
> noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes,
I
> would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
> unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
> can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
> Thank You
>
>
> Henning Garvin
> University of WIsconsin-Madison
> Linguistics/Anthropology
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
>


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 12 20:27:22 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:27:22 -0800
Subject: Job opps?
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.122722.0800.>

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone out there knows of any positions for an MA Linguistics with an interest in Native American languages, Siouan or otherwise.  Teaching and/or researching?  I'm currently living in Sacramento, CA, but would be willing to relocate for the right job.  I'm essentially unemployed although I've been working on some telecommuting projects with voice recognition companies in San Jos?, and I've published a couple of articles with Language Magazine this past year (I'm now working on another article).   

Please let me know if you hear of anything out there.  Thanks!

Dave Kaufman
916-971-1507
dvklinguist at hotmail.com
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html
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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 12 20:39:20 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:39:20 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.123920.0800.>

Hi,

I'm currently working on an article regarding the "verby" aspect of many Native American languages vs. the "nouny" aspect of Indo-European languages.  I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like "It is bowl-ing."  Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"!  (John B.--please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, since you're the Hidatsa expert!)  I'm wondering if other Siouan languages and even non-Siouan languages might have similar grammatical constructs where an English noun or adjective actually becomes a verb form in the Native American language.

Any info will be appreciated!  Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Dave Kaufman
dvklinguist at hotmail.com
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From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 12 21:27:43 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 14:27:43 -0700
Subject: No Subject (fwd)
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.142743.0700.>

A note from Lloyd Anderson:

Powell's book store is having a sale,
Dorsey's Cegiha Language
is available for $180

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-1299551106-0

Lloyd


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 12 21:29:30 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 15:29:30 -0600
Subject: Fw: Book sale.
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.152930.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <ECOLING at aol.com>
To: <rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu>; <John.Koontz at Colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 1:12 PM
Subject: No Subject


> Powell's book store is having a sale,
> Dorsey's Cegiha Language
> is available for $180

> http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-1299551106-0

> Lloyd


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 12 21:41:03 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 15:41:03 -0600
Subject: Positionals
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.154103.0600.>

I have a longish paper on Siouan positionals that should appear before the end of the year in _Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung_.  Despite the journal name the papers are in English.  The UW library ought to have it when it comes out.  In the meantime, I can send a copy if you need it.  I'd need a mailing address.

I cover Dhegiha especially, but also deal with the positionals in several other Siouan languages.  I have very little on Ho Chunk however, and there is MUCH yet to be done with the positionals.  I hope you'll contribute to knowledge of how they work in Ho Chunk.

I had an older paper in the Mid-America Linguistics conference proceedings way back in the mid '70's, but the newer one in S.T.U.F. is the one to read.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Henning Garvin <hhgarvin at hotmail.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 12:35 PM
Subject: Positionals


>
> Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.
>
> I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
> form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the prominence
> and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I have
> noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes, I
> would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
> unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
> can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
> Thank You
>
>
> Henning Garvin
> University of WIsconsin-Madison
> Linguistics/Anthropology
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Thu Dec 12 22:38:05 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 16:38:05 -0600
Subject: Positionals
In-Reply-To: <004901c2a227$2eeb6c00$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.163805.0600.>

I have a paper on positionals in Osage.  From the Spearfish conference this
past summer 2002.  Were these papers being made available as a group?  If
not, I can send a copy snailmail, as the special characters don't seem to
email well.
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of R. Rankin
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:41 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Positionals


I have a longish paper on Siouan positionals that should appear before the
end of the year in _Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung_.  Despite the
journal name the papers are in English.  The UW library ought to have it
when it comes out.  In the meantime, I can send a copy if you need it.  I'd
need a mailing address.

I cover Dhegiha especially, but also deal with the positionals in several
other Siouan languages.  I have very little on Ho Chunk however, and there
is MUCH yet to be done with the positionals.  I hope you'll contribute to
knowledge of how they work in Ho Chunk.

I had an older paper in the Mid-America Linguistics conference proceedings
way back in the mid '70's, but the newer one in S.T.U.F. is the one to read.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Henning Garvin <hhgarvin at hotmail.com>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 12:35 PM
Subject: Positionals


>
> Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.
>
> I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
> form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the
prominence
> and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I
have
> noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes,
I
> would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
> unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
> can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
> Thank You
>
>
> Henning Garvin
> University of WIsconsin-Madison
> Linguistics/Anthropology
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>


From BARudes at aol.com  Thu Dec 12 23:01:13 2002
From: BARudes at aol.com (BARudes at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 18:01:13 EST
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.180113.EST.>

Dave,

Although not a Siouan language, in the distantly related Catawban language,
Catawba, any part of speech may be turned into a verb form by adding a modal
suffix.  Typically, it is the independent (or indicative) modal suffix -re:
that is used, but there are also examples of verbalization involving other
modal suffixes, in particular the interrogative modal -ne. Thus, one finds
kiN 'the', k'iNre: 'it is the one', k'iNne 'is it the one?'; h'i:ya: 'that
(yonder), hi:y'a:re: ' it is out of sight'; n'aNpari 'two', n'aNparire:
'there are two (of them)'; ar'i: 'true', ar'i:re: 'it is true'; de: 'I
(emphatic)', d'e:re: 'it is I'; w'i:ba: 'barred owl', wi:b'a:re: 'it is
(the/a) barred owl'.

Blair
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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 13 00:15:08 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 16:15:08 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.161508.0800.>

Blair,

Thanks for the info!!!

D.

----- Original Message -----
From: BARudes at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:03 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Information

Dave,

Although not a Siouan language, in the distantly related Catawban language, Catawba, any part of speech may be turned into a verb form by adding a modal suffix.  Typically, it is the independent (or indicative) modal suffix -re: that is used, but there are also examples of verbalization involving other modal suffixes, in particular the interrogative modal -ne. Thus, one finds kiN 'the', k'iNre: 'it is the one', k'iNne 'is it the one?'; h'i:ya: 'that (yonder), hi:y'a:re: ' it is out of sight'; n'aNpari 'two', n'aNparire: 'there are two (of them)'; ar'i: 'true', ar'i:re: 'it is true'; de: 'I (emphatic)', d'e:re: 'it is I'; w'i:ba: 'barred owl', wi:b'a:re: 'it is (the/a) barred owl'.

Blair        
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From mmccaffe at indiana.edu  Fri Dec 13 00:23:19 2002
From: mmccaffe at indiana.edu (Michael Mccafferty)
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 19:23:19 -0500
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE21hoQlXJRqujpghmP00010d9d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.12.DEC.2002.192319.0500.>

absolutamente. In Nahuatl verbs are a way to satisfy the English palate
for adjectives. Nitlatta = 'i see something' but can mean 'i am attentive,
observant' Nahuatl has many verb formations of this nature. Also, nouns
serve as adjectives, too. oquechtli = 'it is a man' but can mean
'masculine'. In cihua:tl oquechtli = 'she is a mannish woman'.

Michael Mccafferty

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm currently working on an article regarding the "verby" aspect of many Native American languages vs. the "nouny" aspect of Indo-European languages.  I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like "It is bowl-ing."  Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"!  (John B.--please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, since you're the Hidatsa expert!)  I'm wondering if other Siouan languages and even non-Siouan languages might have similar grammatical constructs where an English noun or adjective actually becomes a verb form in the Native American language.
>
> Any info will be appreciated!  Thanks, and Happy Holidays!
>
> Dave Kaufman
> dvklinguist at hotmail.com
>


Michael McCafferty
307 Memorial Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu

"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you
will keep saying again and again, "This is certainly not like we thought
it was".

--Rumi


From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Fri Dec 13 06:01:44 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 07:01:44 +0100
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.1021212191947.16357B-100000@ariel.ucs.indian a.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.070144.0100.>

At 19:23 12.12.02 -0500, Michael Mccafferty wrote:
>In Nahuatl verbs are a way to satisfy the English palate for adjectives.

I must say I'd regard the formal preference for verbs vs. nouns
(substantives, adjectives), or expressions involving one or the other, only
as one side of the coin.

As for adjectives, as Dixon had pointed out long ago, many languages have
only a not too large and closed class of true adjectives, while the rest of
adjectival *concepts* is denoted by (lexical) verbs. In the Old World e.g.
Dravidian could serve as an example. So this would be a systemic constraint
that leaves little room for choices or preferences.

As for nouns, so far it mostly seems to have been about a combination with
some kind of predicative suffix. In so far this could be regarded as
functionally equivalent to the copula in an Aristotelean predication (say
as opposed to conversion as with English hammer).

At the same time about nouns and verbs there could be many more aspects
mentioned. E.g., do verbs constitute a larger lexical class than verbs?
could one then say that there are much more concepts denoting events than
there are concepts denoting entities involved in such events? (In such a
case it again wouldn't be a preference but just what one reasonably might
have expected anyway). Similar with verbal vs. nominal grammatical
categories (also language families like Algonquian come to mind which have
a lot to offer in *both* departments).

Not to speak of the classical problem of lacking or weakly developed
noun-verb-distinctions and the question whether such words from a typology
& universals perspective could (should) be said to display more of noun- or
verb-like properties.

Also, what happens in discourse? Do larger sentences packed with nominal
terms for actants and circumstants make a language "nouny"? etc. etc.

And probably still many facets more...

All the best,

Heike


From bi1 at soas.ac.uk  Fri Dec 13 12:18:55 2002
From: bi1 at soas.ac.uk (bi1 at soas.ac.uk)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 12:18:55 -0000
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE21hoQlXJRqujpghmP00010d9d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.121855.0000.>

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From munro at ucla.edu  Fri Dec 13 15:36:57 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 07:36:57 -0800
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.073657.0800.>

The verbiness of certain American Indian languages is a topic I've long
thought about -- it's absolutely true that in some languages there
simply are more verbs than in others.

However, I would like to know the evidence that Lakhota th?pi is still a
verb in all uses (of course it can certainly be a main verb expressing
'they live'). (Translation is not evidence, of course. Certainly many
concepts both concrete and (especially) abstract that are nouns in
familiar European languages are expressed with verbs in languages like
Lakhota.)

However, unless I am mistaken there are certainly a few (!) tests for
nominal vs. verbal status in Lakhota. One of these, I'd say, would be
occurrence with the possessive prefixes tha- etc. Of course not all
things that (I'd say) were nouns do occur with these, but my belief is
that anything that does occur with them is (in that usage) not a verb.
And thath?pi is the possessed form of 'house' that I've recorded.

Pam


From rankin at ku.edu  Fri Dec 13 15:57:56 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 09:57:56 -0600
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.095756.0600.>

>However, I would like to know the evidence that Lakhota th?pi is still a
verb in all uses (of course it can certainly be a main verb expressing
'they live').

Thipi fills the technical bill as a verb, but I wonder if you don't tend to
get some additional derivation when it REALLY functions as the V in the
sentence.  In other Siouan languages at least one might tend to get the
local equivalent of o-thi-pi "they live IN it" or some other locative
prefix.  And the expression that means 'they are alive' would call for an
entirely different verb.

I have to admit though, that, after the Siouan syntax meeting a year ago, I
began to wonder if there were ANY hard and fast lexical classes in Siouan
languages.  For example, Lakhota is conjugated, la-ma-khota, la-ni-khota,
etc.  Can it also be possessed?  That I don't know.

Just to muddy the water. . . .

Bob


From munro at ucla.edu  Fri Dec 13 16:11:38 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 08:11:38 -0800
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.081138.0800.>

I need to reiterate that I think that the same word can sometimes be a
verb and sometimes be a noun. Of course in many sentences th?pi is a
verb (it too can be conjugated, of course). I am simply suggesting that
in some cases it is not a verb.

I have not thought about these specific questions for Lakhota
extensively, but I think another strictly nominal occurrence is as a
possessor or as the first element in a Noun-Noun compound. I don't
believe that verbs can occur in these types of constructions. Thus, when
we say Lakh?ta w?yan 'Lakhota woman' or Lakh?ta thathipi 'the Lakhota's
house', I think Lakhota is a noun.

In terms of the status of Lakhota when it is inflected as a predicate,
my feeling is a bit less clear. I guess I would say that this word can
be both a stative verb and a noun, but I'd have to think about it a bit
more.

Pam


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Fri Dec 13 18:20:43 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:20:43 -0500
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <3DFA06B9.BA0339FD@ucla.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.132043.0500.>

Here are some Assiniboine examples where thi and thipi are clearly
nouns:

huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'

tuwe thi mahen phi'iNch'iyac  'someone was moving around in the lodge'

thi kaNyena knapi  'they were going back near the camp'

And an example with Bob's suggested locative o-:

"maz'othi, maz'othi" eya. HiN! zhechen maz'othi cha eyash knihe
huNshta
'"Iron lodge, iron lodge!" he said. Oh! then an iron lodge (like that)
dropped down, it is said.'

Linda



-------------------
> I need to reiterate that I think that the same word can sometimes be
a
> verb and sometimes be a noun. Of course in many sentences th?pi is a
> verb (it too can be conjugated, of course). I am simply suggesting
that
> in some cases it is not a verb.
>
> I have not thought about these specific questions for Lakhota
> extensively, but I think another strictly nominal occurrence is as a
> possessor or as the first element in a Noun-Noun compound. I don't
> believe that verbs can occur in these types of constructions. Thus,
when
> we say Lakh?ta w?yan 'Lakhota woman' or Lakh?ta thathipi 'the
Lakhota's
> house', I think Lakhota is a noun.
>
> In terms of the status of Lakhota when it is inflected as a
predicate,
> my feeling is a bit less clear. I guess I would say that this word
can
> be both a stative verb and a noun, but I'd have to think about it a
bit
> more.
>
> Pam
>
>
>


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Fri Dec 13 19:45:18 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 12:45:18 -0700
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <F73B91BED37FD5119F970008C7CF50FC0C9C2013@skylark.mail.ukans.edu>
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.124518.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> Thipi fills the technical bill as a verb, but I wonder if you don't tend to
> get some additional derivation when it REALLY functions as the V in the
> sentence.  In other Siouan languages at least one might tend to get the
> local equivalent of o-thi-pi "they live IN it" or some other locative
> prefix.  And the expression that means 'they are alive' would call for an
> entirely different verb.

Actually, it's usually just something analogous with *othi or even
underived thi.  In Dhegiha in particular one of the marks of nominality is
lack of plural marking (which tends to occur with third singular as well
as plural).


From Rgraczyk at aol.com  Fri Dec 13 19:54:35 2002
From: Rgraczyk at aol.com (Randolph Graczyk)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 14:54:35 EST
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.145435.EST.>

In a message dated 12/12/2002 1:45:29 PM Mountain Standard Time,
dvklinguist at hotmail.com writes:

> I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially
> makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a
> sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become
> wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like
> "It is bowl-ing."


> In constructions like these, Hidatsa and Crow simply lack a copula.  I don't
> think it's accurate to say that this construction transforms a noun into a
> verb; perhaps it would be better to say that the noun functions as a
> predicate.  Wacawiric is best translated 'it is a bowl', not 'it is
> bowl-ing.'
>
> Randy

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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 13 21:51:25 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:51:25 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.135125.0800.>

Your point is well taken.  But at the risk of perhaps sounding too "Whorfian," I can't help but wonder if there is a different concept at work in many Native American languages which display this type of grammatical construct.  I hark back to Whorf's example from Hopi in which he says that the English version of rehpi, "flashed," must be translated into English as "It flashed" or "a light flashed" as if there is a separate entity doing the flashing, even though the English "it," "light," and "flash" are one and the same.  And this is only because we MUST have a noun and a verb for a "complete" English sentence, forced by English grammar, which is obviously not true in many of these Native languages.  There seems to be ample evidence from several Native languages that there is a much more "fluid" thought process going on, including a story I heard that a Mikmaq speaker, when translating from English into his own language, did not utter a single noun in his translation, even though the English version was full of them!  The crux of my proposed article is that there may indeed be a different thought process among many Native American speakers in which they think in a more verby way, with the grammars of their languages permitting an implicit sense of a perceiver-perceived relationship and process/systems thinking not grammatically permitted in Indo-European languages where we tend to ignore fluidity and process and focus more on concrete "objects."  I keep wondering if this indeed could lead to a different "thought" process based on the inherent differences in grammar.

Perhaps I'm too "out there" with this, but it is an interesting question and debate and might make for good reading!

Dave

----- Original Message -----
From: Rgraczyk at aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 11:55 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Information

In a message dated 12/12/2002 1:45:29 PM Mountain Standard Time, dvklinguist at hotmail.com writes:


I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like "It is bowl-ing."




In constructions like these, Hidatsa and Crow simply lack a copula.  I don't think it's accurate to say that this construction transforms a noun into a verb; perhaps it would be better to say that the noun functions as a predicate.  Wacawiric is best translated 'it is a bowl', not 'it is bowl-ing.'

Randy
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From rankin at ku.edu  Fri Dec 13 22:33:43 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 16:33:43 -0600
Subject: live = be alive.
Message-ID: <FRI.13.DEC.2002.163343.0600.>

I'm not sure what John was referring to in his reply to my post about 'be alive' requiring a different verb from thi or othi, but the normal way to say 'live' in the sense of 'be alive' is /ni/ or /nitta/.  It's a verb conjugated anitta, dhanitta, etc. in Dhegiha.  'live in a place' is the (o)-tti verb.  I can't speak for Dakotan.

Bob


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 07:03:14 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:03:14 -0700
Subject: Siouan & Caddoan Conference
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.000314.0700.>

I thought it might be appropriate to repost this from the SSILA Newsletter
Online.  JEK

* Siouan-Caddoan Conference (Michigan State U, August 8-10)
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>From Ardis Eschenberg (ardise at hotmail.com) 1 Dec 2002:

The 23rd annual Siouan and Caddoan Languages Conference will be held in
conjunction with the 2003 LSA Institute on August 8-10, 2003, at Michigan
State University, East Lansing.  Papers concerning any topic in Siouan
and Caddoan languages and linguistics are welcome.  Abstracts should be
no longer than 250 words and can be submitted in hard copy or email form.
Abstracts must be received by July 3, 2003.

Address for hard copies:

                        John P. Boyle
                        Department of Linguistics
                        University of Chicago
                        1010 East 59th St.
                        Chicago, IL  60613

Address for email copies (MSWord and PDF versions preferred):

                        jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu

Website: http://wings.buffalo.edu/linguistics/ssila/SACCweb/SACC.htm


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 07:35:13 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:35:13 -0700
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20021213061216.009e7bb0@nc-boedekan@pop3.netcologne.de>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.003513.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Heike B?deker wrote:
> As for adjectives, as Dixon had pointed out long ago, many languages have
> only a not too large and closed class of true adjectives, ...

And, effectively, essentially all Siouan languages seem to have an
adjective class so closed as to be nonexistant, with essentially all
adjectival modifiers being either (a) objectively inflected verbs
(statives), (b) preposed nouns, or (c) preposed nominalized clauses
(relative clauses).  I say 'essentially all' several times because at
least Biloxi seems to lack stative verbs per se (but doesn't have
adjectives) and I'm not positive that there might not be some Siouan
language with an adjective or two (in some sense), though I don't know of
anything in tha line.

> As for nouns, so far it mostly seems to have been about a combination with
> some kind of predicative suffix. In so far this could be regarded as
> functionally equivalent to the copula in an Aristotelean predication (say
> as opposed to conversion as with English hammer).

Incidentally, Dixon has just published a typology of copulas in
Anthropological Linguistics 44.1 (Spring 2002):  "Copular clauses in
Australian languages:  a typological perspective."

I agree with Heike that there are a number of dimensions to the question
of nouniness vs. verbiness in language.  Stative verbs and predicative use
of nominals is only part of it.  Beside the issues Heike raises, an issue
here is the extent to which a language exhibits nominal vs. verbal
morphology.

To some extent I thought that this might be what David Kaufman was getting
at.  Siouan languages are very short of nominal inflectional and
derivational patterns.  Some form of inalienable possessor marking is
about the only inflectional pattern exhibited widely (and even this is
moribund in languages like Winnebago).  There are usually only a very few
noun to noun derivational patterns.  And typically the mark of
nominalization of verbs (a common event) is zero (excluding the potential
co-occurrence of determiners with the now nominalized verb form).  The
absence of nominalizing morphology leads to the striking absence of
participial and infinitival forms, though copious use of conjunctions and
determiners makes up for this.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:09:57 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:09:57 -0700
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <200212131820.NAA18249@iupui.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.010957.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Linda Cumberland wrote:
> Here are some Assiniboine examples where thi and thipi are clearly
> nouns:
>
> huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'
>
> tuwe thi mahen phi'iNch'iyac  'someone was moving around in the lodge'

I take it that the idea is that these postpositions can only govern nouns
in Dakota syntax?  Is this true of all postpositions though?  I'd think
that this certainly wouldn't work as a test in Omaha-Ponca.  And without a
contrast between noun-governing and verb-, or rather clause-, governing
postpositions it might be possible (in at least some theories of
linguistics) to object that this mini-clause 'they live [there]', though
it has a potentially more general meaning than '(their) lodge' is still to
be taken in the context as the conventional mode of referring to the more
restricted meaning.

How would one distinguish in Dakotan languages between 'he went back to
his mother's lodge' and 'he went back toward where his mother lives (or
lived)'?

I have the impression that the way to do this in OP might involve some
sort of focus construction, i.e, 'to her house' vs. 'to there where she
lived'.  Actually, at least in some contexts there is a special possessed
form of 'house', which is etti 'his/her house' vs. tti 'house'.

One special postpositional formation you can detect in OP is the special
adverbialized form of 'to the house', which is ttiatta 'to/at the house'
(like Dakotan thiyata)  or ttiadi 'in(to)  the house' as opposed to
tti=the=tta or tti=the=di, with an article (one of the possible articles).
I claim this is historically a special variant of ablaut, in effect, as
tta (cf. Da -k-ta)  and di (cf. Da -tu ~ -l) condition ablaut in OP
(though this is becoming optional in the texts).  An example would be
maNthe 'inside, beneath' vs. maNthadi 'in the interior of', which would be
cognate with the mahen in Assiniboine.


> And an example with Bob's suggested locative o-:
>
> "maz'othi, maz'othi" eya. HiN! zhechen maz'othi cha eyash knihe
> huNshta '"Iron lodge, iron lodge!" he said. Oh! then an iron lodge
> (like that) dropped down, it is said.'

With rather a thud, I imagine!

This could be interpreted as maza + othi 'iron' + 'lodge', but what about
'iron' + 'they live in (it)', i.e., something like 'iron that they live
in' or nore nominally 'iron for living in'?  I take it that othi doesn't
occur alone in the sense of lodge?

I can't tell you how odd it seems to me for that locative to be missing,
though it is missing in Dhegiha, too!

I can say how nice it is to see Assiniboine examples!  The zhe
demonstrative is very homelike to a Dhegiha student.  I've never forgotten
it, not since I fell over it while trying to explain southern Dakotan he
as the regular phonological correspondant of Dhegiha s^e.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:17:37 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:17:37 -0700
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE51BQOUHXMrmffD3Rg0000522a@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.011737.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> ...
> I hark back to Whorf's example from Hopi in
> which he says that the English version of rehpi, "flashed," must be
> translated into English as "It flashed" or "a light flashed" as if
> there is a separate entity doing the flashing, even though the English
> "it," "light," and "flash" are one and the same.  And this is only
> because we MUST have a noun and a verb for a "complete" English
> sentence, forced by English grammar, which is obviously not true in
> many of these Native languages. ...

For that matter an independent subject pronominal is not required in some
European languages.  I'm not sure that says anything much about the
conceptualization of the activity.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:20:32 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:20:32 -0700
Subject: live = be alive.
In-Reply-To: <000201c2a384$167879c0$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.012032.0700.>

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, R. Rankin wrote:

> I'm not sure what John was referring to in his reply to my post about
> 'be alive' requiring a different verb from thi or othi, ...

Did I say that? I thought I was saying that reflexes of *hti 'dwell' in
the sense 'house, lodge, etc.' occurred with or without o-, and generally
without an pluralization.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sun Dec 15 08:26:21 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 01:26:21 -0700
Subject: Information
In-Reply-To: <OE21hoQlXJRqujpghmP00010d9d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.012621.0700.>

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace
> wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"! ... I'm
> wondering if other Siouan languages and even non-Siouan languages
> might have similar grammatical constructs where an English noun or
> adjective actually becomes a verb form in the Native American
> language.

Is this a stative verb in Hidatsa?  I wonder about the wa- in light of
some past discussions of experiencer verbs.  For example, one normally
thinks of wakhega 'sick' or was^us^e 'brave, generous' as statives in OP<
and they do inflect objectively, but, in effect, the wa- seems to refer to
a de-emphasized patient, the thing in which the sickness is felt, or the
process by which the courage is exhibited (giving away things one might
well need oneself).

Interestingly, the OP verb snede 'long, tall' is avoided in favor of a
postpositional form maNs^iadi 'in the sky/clouds' with intrusive -a-
again.

JEK


From rankin at ku.edu  Sun Dec 15 16:03:52 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 10:03:52 -0600
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.100352.0600.>

> Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace
> wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"!

I think that's just a function of the English translation -- the sort of thing Pam mentioned.  Mary Haas used to say "You can't translate a language into English and then analyze the English."  It's probably better to translate all of these Siouan stative verbs not as "to tall", "to cold" etc. but rather "to BE tall", etc.  The "be" is simply included in the semantics of the Siouan stative verb (or modifier, if you like).

Bob


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Sun Dec 15 18:10:12 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 13:10:12 -0500
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212150039300.19095-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.131012.0500.>

>How would one distinguish in Dakotan languages between 'he went back
to
>his mother's lodge' and 'he went back toward where his mother lives
(or lived)'?

	My first reaction is to observe that the apparent mis-match in number
agreement would be evidence:  ?huNku? (singular), thipi (plural):

	huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'

If you analyze =pi as a nominalizer, there?s no mis-match.  On the
other hand, we have an example from the same text where a character
says, ?ina owiNchakiciyaga? where the literal translations of ina
?mother? and wiNcha ?them? don?t agree - it?s
untranslatable unless you read ?ina? as meaning ?my mother?s
people?: ?tell(-them) my mother?s people for me? (female
speaking: Assiniboine lacks a female imperative enclitic).

So, back to ?huNku thipi ekta? - if this refers to ?the lodge of
his mother?s people? then you could consider thipi as a plural,
and the phrase would mean ?the lodge where his mother?s people
live? (although you would then expect the locative o-).  But I think
this is an unnecessary complication. +pi as a nominalizing morpheme
clearly derives from the 3rd plural enclitic =pi, but it is so
consistently used in NPs that it seems acrobatic to have to analyze it
as a plural in those positions.  (I recall David?s having argued
this somewhere, too, but I can?t remember where, offhand.)

Maybe I?m oversimplifying, but the whole non-verb question, at least
in Assiniboine and its close relatives, seems to me to be handled in
the syntax - the position determines the grammatical class within the
clause, and the position in the clause determines whether the lexical
item may be inflected or not.  English does this, too: ?He  tabled
the proposal for later consideration? (verb), ?The tabled proposal
will be reconsidered on Monday? (adjective), ?He put his proposal
on the table? (noun).  How do *we* distinguish the grammatical class
of ?table? in these cases?

Sometimes I get the impression that when we look at other languages we
make things seem more exotic than they really are - or we fail to
notice that our own language is (oxymoronically) equally exotic. There
is a fine line between this view and the ancient ethnocentric practice
of analyzing an unfamiliar grammar in terms of familiar categories,
but I don?t think I?m falling into that bad habit here. (nor into
Mary Haas's dictum that Bob just shared.)

> And an example with Bob's suggested locative o-:
>
> "maz'othi, maz'othi" eya. HiN! zhechen maz'othi cha eyash knihe
> huNshta '"Iron lodge, iron lodge!" he said. Oh! then an iron lodge
> (like that) dropped down, it is said.'

>With rather a thud, I imagine!

Indeed! This is from a story in which Inktomi magically calls down a
lodge made of iron to protect a group from the onslaught of a charging
buffalo monster that butts against the iron lodge and mashes it.

>This could be interpreted as maza + othi 'iron' + 'lodge', but what
about
>'iron' + 'they live in (it)', i.e., something like 'iron that they
live
>in' or nore nominally 'iron for living in'?  I take it that othi
doesn't
>occur alone in the sense of lodge?

I think it in this case it does - no one in the story ever lived in
(or would contemplate living in) the iron lodge - it was invoked as a
temporary protection in a temporary dangerous situation.  (Imagine
trying to take an iron tipi down and moving it anywhere!)  It seems to
me to be pretty clear example of ?lodge? rather than ?they lived
there?

>I can say how nice it is to see Assiniboine examples!  The zhe
>demonstrative is very homelike to a Dhegiha student.

Assiniboine lacks a definite article, so the demonstratives ?stand
in? when definiteness is required, and also as the relative clause
marker.

Linda


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 15 18:31:32 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 10:31:32 -0800
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.103132.0800.>

John,

That's true if you're referring to Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, for instance:

(noi) andiamo = we go (Italian)
(?l) va = he goes (Spanish)
(ele) vai = he goes (Portuguese)

where the subject pronominal can be left off and just the verb form is stated.  But remember that these languages also change the verb conjugation form for each person or number (ex. voy, vas, va, vamos, van in Spanish) so that it's really not necessary to use the pronoun except for emphasis.  Still, they MUST choose the correct verb form to reflect person and number, meaning they are still thinking of a subject (actor/s) doing the verb action and must choose the verb conjugation form accordingly.  In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at all--just the verb form--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?  Who or what is doing the flashing??  There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or Nature is doing it).  This is what I find interesting about the Native American and Indo-European thought process in using or not using subjects or nouns.

Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: Koontz John E
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:18 AM
To: Siouan List
Subject: Re: Information

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> ...
> I hark back to Whorf's example from Hopi in
> which he says that the English version of rehpi, "flashed," must be
> translated into English as "It flashed" or "a light flashed" as if
> there is a separate entity doing the flashing, even though the English
> "it," "light," and "flash" are one and the same.  And this is only
> because we MUST have a noun and a verb for a "complete" English
> sentence, forced by English grammar, which is obviously not true in
> many of these Native languages. ...

For that matter an independent subject pronominal is not required in some
European languages.  I'm not sure that says anything much about the
conceptualization of the activity.

JEK
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From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Sun Dec 15 19:56:02 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 20:56:02 +0100
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <OE47hVsI47ahWo5DVBX000128fc@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.205602.0100.>

At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
>In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
>all--just the verb form

Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
Chukchi (i)ne-)?

>--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like
>a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?

Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
itself well... <g>

>There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or
>Nature is doing it).

This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...

Best,

Heike


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 15 20:50:55 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 20:50:55 +0000
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.205055.0000.>

Hi all:

Thanks for your responses--I've kept copies of your emails and references so
that I may do some further research.  Just a couple more thoughts I had:

As with many aspects of linguistics, there is a lot of theory but how much
can really be proven?  (We're really dealing with the brain, and who knows
exactly how the brain works, even with all our modern technology?!)  Even
though I'm just starting (hopefully!) my career as a linguist, I think we
need to be careful when we examine another language's grammatical structure
from our own native language perspective (i.e., English).  (The fact that we
have to use language (specifically our OWN language) to analyze language can
create circular arguments!)  Perhaps what is labeled a NOUN or a VERB in one
language is never quite the same as in another.  One comment made was that
Hidatsa and similar languages simply lack a copula, so the noun is acting as
copula because that's the only way they can do it.  But, if we extend our
thinking beyond the box of English grammar, we could just as logically
"re-interpret" the Native construct on a different thought level--perhaps
they perceive "talling" in the sense of it not being a state as it appears
to us in English "The man is tall"--end of story--but perhaps they view
"tall" as a process--focusing on the continual process of growing taller.
In this way, these languages could be considered closer to reflecting
"reality" better than most European languages, since they could perceive
someone as being in a constant state of flux and change, which is the "real"
physiological reality!  This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages
might be more in tune to nature and thinking in processes (being more
fluidly verb- and process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
  Perhaps it would be interesting to get a bilingual Native American
speaker's perception on this: how do they really perceive this in English
vs. their own way of thinking in their own language?  Is there actually a
different thought process at work reflected in the language, OR is it indeed
just a different way of stating the same thing?

Has anyone asked Native American speakers about this??  Just curious.

Dave






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From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Sun Dec 15 22:11:46 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 23:11:46 +0100
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
In-Reply-To: <F14841TVGm2Riy87mdW000152f0@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.15.DEC.2002.231146.0100.>

At 20:50 15.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>But, if we extend our thinking beyond the box of English grammar, we could
>just as logically "re-interpret" the Native construct on a different
>thought level--perhaps they perceive "talling" in the sense of it not
>being a state as it appears to us in English "The man is tall"--end of
>story--but perhaps they view "tall" as a process--focusing on the
>continual process of growing taller.

But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller) as
a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too, e.g. in
Akkadian there's a separate category called stative for the former
(mar.s?ku "I'm sick") while the latter is one of the functions of the
perfect (?umma b?b ekallim irtapi? "when the gate of the palace [name of a
liver omen] has widened").

Also it is not just a question of what reality really is like, but how I
choose to describe things. Of course, when I say "I'm sick" that implies
that I've fallen sick somewhen. Just that it's a different statement from
"I've fallen sick more than 4 weeks ago". And, still worse, I can't see it
as an advantage if some language didn't provide me the means of expressing
both differently.

>This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
>to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
>process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.

It is a romantic though understandable view, and Findeisen even had
speculated about Paleolithic hunter-gatherers already having gotten tired
of their kind of civilization. But then, where does *your* idea of nature
being more adequately described in terms of processes rather than states
derive from? Is it some time-honored wisdom or 20th century physics? And
which criteria should we use in determining whether say North American
Natives, Tropical Lowland South American Natives, New Guinean Papuas or
Northern San peoples (too large categories anyway) were closer to nature?

All the best,

Heike


From napshawin at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 16 15:08:49 2002
From: napshawin at hotmail.com (Violet Catches)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:08:49 -0600
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.090849.0600.>

Hi
thipi means that it is a place being lived in, there is movement, and all
the things that include a dweling, it is an act  of living in the present
thipi is also a structure, but an erect structure, a home, a place being
dwelled in, so an empty house is referred to as a thi-ohe, where there is no
dwelling
thi-ohe means a place once dwelled in that no longer exists, there is no
movement, no dwelling no life..
iyapi means that they are speaking, the words are flowing, stopping and
flowing in a continual manner, except of course when one sleeps, another
meaning for iyapi is that they are complaining...
As a native american it was extremely difficult for me to understand verbs
as defined and nouns, It was the nouns that gave me the most problems,
because I use to think that 'thipi' and 'iyapi'  and other words like that
were 'verbs', but it was really the English that was confusing...
in the old way, I think, the word for the structure of a thipi (as we know
it today) was thiyuktan, but that also looks like a verb,  but was actually
the structure. Do you know other Sioux speakers? if you do they may recall
that  as well.





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From bcoon at montana.edu  Mon Dec 16 16:47:12 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:47:12 -0700
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.094712.0700.>

Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
materials.

Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
lg
today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
language.
Brad Coon

-----Original Message-----
From: Heike B?deker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)


At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
>In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
>all--just the verb form

Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
Chukchi (i)ne-)?

>--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like
>a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?

Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
itself well... <g>

>There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or
>Nature is doing it).

This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...

Best,

Heike


From bcoon at montana.edu  Mon Dec 16 22:17:04 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 15:17:04 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.151704.0700.>

My quick, off the cuff, answer is a reminder to me to check my sources
before answering.
The grammatical sketch in the Hopi Dictionary discusses Hopi verb inflection
at length. It does
indeed inflect for subject and sometimes object number, but not for person.
Some verbs do not have subjects, particularly those dealing with the
weather.
Sorry for the misinformation,

Brad Coon
Reference Librarian
The Libraries-Montana State University
bcoon at montana.edu       (406) 994-6026


-----Original Message-----
From: Coon, Brad [mailto:bcoon at montana.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 9:47 AM
To: 'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'
Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)


Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
materials.

Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
lg
today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
language.
Brad Coon

-----Original Message-----
From: Heike B?deker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)


At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
>In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
>all--just the verb form

Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
Chukchi (i)ne-)?

>--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like
>a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?

Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
itself well... <g>

>There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or
>Nature is doing it).

This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...

Best,

Heike


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 17 00:01:48 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 18:01:48 -0600
Subject: Positionals
In-Reply-To: <F76KkpLTkUD5euwdUTa00000150@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.180148.0600.>

I have a paper listing the positionals in Osage, if you're interested.
Carolyn Quintero

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Henning Garvin
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 12:36 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Positionals



Holiday greetings and a happy end of the semester to all.

I was wondering if there has been any extensive work done dealing with the
form and function of positionals in Siouan languages.  Given the prominence
and their interaction with plurality, tense, and demonstratives which I have
noticed in Ho-Chunk, in addition their often cited use as verbal affixes, I
would think an in-depth look had already been published.    Maybe my
unpolished undergraduate research skill are still somewhat lacking but I
can't seem to find anything dealing soley with this subject.  Any hints?
Thank You


Henning Garvin
University of WIsconsin-Madison
Linguistics/Anthropology


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From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Tue Dec 17 05:49:25 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 23:49:25 -0600
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <MON.16.DEC.2002.234925.0600.>

In light of Dave's challenge to question the equivalence of the
concepts "noun" and "verb" between different languages, I'd like
to present a view I've been developing on verbs and sentence
structure in MVS vs. IE.  My formal knowledge of linguistics is
admittedly sophomoric; if there are proper terms that I should
be using but am not, I apologize, and would appreciate being
informed of the correct ones.  In any case, since I've already
dropped this on two classes of beginning Omaha students, it's
probably about time to get some feedback from real linguists!

I start from the premise that the purpose of any directed
utterance is to get the party spoken to to do something to
further the agenda of the speaker.  I call this imposition on
the listener the "demand".  There are at least three basic
types of demand:

  1. Command.    The demand is that the listener perform some
                 action.

  2. Statement.  The demand is that the listener update his
                 mental database with information supplied
                 by the speaker.

  3. Question.   The demand is that the listener supply the
                 speaker with information requested.

The demand is the core of any complete sentence.  The remainder,
and usually the bulk, of the sentence is a verbal encoding of a
mental model of reality in the brain of the speaker, which is to
be decoded into a (hopefully) equivalent mental model in the
brain of the listener.  I call this mental model or its encoding
the "concept".  A complete sentence is one that ties a concept
to a demand, so that the listener is given both a mental map of
reality, and instructions as to what to do with it.

The English utterance

   The black cat on the porch.

is not considered a complete sentence, because it contains no
demand.  (It is a valid utterance in the context of a prior
question, e.g. "What are you looking at?", however, because
the expected demand form of the response to a question is a
statement, and hence we can save time by expressing the concept
alone and assuming the default demand.)  Note that the problem
here is not simply the lack of a verb, for we could just as well
say

   The black cat sitting on the porch, eating a mouse.

and we would be no better off, despite the addition of two verbs
which both describe the action of our subject.  The problem
remains that we have not told our listener what we want him to
do about the concept we have transmitted; there is still no
demand.

In English, and I think IE generally, we distinguish a special
version of the verb, called the "finite verb", which must be
present in every complete sentence.  (Actually, I'm not sure if
the command form is traditionally considered "finite" or not;
I'm assuming it to be so here for the purpose of this discussion.)
The importance of the finite verb is that the demand rides upon
it, and is indicated by the relationship of the finite verb to
other elements of the sentence.

  1. Command:
        Put the black cat on the porch!
        Look at the black cat sitting on the porch, eating a mouse!

  2. Statement:
        The black cat is on the porch.
        The black cat sitting on the porch is eating a mouse.

  3. Question:
        What is the black cat on the porch doing?
        Is the black cat sitting on the porch eating a mouse?

A verb is a word that indicates an action or a state of being.
As such, it is part of the concept exactly as is a noun.  A finite
verb, however, indicates a demand, as well as functioning as the
crux of the concept code.  All pieces of the sentence (or maybe I
should say independent clause) tie to it as the verb that heads
the concept, and its relationships help to indicate the demand.
This complicated system is fundamental to our whole English/IE
way of speaking and thinking, and I think we may tend to attribute
it to other languages where it doesn't really exist.

In MVS, the sentence structure typically runs somewhat as follows:

     [Topic]* [Verb]* [ModalParticle]*

where

     Topic => NounPhrase
           => PostpositionalPhrase
           => Adverb

None of these is absolutely essential.  In Omaha, there are
sentences without topics, sentences without modal particles,
and even sentences without verbs.  Verbs chain in inverse order
from that of English, so the final verb in the chain corresponds
to the IE finite verb in the sense of being the head of the verb
chain.  Unlike English, however, Omaha does not change the
position of this verb when the demand changes, nor does this
verb look or behave inflectionally any differently from other
verbs in the chain.

In MVS, a modal particle, usually the final one in the chain,
and usually distinctive according to whether the speaker is or
is not man, expresses the demand.  In other words, MVS codes
the demand as a separate element of the sentence, and does not
confuse verbs with the demand function as we do.

Admittedly, many sentences do not have modal particles at all,
and end in verbs.  Here, we feel at home in Indo-European land.
I would argue, though, that here the demand simply defaults,
usually to statement form in the absence of a command or question
particle.  (It may default to question if the utterance concerns
"you".)

The term "predication" has been mentioned a few times in the
discussion.  Insofar as I understand the term, I think it
approximates what I mean by the statement form of "demand",
but with an IE constraint.  In IE, everything hinges on the
finite verb.  In a statement, we first reference a topic the
listener can relate to, and then we say something about it
using the finite verb.  Since everything we can say hinges on
that one finite verb, we can make just one overt attribution
per sentence (ignoring and-ed finite verbs and so forth).
We can make any number of covert attributions, however, using
non-predicate adjectives, adjectival constructions and
subordinate clauses.

Trying to "grok" the non-trivial Omaha in Dorsey using my
predicating prejudices from IE about drove me nuts before I
began to suspect that they just don't predicate like we do,
and that they don't distinguish between overt and covert
attribution.  For them, attribution is all the same, verbs
are no more special than nouns, and you can use as many nouns
and verbs as you like to construct your concept.  When you
end it all, either by stating your demand, or by implying it
by default by ceasing to talk, your demand applies to the
whole concept structure you built, not to any one special
attribution that we IE speakers would call a predication.

Consider the following sentence sequence.  I made it up and
presented it to our speakers a few months ago, and they
accepted it at every stage.  (They were in an indulgent mood
that day!)

  ShoN'ge ska.
  The horse is white.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN.
  The white horse is beautiful.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN'.
  I have a beautiful white horse.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga.
  The beautiful white horse that I have is sick.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e.
  The beautiful white horse that I have which is sick is sound asleep.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe.
  I love the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
    sound asleep.

  ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
    gini' koNbdhe'goN.
  I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
    sound asleep, which I love, will recover.

To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

Anyway, that's my current conception of verbs in IE vs Siouan.
Comments, anybody?

Rory


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec 17 17:13:25 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 10:13:25 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <95AC7052DE4A78488DCFB615F7A49EA4070C699D@jewels.msu.montana.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.17.DEC.2002.101325.0700.>

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Coon, Brad wrote:
> My quick, off the cuff, answer is a reminder to me to check my sources
> before answering. The grammatical sketch in the Hopi Dictionary
> discusses Hopi verb inflection at length. It does indeed inflect for
> subject and sometimes object number, but not for person. Some verbs do
> not have subjects, particularly those dealing with the weather. Sorry
> for the misinformation,

What's the usual practice with independent pronominals?


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 17 23:43:48 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 23:43:48 +0000
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <TUE.17.DEC.2002.234348.0000.>

Heike,

Good points.  I guess I'm basing my assumptions on the "basic" laws of
physics as we know them currently--meaning that everything is constantly
changing and nothing is ever really static--kind of like the old adage that
the only constant in life is change itself!

I also agree with your last statement about whose criteria we should use in
correlating nature with a group of people.  I actually was wondering how
many African languages, for instance, would compare to the Native American
in this respect (i.e., are they more verb-oriented than noun-oriented,
process-thinking?).  What limited exposure I have to the Ewe language of
West Africa seemed to me more like IE languages in having both nouns and
verbs on equal footing, although I never became an expert on the language
after one semester with a consultant in a Field Methods class!

I think it would be good to get more Native American language-speakers'
perceptions on this, though.  I find Violet's comments very interesting from
a Native American perspective.  There definitely does seem to be a different
thought process about verbs and nouns in her native language vs. English!
Interesting stuff!

Take care,
Dave



Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html





>From: Heike B?deker <heike.boedeker at netcologne.de>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Native American verbs vs. nouns
>Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 23:11:46 +0100
>
>At 20:50 15.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>>But, if we extend our thinking beyond the box of English grammar, we could
>>just as logically "re-interpret" the Native construct on a different
>>thought level--perhaps they perceive "talling" in the sense of it not
>>being a state as it appears to us in English "The man is tall"--end of
>>story--but perhaps they view "tall" as a process--focusing on the
>>continual process of growing taller.
>
>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller) as
>a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
>which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
>What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
>category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
>resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too, e.g. in
>Akkadian there's a separate category called stative for the former
>(mar.s?ku "I'm sick") while the latter is one of the functions of the
>perfect (?umma b?b ekallim irtapi? "when the gate of the palace [name of a
>liver omen] has widened").
>
>Also it is not just a question of what reality really is like, but how I
>choose to describe things. Of course, when I say "I'm sick" that implies
>that I've fallen sick somewhen. Just that it's a different statement from
>"I've fallen sick more than 4 weeks ago". And, still worse, I can't see it
>as an advantage if some language didn't provide me the means of expressing
>both differently.
>
>>This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
>>to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
>>process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
>
>It is a romantic though understandable view, and Findeisen even had
>speculated about Paleolithic hunter-gatherers already having gotten tired
>of their kind of civilization. But then, where does *your* idea of nature
>being more adequately described in terms of processes rather than states
>derive from? Is it some time-honored wisdom or 20th century physics? And
>which criteria should we use in determining whether say North American
>Natives, Tropical Lowland South American Natives, New Guinean Papuas or
>Northern San peoples (too large categories anyway) were closer to nature?
>
>All the best,
>
>Heike


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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 18 00:00:27 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 00:00:27 +0000
Subject: Information
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.000027.0000.>

Hi Violet,

Thanks for your insights!  It looks like "-pi" is actually a verbal suffix
since both "thipi" and "iyapi" both have the same endings?  What exactly
would be the meaning of "-ohe"?  I wonder if this difference between "thipi"
and "thi-ohe" is similar perhaps to our difference in English between
"house" and "home"--where "home" usually indicates that someone lives in it
as opposed to a "house" which is generic or could be an empty
house?--although I'm not sure how much of a distinction we make in English
between these two, since I think the two are frequently used
interchangeably.

What about an attribute like "tall"?  Would you express this as we do in
English ("He is tall") or would "tall" be a verb form as it appears to be in
Hidatsa (and Mojave)?

Can you think of other instances where you might express what is a noun in
English as a verb form in your native language or where you might think of
something as a verb that appears as a noun in English?

I know I'm full of questions!  Curiosity gets the best of me....

Thank you and take care,
Dave








>From: "Violet Catches" <napshawin at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Information
>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:08:49 -0600
>
>Hi
>thipi means that it is a place being lived in, there is movement, and all
>the things that include a dweling, it is an act  of living in the present
>thipi is also a structure, but an erect structure, a home, a place being
>dwelled in, so an empty house is referred to as a thi-ohe, where there is
>no dwelling
>thi-ohe means a place once dwelled in that no longer exists, there is no
>movement, no dwelling no life..
>iyapi means that they are speaking, the words are flowing, stopping and
>flowing in a continual manner, except of course when one sleeps, another
>meaning for iyapi is that they are complaining...
>As a native american it was extremely difficult for me to understand verbs
>as defined and nouns, It was the nouns that gave me the most problems,
>because I use to think that 'thipi' and 'iyapi'  and other words like that
>were 'verbs', but it was really the English that was confusing...
>in the old way, I think, the word for the structure of a thipi (as we know
>it today) was thiyuktan, but that also looks like a verb,  but was actually
>the structure. Do you know other Sioux speakers? if you do they may recall
>that  as well.
>
>
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 18 19:57:41 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 19:57:41 +0000
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.195741.0000.>

Hi Brad,

Do you feel that Whorf adequately portrayed the Hopi language as having a
different thought process than SAE (Standard Average European [Whorf's
term])?  I know one of his famous examples was "rehpi" in that it would be
translated simply as "flashed" (referring I imagine to lightning) without
specifying any subject or actor.  It sounds like you've confirmed this with
what you say about verbs of natural phenomena having no actor or subject
prefix.  I wonder though if Hopi has a separate noun form for "lightning
flash" or simply any kind of "flash" (i.e., camera flash).  I wonder if one
would say "I see a lightning flash" or "I see (something) flashed" without
specifying *what* flashed.  I wonder how Siouan and other Native American
languages compare in this regard dealing with weather or otherwise.

Regards,
Dave








>From: "Coon, Brad" <bcoon at montana.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: "'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)
>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:47:12 -0700
>
>Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
>yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
>form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
>materials.
>
>Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
>lg
>today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
>language.
>Brad Coon
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Heike B?deker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
>Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
>
>
>At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
> >In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
> >all--just the verb form
>
>Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
>Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
>Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
>marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
>formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
>case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
>Chukchi (i)ne-)?
>
> >--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena
>like
> >a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?
>
>Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
>really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
>1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
>queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
>Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
>itself well... <g>
>
> >There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God
>or
> >Nature is doing it).
>
>This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
>rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
>a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
>the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
>hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
>so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
>might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
>luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
>climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...
>
>Best,
>
>Heike


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From dunni001 at umn.edu  Wed Dec 18 21:23:52 2002
From: dunni001 at umn.edu (Timothy Dunnigan)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:23:52 -0600
Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <F115GiHG5uc3PZdo1c9000050d1@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.152352.0600.>

Dave,

May I recommend that you read Einar Haugen's critique of the Whorfian
Hypothesis.  It can be found in a volume edited by William C. McCormack and
Stephen A. Wurm and titled Approaches to Language: Anthropological Issues
(1973).  If I remember correctly, Einar felt that Whorf's characterizations
of SAE were overdrawn, and the differences with Hopi inadequately documented.

Tim

At 07:57 PM 12/18/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi Brad,
>
>Do you feel that Whorf adequately portrayed the Hopi language as having a
>different thought process than SAE (Standard Average European [Whorf's
>term])?  I know one of his famous examples was "rehpi" in that it would be
>translated simply as "flashed" (referring I imagine to lightning) without
>specifying any subject or actor.  It sounds like you've confirmed this
>with what you say about verbs of natural phenomena having no actor or
>subject prefix.  I wonder though if Hopi has a separate noun form for
>"lightning flash" or simply any kind of "flash" (i.e., camera flash).  I
>wonder if one would say "I see a lightning flash" or "I see (something)
>flashed" without specifying *what* flashed.  I wonder how Siouan and other
>Native American languages compare in this regard dealing with weather or
>otherwise.
>
>Regards,
>Dave


From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Wed Dec 18 21:29:59 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 22:29:59 +0100
Subject: person indexing
In-Reply-To: <F115GiHG5uc3PZdo1c9000050d1@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.222959.0100.>

At 19:57 18.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>It sounds like you've confirmed this with what you say about verbs of
>natural phenomena having no actor or subject prefix.

I must say I took it (the post "Hopi correction" actually) more as
indicating that the criterion was not applicable to Hopi because verbs
generally didn't receive personal desinences.

>  I wonder how Siouan and other Native American languages compare in this
> regard dealing with weather or otherwise.

Cree, which may be regarded as illustrative for Algonquian at large, has
inaminate intransitive verb forms for environmental stuff such as kimiwan
"it is raining", ki?it?w "it is hot", tahk?y?w "it is cold", k??ikaw "it is
day", ot?ko?in "it is evening", tipisk?w "it is dark/night" (inanimate
singular is -w, which drops after n). So it's not formally different from
say kicim?n milw??in "your canoe is fine", just that no syntactically
ouvert subject is appearing. An impersonal form is not available in this
paradigm, a depersonal (to pick up a term once suggested for Blackfoot by
Regina Pustet for something like being stripped off any inherent
relationality) form is not available in the whole language. Otherwise the
noun-verb-distinction is well developed on the lexical, morphological and
syntactic planes. Actually I used to scare people by telling them Cree and
Blackfoot had still more morphosyntactic diff?rence than Sanskrit and Greek ;-)

On the other hand, I do agree that it's probably not all the same. I can't
remember native speakers of NAN lgs. having talked about "thought
processes", but the means provided to express things, and with this I only
can agree. Interestingly, a guy who was from a subarctic Athapaskan
community and also knew French and Latin said English was really the
language he liked least... so much on SAE <g>.

All the best,

Heike


From rankin at ku.edu  Wed Dec 18 21:54:40 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:54:40 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.155440.0600.>

>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller) as
a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too,

Indeed.  It seems to be the case that every language capable, using one mechanism or another, to convey all the nuances of other languages.

>This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
>to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
>process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.

>It is a romantic though understandable view, . . .

To me, that sums it up nicely.  When I was a student in the early '60's the Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis was mentioned, but understood to be unprovable.  It was essentially dropped from the linguistics curriculum (but not always from Anthropology).  Now, thanks to Post Modernism and the like, it has returned.  But there are still no tests that would enable one to prove the theory.  So, the very same theory can be totally "out" one year but be totally "in" another year, with no evidence adduced for either view really.  This fact doesn't tell us a lot about the nature of language, but it says a great deal about the state of American social science.

Taking one view allows the "scholar" to emphasize the similarities among all speakers of natural languages and denigrate his "touchy-feely" colleagues.  Taking the other view allows people to give in to romantic prejudices and popular stereotypes and feel all warm and fuzzy about essentially Rousseauesque views of natural man.  Obviously there are those who gravitate to one or the other of these extremes.  I have never felt comfortable with either one.

I have had bilingual students, especially one American girl who had been raised in Japan and was about as close to bilingualism as you can get, who insisted that she reacted to stimuli quite differently depending on the language milieu she was interacting in.  But, of course, these were subjective statements, and she couldn't really describe exactly what it was that was different.  I took her feelings and statements seriously, but couldn't verify them.

I've been a linguist for 35 or 40 years and still don't have answers to these connundrums.  But I think that, as scientists, we have to ask one or two questions.

1)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be falsified?  If the answer is "no", then it is useless as a scientific theory.

2)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be proved?  If not, then it's still a useless theory.  If experiments are possible, then they should be designed and performed, preferably by someone with a neutral outlook.

Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.

By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.  So I tend to leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee Whorf.

Bob


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 18 22:23:45 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 22:23:45 +0000
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.222345.0000.>

>>>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
>>>as a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be,
>>>and which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical
>>>investigations).  What comes closest to your proposal is the category of
>>>resultative, i.e. a category denoing a state resultant from a process.
>>>Again, stative and resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old
>>>World, too.<<<

I guess what I'm curious to know here is whether there would be an
alternative in Hidatsa/Crow/Mojave and any other language that expresses
"(The) man talls" construct to distinguish between the state of BEING tall
and the process of GROWING TALLER.  Unfortunately all I have is the
dictionary from 1886 by Matthew Washington in Hidatsa, and nothing from
these other languages, and we haven't heard from our Hidatsa expert yet,
John Boyle, who would probably know best from his research on Hidatsa.  If
there are alternate methods depending on whether one is referring to a state
or process, then that would correlate with IE languages (i.e., he is tall,
he is getting taller).  If not, then I'm still left wondering why this
attribute would be stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's
because they don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead,
unless an adjective has much in common with a verb (?).

I agree that both of these polarized views are too extreme and the real
answer lies somewhere in the middle in a big "grey" area.  I believe, as
Pinker says, we can think without words and remember "gists" of
conversations which are not the same as remembering a bunch of words, but I
also believe that spoken or written language has to fit into a grammatical
construct template in order for our thoughts to make sense to another
speaker of the same language.  How much our grammatical construct template
limits us in how we think or expresses nuances in different languages I'm
not sure about.

After several years of studying different languages (mostly European and now
just beginning Native American) I too find it difficult to come up with
adequate answers, and I only hope that as my multilingual and mutlicultural
awareness increases I will be able to find more answers!

Thanks for the input!

Dave






>From: "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:54:40 -0600
>
>
> >But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
>as
>a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
>which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
>What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
>category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
>resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too,
>
>Indeed.  It seems to be the case that every language capable, using one
>mechanism or another, to convey all the nuances of other languages.
>
> >This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
> >to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
> >process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
>
> >It is a romantic though understandable view, . . .
>
>To me, that sums it up nicely.  When I was a student in the early '60's the
>Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis was mentioned, but understood to be
>unprovable.  It was essentially dropped from the linguistics curriculum
>(but not always from Anthropology).  Now, thanks to Post Modernism and the
>like, it has returned.  But there are still no tests that would enable one
>to prove the theory.  So, the very same theory can be totally "out" one
>year but be totally "in" another year, with no evidence adduced for either
>view really.  This fact doesn't tell us a lot about the nature of language,
>but it says a great deal about the state of American social science.
>
>Taking one view allows the "scholar" to emphasize the similarities among
>all speakers of natural languages and denigrate his "touchy-feely"
>colleagues.  Taking the other view allows people to give in to romantic
>prejudices and popular stereotypes and feel all warm and fuzzy about
>essentially Rousseauesque views of natural man.  Obviously there are those
>who gravitate to one or the other of these extremes.  I have never felt
>comfortable with either one.
>
>I have had bilingual students, especially one American girl who had been
>raised in Japan and was about as close to bilingualism as you can get, who
>insisted that she reacted to stimuli quite differently depending on the
>language milieu she was interacting in.  But, of course, these were
>subjective statements, and she couldn't really describe exactly what it was
>that was different.  I took her feelings and statements seriously, but
>couldn't verify them.
>
>I've been a linguist for 35 or 40 years and still don't have answers to
>these connundrums.  But I think that, as scientists, we have to ask one or
>two questions.
>
>1)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be falsified?  If the answer
>is "no", then it is useless as a scientific theory.
>
>2)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be proved?  If not, then it's
>still a useless theory.  If experiments are possible, then they should be
>designed and performed, preferably by someone with a neutral outlook.
>
>Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.
>
>By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't
>find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.  So I tend to
>leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee Whorf.
>
>Bob


_________________________________________________________________
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From rankin at ku.edu  Wed Dec 18 23:21:01 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:21:01 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.172101.0600.>

> ... If not, then I'm still left wondering why this
> attribute would be stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's
> because they don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead,
> unless an adjective has much in common with a verb (?).

> I agree that both of these polarized views are too extreme and the real
> answer lies somewhere in the middle in a big "grey" area.

I wish I knew.  :-)  I'm not sure any amount of experience can answer these questions.  As for adjectives, a couple of points.  (1) The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology in Melbourne held a workshop on adjectives (their universality, etc.) this past August and the proceedings should be published in a year or two.  A couple of friends of mine participated.  There are probably other good references.  I use Whaley's typology textbook in the functional grammar course I teach.  He takes the view that adjectives are not a universal category in languages, but, that in languages that have them, they are sometimes more like nouns (agreeing for number, gender, etc. as in IE languages) and sometimes more like verbs (inflecting for tense, aspect, mode, etc. as in Siouan).  Using the notion of "time-stable" and "time-non-stable" (which he didn't develop himself) he has a continuum between nouns and verbs, with adjectives somewhere along the continuum in given languages:

NOUNS----------------------(adjs.)-----------------------------------VERBS
time-stable                                                                                            time-mobile

So every language has ways of expressing the concept(s).  If adjectives are more like states, then there are ways of encoding inchoatives, etc. in the language (sick/get sick).  If they are more like actions, there are ways of encoding resultatives, etc (sit/be seated).  One way or another, the job gets done.

As for how "nouny-ness", "verby-ness", "stative-ness" or "active-ness", I have no idea if or how these affect speakers' perception of the world.  What I actually *teach* is that language does not hold speakers' thoughts in a "vice-like grip" (as some used to describe the Whorf Hypothesis), but linguistic categories may tend to *direct the speaker's attention* or *spotlight*, so to speak, certain features of reality and sort of loosely deemphasize others.  Whorf tended to think that this affected speakers a great deal.  I tend to think not so much.  But that's where the experimentation and proof is necessary.  Without it, we're still treading water.

Whorf talked about sensitivity to "time" in tense-marking languages (like European lgs.) and lack of such in "tenseless" languages.  Personally, I think he had adopted the stereotype of the Indian who does everything on "Indian Time".  I simply don't believe that that aspect of culture relates to language at all.  Those languages that don't mark tense DO mark "time" using temporal conjunctions and adverbs.  I would bet large sums that, if we could go back to Western Europe before timepieces became common, that we would find that the speakers of those IE languages did everything on "Indian Time" too.  Hell, I'm semi retired and seldom bother to wear a watch, and I find that *I* operate on a very loose notion of time.  It's my culture that had conditioned me otherwise, not my English with all its futures, pasts, perfects and progressives.

Bob


From chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu  Thu Dec 19 01:54:13 2002
From: chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Wallace Chafe)
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:54:13 -0800
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <009101c2a6e0$11cb0c80$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <WED.18.DEC.2002.175413.0800.>

I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".

I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
(he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
but the rest of us certainly should care.
Wally


From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Thu Dec 19 05:28:03 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 06:28:03 +0100
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <009101c2a6e0$11cb0c80$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.062803.0100.>

At 15:54 18.12.02 -0600, R. Rankin wrote:
...
>Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.

Probably. It largely seems about ideological preferences. We just needed to
do the same with culture/thought to be able to substitute the Marxist credo
"Das Sein bestimmt das Bewu?tsein." (Being determines consciousness).

>By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't
>find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.

My impression, too.

>  So I tend to leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee
> Whorf.

Yeah, there's also more to linguistic relativity hypotheses (e.g. V?gotskiy
just to mention another classic) or language/"thought" (for which various
Cognitivist approaches would be relevant).


At 22:23 18.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>but I also believe that spoken or written language has to fit into a
>grammatical construct template in order for our thoughts to make sense to
>another speaker of the same language.  How much our grammatical construct
>template limits us in how we think or expresses nuances in different
>languages I'm not sure about.

But what is such a template? I think the notion could very nicely
challenged using various NAN data. E.g. Mithun (Lgs. of Native NA, pp. 152,
163) points to TAM categories not being obligatory (as in fully
grammaticalized) which increased (while an analogous interp to Whorf's Hopi
probably might have suggested otherwise) their pragmatic force.


At 17:21 18.12.02 -0600, R. Rankin wrote:
>I would bet large sums that, if we could go back to Western Europe before
>timepieces became common, that we would find that the speakers of those IE
>languages did everything on "Indian Time" too.

There's still some gradients within Europe, too. Probably this is a very
late thing as in industrialization or something. Machines are most
profitable when running 24/7, so cancel the wage slaves' siesta. And, of
course, now in the Silicon Age (at least of N America) you can drive from a
lovely air-conditioned home in an AC'ed car to an AC'ed bureau to an AC'ed
shopping mall and back again.

All the best,

Heike


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 08:10:42 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 01:10:42 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <F128fvbmcf4irFUYsri00004cbe@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.011042.0700.>

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> I guess what I'm curious to know here is whether there would be an
> alternative in Hidatsa/Crow/Mojave and any other language that expresses
> "(The) man talls" construct to distinguish between the state of BEING tall
> and the process of GROWING TALLER.  Unfortunately all I have is the
> dictionary from 1886 by Matthew Washington in Hidatsa, and nothing from
> these other languages, and we haven't heard from our Hidatsa expert yet,
> John Boyle, who would probably know best from his research on Hidatsa.

[There's a good place to look for the example "getting taller" in stories
in which a spell is uttered that causes a tree in which the hero is
located to get taller.]

The Omaha-Ponca construction is to use snede' 'tall' or maN's^i 'high'
plus a verb of motion, perhaps combined with a positional, perhaps
causativized, e.g., 'arrive high', 'send high', etc.  In the texts these
constructions are sometimes translated '(suddenly) become', or, with other
verbs '(suddenly) begin/start', but the construction is precisely what
I've called 'suddenly' auxiliaries or "aorist"/inceptive/iterative
auxiliaries.  (Someone once told me a Latinate term for "suddenly" verbs,
but I've lost it!) These forms are particularly well developed and
documented in Dhegiha and Ioway-Otoe, but the situation seems similar in
Winnebago and there are a reduced set of obviously cognate forms in
Dakotan, too.  Crow has some auxiliaries (punctual? I forget) that look
like highly rediuced forms of some of these.

Note that OP snede' 'tall' is a stative verb, but maN's^i 'high' is
something different.  It appears by itself as 'high', 'high in the air',
'on high', etc., but also combines with postpositions to produce at least
maN's^iadi and maN's^iatta.  There's also maNs^ia'ha.  This is basically a
directional adverb or maybe directional would suffice.  There are some
comparable forms, I think, with other senses, though I admit I have never
tried to nail down this impression of mine.  The bare form and the
postposition-augmented forms function as predicates, though they are never
inflected.

Also, the construction 'that high' (and similar ones) is ga=thaN' that +
thaN, where thaN behaves morphosyntactically like a postposition, but is
not at all locative.  There are a small set of similar enclitics,
including =naN 'many', as in ga'=naN 'that many', and so on. I can't
explain the difference in accentuation.  The =naN is obviously the cognate
of the demonstrative plural marker in Dakotan.

Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget some
examples provided by Dorsey.

Incidentally, the gloss 'grown' (probably 'mature') is attached by Dorsey
to the OP stem naN.

> If there are alternate methods depending on whether one is referring
> to a state or process, then that would correlate with IE languages
> (i.e., he is tall, he is getting taller).

Returning to David's point, as far as OP is concerned there are alternate
methods, though the processual alternative requires an auxiliary.

> If not, then I'm still left wondering why this attribute would be
> stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's because they
> don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead, unless an
> adjective has much in common with a verb (?).

For me the explanation is that adjectives are functionally intermediate
between nouns and verbs, so that particular concepts in this intermediate
range may in some languages that distinguish all three categories fall in
a category other than the one in which similar concepts fall in English.
In extreme cases, very few concepts may be realized as adjectives.  In
fact, a language may eliminate the intermediate category adjective
completely, and transfer all modifier concepts to noun and verbs.  The
verbs of this sort may be inflected objectively, in which case you end up
with what is called an active/stative language.  Essentially all Siouan
languages are of this type.

Of course, this is just a classificatory or typological approach to
analysis, founded on an imprecise "intermediate between noun and verb"
characterization of the underlying mechanics. Obviously logical categories
like "static/state", "entity", and "process" are lurking in the
background.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 08:22:52 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 01:22:52 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <002901c2a6ec$22046040$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.012252.0700.>

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, R. Rankin wrote:
> Personally, I think he had adopted the stereotype of the Indian who
> does everything on "Indian Time".  I simply don't believe that that
> aspect of culture relates to language at all.  Those languages that
> don't mark tense DO mark "time" using temporal conjunctions and
> adverbs.  I would bet large sums that, if we could go back to Western
> Europe before timepieces became common, that we would find that the
> speakers of those IE languages did everything on "Indian Time" too.

Someone asked me something like this recently and I came to about the same
conclusions.  How anal you are about time depends on how easily you have
access to instruments for measuring it precisely.  The availability of
such instruments is a very recent phenomenon.  In spite of this, Dakota
has plenty of idioms for 'on time', 'at the appointed time', 'in good
time' and so on.  Everyone appreciates timeliness.  They just differ in
how precisely they reckon it.

Even with fairly ready access to time pieces, several members of my family
are well known to operate on a less precise definition of time than
others.  People often tell me to arrive an hour before they expect to need
me, for example.

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 08:28:09 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 01:28:09 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <26909668.1040234053@[192.168.2.36]>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.012809.0700.>

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Wallace Chafe wrote:
> I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, ...

For what it's worth, the subject has been discussed at length (and
certainly in better depth) on the Linguist List, back when it was more
discursive, and even since.  All this is accessible in the Linguist List
Archives.


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 19 15:12:07 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:12:07 -0600
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.091207.0600.>

I think John's examples illustrate nicely my point that languages with stative verbs have morphology (or other mechanisms) that allow them to show the concomitant action, etc.

> Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
> grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
> second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
> mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget some
> examples provided by Dorsey.

That's really interesting, given that Siouan languages don't tend to be "fluid-S" languages.  Are these examples from Dorsey 1890?  Carolyn gave me another example from her Osage speakers.

OS form of 'be' (Carolyn Quintero, personal comm.)
1s  briN
2s    niN  OR $ciN
3s    ?iN  OR maybe just ??
BUT
1pl  wa-?iN-pe  with a stative pronominal, wa- 'us, 1pl patient'.
E.g., Sc?ce wa?iNpe 'we are tall'

Bob


From jmcbride at kayserv.net  Thu Dec 19 15:44:50 2002
From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:44:50 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.094450.0600.>

> Whorf talked about sensitivity to "time" in tense-marking languages (like
European lgs.) and lack of such in "tenseless" languages.  Personally, I
think he had adopted the stereotype of the Indian who does everything on
"Indian Time".

I don't think Whorf is saying the speaker of a Native language has lost the
notion of time, or even that time is blurry as a concept.  On the contrary,
in his paper "An American Indian Model of the Universe," he basically
asserts that time is perceived very intensely for the Hopi speaker, but that
the notion of space and distance seems to be intimately tied to the
grammatical categories of time and tense.  He gives very little linguistic
evidence to back his assertion, but it seems to revolve around the
correlation of tense and inceptive elements to expressions of depth and
distance from the speaker.  From this (and a few other grammatical features
of Hopi) he comes to the conclusion that Hopi is a more adequate language
for use in hard science.  I suppose Whorf thought that the Hopi speaker
would react to some of the more abstract concepts of General Relativity with
the Hopi equivalent of "Well, duh."  :)

Apparently this sort of thing (regardless of its truth or applicability)
really struck his as an underlying psychological reality for all Hopi
speakers, affecting their perceptions at almost every level.  For instance,
he noted elsewhere that Hopi speakers describe all repetitive patterns--from
the rolling hills on the horizon, the distribution of clouds in the sky, to
the teeth of a serated knife--with certain punctual/segmentative affixes.
>>From this he gathered that Hopis were natural born scientists.  A famous
quote from this period:  "The Hopi actually have a language better equipped
to deal with such vibratile phenomena [described as including the "movements
of machinery and mechanism, wave processes and vibrations, electrical and
chemical phenomena" etc.] than is our latest scientific terminology."

To me, it seems obvious that Whorf suffered from the Information Age
equivalent of what I call "Noble Savage Syndrome."  He was overly romantic
about Native Americans in general, and just wasn't prepared to see Native
folks as everyday ordinary people with common faults and strengths.  The
only fault he would attribute to the Hopis is that they weren't the rightful
founders of NASA.  A very romantic notion, indeed!  But what do you expect
from a guy who shared an office with the poet Wallace Stevens?

As thought out as his methodology is, Whorf is clearly a poor linguistic
scientist.  His writings in general are just brimming with contradictions:
"Thus, the Hopi language gets along perfectly without tenses for its verbs."
And elsewhere:
"Hopi also has three tenses: factual or present-past, future, and
generalized or usitative."
And he ALWAYS violates the cardinal rule of our Siouan list; he translates
languages to English, and then analyzes the English.  One of my favorites of
these is where he goes to great, great lengths describing how utterly
foreign the Shawnee word for 'to clean with a ramrod' would be to a speaker
of English (read: Whorf, himself).

Nevertheless, I think he's on to something... not sure what exactly.  Of
course there are quite often no 1:1 correspondences of certain grammatical
features between languages, and often times translation gets bogged down in
going the distance to express everything at all times in one language as it
was in another.  I suppose that's why the Bible sounds either haughty or
sparse depending on the edition.  Surely, the concepts are there in all
languages, but their distribution in the mind is clearly not uniform between
languages.  I think that's what he would call culture. That's a very strange
definition as far as I'm concerned, but that only goes to strengthen his
claim in some bizarre way (language deconstructs to idiolect which
deconstructs to personality which... you get the idea).  Sure, it's a
reductio.  But it's HIS reductio.

Linguistic relativity might help someone attempt to wrap his/her mind around
new concepts in a second or third language, by bluntly reminding us of
potentially skewed perceptions (or at least grammatical constructions).  But
is it provable?  Whorf's ideas may in fact lend themselves to testing, but
I'm not sure how it could be done.  All evidence that would support or
refute his claims would rely on bilingualism in some way, and that seems to
be something that Whorf isn't prepared to allow in his hypothesis.   Final
word:  HELPFUL BUNK.


From bcoon at montana.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:19:18 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:19:18 -0700
Subject: Hopi 'lightning', was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.091918.0700.>

Whorf worked with only a single informant who spoke Second Mesa Hopi whereas
almost all other work, including the lexical materials I still have deal
with Third Mesa Hopi.  Although I have been away from Hopi for many years, I
do not recall any real analysis of the differences.
I felt Whorf's descriptions helped me to see past similarities of
nomenclature into subtle differences.  Now the caveats here are that I had
read Whorf long before I went to college and actually studied Hopi, and as I
said, Hopi was the first Native American Lg I studied.  Over the years, I
have often perceived students having a kind of language shock when they
first plunge into serious study of any language outside of their native lg's
family.  Whether this lg shock is real or not, I will leave for others, I
certainly felt something like it the first time around.

I am too far from my Hopi work to even attempt to generate sentences for
you, I will note that "rehpi" does not appear in either the massive "Hopi
Dictionary" or in the Voegelins' "Hopi Domain", both of which treat 3rd Mesa
Hopi.  Kalectaca (1978) produced a pedagogical work for 2nd Mesa Hopi which
lacks "rehpi" as well but the work's limited scope serves only as negative
evidence.

Here are some examples of "lightning" from the dictionary,
Third Mesa has a noun for lightning, 'talwiipiki', Pu' kur i' talwiikpiki
piw kiihut mu'a, "Then it appeared that lightning also struck the house."
This is from the verb, 'talwiipi(k)-, an intransitive verb meaning "for
lightning to flash, occur as a lightning flash", Talwiipikkyangqw pu' yaaw
pay hin'ur umu, "The lightning flashed and it thundered loudly."
Without further turning this into a Hopi listserv, I will note that Hopi,
like most Uto-Aztecan lgs, has an extensive number of forms derived from
Proto-Uto-Aztecan forms of the shape *ta(C)- which gloss as fire, star, sun,
summer, heat, lightning, etc.  (I will be happy to suggest some sources if
anyone is interested but would rather do it privately, i.e., not on the
SIOUAN list.)

There is a fairly detailed criticism of Whorf's methodology of eliciting
examples in the Voegelins' "Hopi Domains" and before citing Whorf's work on
Hopi, I encourage folks to read it, but as always, read it with an open
mind.

Brad Coon
Reference Librarian
The Libraries-Montana State University
bcoon at montana.edu       (406) 994-6026


-----Original Message-----
From: David Kaufman [mailto:dvklinguist at hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 12:58 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)


Hi Brad,

Do you feel that Whorf adequately portrayed the Hopi language as having a
different thought process than SAE (Standard Average European [Whorf's
term])?  I know one of his famous examples was "rehpi" in that it would be
translated simply as "flashed" (referring I imagine to lightning) without
specifying any subject or actor.  It sounds like you've confirmed this with
what you say about verbs of natural phenomena having no actor or subject
prefix.  I wonder though if Hopi has a separate noun form for "lightning
flash" or simply any kind of "flash" (i.e., camera flash).  I wonder if one
would say "I see a lightning flash" or "I see (something) flashed" without
specifying *what* flashed.  I wonder how Siouan and other Native American
languages compare in this regard dealing with weather or otherwise.

Regards,
Dave








>From: "Coon, Brad" <bcoon at montana.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: "'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'" <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>Subject: RE: person indexing (was: Information)
>Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:47:12 -0700
>
>Hopi was the first American Indian lg I studied so its been a while, but
>yes, Hopi definitely inflects verbs for person and number.  3rdSg is a zero
>form morpheme.  I don't recall an impersonal form but I will check my
>materials.
>
>Whorf's work on Hopi seems to be generally ignored by people working on the
>lg
>today but I found his insights very helpful when I was studying the
>language.
>Brad Coon
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Heike B?deker [mailto:heike.boedeker at netcologne.de]
>Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:56 PM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: person indexing (was: Information)
>
>
>At 10:31 15.12.02 -0800, David Kaufman wrote:
> >In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at
> >all--just the verb form
>
>Anyone on this list happening to be knowledgeable about Hopi morphosyntax?
>Is the Hopi verb never inflected for person, as say the verb in Yuki,
>Japanese, Korean, Manju or Mongolian? Is there profanely just some "zero
>marking" for non-speechact-participants (3rd persons)? Does Hopi have some
>formally distinguished category of impersonalization (equivalent to, in
>case of actors French on, German man, in case of undergoers Nahuatl tla-,
>Chukchi (i)ne-)?
>
> >--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena
>like
> >a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?
>
>Apart from the fact we have lots of things we could question whether we
>really need them ;-) Should it be really such a surprise that there is no
>1:1 r'ship between form and (main) function? And there's really extremely
>queer uses of pronouns, e.g. in German Es tanzt sich gut auf dem neuen
>Parkett. "One can dance well on the new parquet floor", lit: it dances
>itself well... <g>
>
> >There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God
>or
> >Nature is doing it).
>
>This was indeed the explanation I was given why Sanskrit var.sati "it
>rains" is active (parasmaipadam), the Gods are doing it. But then, this is
>a widespread idea, too, just to mention another case from the Old World,
>the /Xam associated rain with water-loving animals such as the
>hippopotamus. Now imagine magical practics involving the invocation of
>so-called rain-animals so they may bring the rain along with them. We even
>might naively have expected end up with a causative (which, may I say
>luckily, is not attested). But then, influence of supernatural beings on
>climate, and weathermaking are likewise attested in the New World...
>
>Best,
>
>Heike


_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
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From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:04:03 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:04:03 -0600
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.100403.0600.>

>> Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
>> grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
>> second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
>> mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget
some
>> examples provided by Dorsey.

> That's really interesting, given that Siouan languages don't tend to be
> "fluid-S" languages.  Are these examples from Dorsey 1890?  Carolyn gave
> me another example from her Osage speakers.

> OS form of 'be' (Carolyn Quintero, personal comm.)
> 1s  briN
> 2s    niN  OR $ciN
> 3s    ?iN  OR maybe just ??
> BUT
> 1pl  wa-?iN-pe  with a stative pronominal, wa- 'us, 1pl patient'.
> E.g., Sc?ce wa?iNpe 'we are tall'

We seem to have elicited a couple more of these from our Omaha speakers.
In my class notes, I have:

  ashka'de      I play
  dhishkade     you play
  shka'de       s/he plays
  oNshka'de     we play

I also find:

  niu'woN       swim
  niu'awoN      I swim
  dhini'uwoN    you swim

In these two examples, the dhi- could be the emphatic/independent pronoun
rather than the affixed you-object pronoun.  That would seem especially
likely in the "swim" case.  But compare the word for "crawl", which seems
to be entirely stative(!):

  mide'         crawl
  oN'mide       I crawl
  dhi'mide      you crawl

I don't know if I have the accent correct on the last two.  Perhaps they
had to emphasize the first syllable to convince me that that was what
they really meant!

Also, what about the word for die/dead?  We have two separate words for
this in our language, but they seem to handle the distinction by treating
the same word as either active or stative, don't they?

  at?e'         I die
  oNt?e'        I am dead

(The above two are going off memory/supposition!)

Rory


From bcoon at montana.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:35:37 2002
From: bcoon at montana.edu (Coon, Brad)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:35:37 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.093537.0700.>

Sorry for delay in answering, its Finals week here and students are
panicking as usual with papers that were due yesterday problems.

Hopi has a nominal SOV sentence order but it is possible to leave out
pronominal subjects and objects if either or both is understood by context
or previous utterance.  Third person subject omission is most common, but
the dictionary gives an example of 2s subject, 3s object, and 3s implied
ind.object pronominals all being omitted.
Citation,
Hopi Dictionary, Hopi Dictionary Project, 1998, p.868.

Brad Coon
Reference Librarian
The Libraries-Montana State University
bcoon at montana.edu       (406) 994-6026


-----Original Message-----
From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 10:13 AM
To: 'siouan at lists.colorado.edu'
Subject: Re: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)


On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Coon, Brad wrote:
> My quick, off the cuff, answer is a reminder to me to check my sources
> before answering. The grammatical sketch in the Hopi Dictionary
> discusses Hopi verb inflection at length. It does indeed inflect for
> subject and sometimes object number, but not for person. Some verbs do
> not have subjects, particularly those dealing with the weather. Sorry
> for the misinformation,

What's the usual practice with independent pronominals?


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:43:12 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:43:12 -0700
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
In-Reply-To: <001c01c2a771$004bb5e0$e1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.094312.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, R. Rankin wrote:
> I think John's examples illustrate nicely my point that languages with
> stative verbs have morphology (or other mechanisms) that allow them to
> show the concomitant action, etc.

On reflection, I didn't actually provide examples, but I can if anyone is
interested.

> > Here's a fun OP verb I noticed while looking into this:  u..hi' 'to have
> > grown, been raised' The first person is ua'hi 'I grew' (active), but the
> > second is udhi'hi 'you grew, were raised' (stative).  This is the only
> > mixed active/stative verb I can recall.  I may have managed to forget some
> > examples provided by Dorsey.

> That's really interesting, given that Siouan languages don't tend to
> be "fluid-S" languages.  Are these examples from Dorsey 1890?

It was, and there were two cases of each person.  I didn't search under
possible forms of the stem, so I have only forms glossed "grew."  Since
there were two cases of each person I'd say this wasn't fluid-S (S in
agent or patient form as required by semantics, I assume) but a mixed
paradigm, in which the first person is always active (agent pronominal)
and the second always stative (patient pronominal).  I don't know the
other persons' forms.

> Carolyn gave me another example from her Osage speakers.
>
> OS form of 'be' (Carolyn Quintero, personal comm.)
> 1s  briN
> 2s    niN  OR $ciN
> 3s    ?iN  OR maybe just ??
> BUT
> 1pl  wa-?iN-pe  with a stative pronominal, wa- 'us, 1pl patient'.
> E.g., Sc?ce wa?iNpe 'we are tall'

For what it's worth, the OP cognate of this verb (Os sce'ce : OP snede')
is not inflected with the aid of an auxiliary or copula.

I assume this inclusive example isn't dhiN, the animate motion positional?
Of course, that would be expected to be active in form in the inclusive,
too.  (I think it's (?) aNgadhiNhe in OP, but I don't trust my memory on
the =he coauxiliary.)

Of course, with or without a positional, in OP the verb would be inflected
- wasneda=i 'we are long;  we are tall'. I do recall that this is a verb
for which speakers were uncomfortable with the first person.  I was told
it was boastful.  I can think of some possible reasons for this that I
didn't think to investigate at the time.

It's interesting that n- occurs in the second person of Os dhiN 'be'.
This is normal in OP (niN < s^niN), but I thought the variants of the
second person with dh-stems in Osage were something like s^c^- ~ sc-?

JEK


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 16:58:56 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 09:58:56 -0700
Subject: Hopi correction, was RE: person indexing (was: Information)
In-Reply-To: <95AC7052DE4A78488DCFB615F7A49EA4070C69AD@jewels.msu.montana.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.095856.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Coon, Brad wrote:
> Sorry for delay in answering, its Finals week here and students are
> panicking as usual with papers that were due yesterday problems.

I can appreciate that.

> Hopi has a nominal SOV sentence order but it is possible to leave out
> pronominal subjects and objects if either or both is understood by context
> or previous utterance.  Third person subject omission is most common, but
> the dictionary gives an example of 2s subject, 3s object, and 3s implied
> ind.object pronominals all being omitted. ...

I rather expected that - I'd argue that prevalent third person omission
with independent pronominals here would be analogous to a zero coded third
person in a system with pronominal affixes.  In short, that omission of
explicit marking was the encoding of third person.  And, of course, as has
been pointed out, barring various cases of personification or
objectification, we expect third persons and minimal marking with natural
phenomena.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 17:05:56 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:05:56 -0700
Subject: Mixed stative and Whorf.
In-Reply-To: <OF26955C32.C22A71D0-ON86256C94.00566130@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.100556.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
> We seem to have elicited a couple more of these from our Omaha speakers.
...
>   dhishkade     you play
...
>   dhini'uwoN    you swim

It's interesting to note that in these examples and udhihi, it's the
always second persons that are stative in form.

> In these two examples, the dhi- could be the emphatic/independent pronoun
> rather than the affixed you-object pronoun.  That would seem especially
> likely in the "swim" case.

That's certainly possible, and I can think of some parallels around
Siouan, e.g., consistent use of the independent first person plural in the
stative paradigm in Crow, or etti 'his house' in Omaha-Ponca.  Still, I
think this is just what it seems, an unexpected stative second person.

> But compare the word for "crawl", which seems
> to be entirely stative(!):
>
>   mide'         crawl
>   oN'mide       I crawl
>   dhi'mide      you crawl

I don't think I'd ever run across this!

> I don't know if I have the accent correct on the last two.  Perhaps they
> had to emphasize the first syllable to convince me that that was what
> they really meant!

More likely, for some reason pronominals are long with this stem.

> Also, what about the word for die/dead?  We have two separate words for
> this in our language, but they seem to handle the distinction by treating
> the same word as either active or stative, don't they?
>
>   at?e'         I die
>   oNt?e'        I am dead

I now recall you pointing this out before.  And I think this occurs in
Dakotan, too.  However, as far as I can recall Dorsey always has active
forms for this stem.  This would be more like the fluid-S pattern Bpb
Rankin mentioned.


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 19 17:22:36 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 11:22:36 -0600
Subject: Mixed stative.
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.112236.0600.>

These are certainly interesting.  It might be informative to return to them after several months had passed and see if the same distribution emerges, or, alternatively, if it emerges only in certain semantic contexts.

'Die' is, I think, more systematic in that several people mentioned to me at the Siouan Conference where I did the talk on statives across Siouan, that t?e/a could be either active "X is dying" or stative "X is dead".  There was an animated discussion going on until the Navajo wife of one of the participants remarked that she didn't like all the talk of death.  We all stopped in deference to her feeling.  Siouan traditional stories are full of death and dying, but apparently not so with the Navajos....  For another "fluid" verb you might try 'fall' vs. 'drop to the ground' (both referring to humans).  I seem to recall Miner telling me that it was variable in Ho Chunk/Winnebago.  Generally though, verbs in Siouan tend to be one or the other consistently.

Bob

>We seem to have elicited a couple more of these from our Omaha speakers.
In my class notes, I have:

  ashka'de      I play
  dhishkade     you play
  shka'de       s/he plays
  oNshka'de     we play

I also find:

  niu'woN       swim
  niu'awoN      I swim
  dhini'uwoN    you swim

In these two examples, the dhi- could be the emphatic/independent pronoun
rather than the affixed you-object pronoun.  That would seem especially
likely in the "swim" case.  But compare the word for "crawl", which seems
to be entirely stative(!):

  mide'         crawl
  oN'mide       I crawl
  dhi'mide      you crawl

I don't know if I have the accent correct on the last two.  Perhaps they
had to emphasize the first syllable to convince me that that was what
they really meant!

Also, what about the word for die/dead?  We have two separate words for
this in our language, but they seem to handle the distinction by treating
the same word as either active or stative, don't they?

  at?e'         I die
  oNt?e'        I am dead

(The above two are going off memory/supposition!)

Rory


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 17:30:41 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 10:30:41 -0700
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <001a01c2a775$915a4660$1677f0c7@Language>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.103041.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Justin McBride wrote:
> ... For instance, [Whorf] noted elsewhere that Hopi speakers describe
> all repetitive patterns--from the rolling hills on the horizon, the
> distribution of clouds in the sky, to the teeth of a serated
> knife--with certain punctual/segmentative affixes. From this he
> gathered that Hopis were natural born scientists.

My suspicion would be that they spoke a language with a
punctual/segmentative affix and that a high percentage of nouns were
nominalized clauses, even in cases where, say, English would use another
pattern.

It is certainly true that one of the big differences I notice between
different languages, e.g., English and Omaha-Ponca comes out of what is
grammaticalized and thus relatively more implicit.  Even within a language
speakers notice a difficulty when a particular category is missing for
some reason and a circumlocution is required.  I recall observing an
English speaker some years ago who was reaching for a noun meaning "the
act of declining an office" and came up with "declension," as in "please
send in your acceptances or declensions."  This is a clear example of a
paradigmatic hole in English.

Where this trips us up in analyzing another language is when we provide
some sort of word for word translation and then allow ourselves to be
influenced by the grammaticalized associations of the translation.  A
classic example is rendering or glossing an ergative clause as an English
(or other language) passive and then subscribing to the focus implications
of the passive gloss.  I think that thinking of something like OP Sneda=i
as 'he talls' has an analogous difficulty.  Rendered like that it seems
processual, though the process is implicit only in the English formation.
It might be a bit safer to loss it 'he is-tall', though nothing will
completely eliminate the difficulties implicit in the glossing crutch.

For what it's worth, the same problems occur going from English to Omaha.
I remember that speakers always translated 'she' as wa?u 'woman' and
faithfully represented independent pronominals with demonstratives so that
'he saw him' came out 'this one here saw that one there'.  This is one
reason why some authorities entirely reject the approach of offering
phrases for translation.  It's certainly a good reason for being cautious
with the technique.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 21:10:04 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:10:04 -0700
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
In-Reply-To: <OF5D31450F.A979A012-ON86256C92.001C79D2@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.141004.0700.>

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
>   ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
>     gini' koNbdhe'goN.
>   I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
>     sound asleep, which I love, will recover.
>
> To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
> each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
> verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
> to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
> and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
> Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
> toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
> could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
> It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
> attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
> statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
> whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.

As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
languages.  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
(noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
nominalization of inflected forms.  It is possible for a subordination
marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner and/or
a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.  It is possible to
raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.
There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Thu Dec 19 21:29:11 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:29:11 -0700
Subject: Information / nouns vs. verbs
In-Reply-To: <200212151810.NAA22263@iupui.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.142911.0700.>

On Sun, 15 Dec 2002, Linda Cumberland wrote:

> > How would one distinguish in Dakotan languages between 'he went back
> > to his mother's lodge' and 'he went back toward where his mother lives
> > (or lived)'?
>
> My first reaction is to observe that the apparent mis-match in number
> agreement would be evidence:  ???huNku??? (singular), thipi (plural):
>
>   huNku thipi ekta khi   'he went back toward his mother's lodge'
>
> If you analyze =pi as a nominalizer, there???s no mis-match.

OK, this makes sense.  It wouldn't work very well in Dhegiha, but it makes
sense in Dakotan.  I'm embarassed not to have seen it!

> On the other hand, we have an example from the same text where a
> character says, ???ina owiNchakiciyaga??? where the literal
> translations of ina ???mother??? and wiNcha ???them??? don???t agree -
> it???s untranslatable unless you read ???ina??? as meaning ???my
> mother???s people???: ???tell(-them) my mother???s people for me???
> (female speaking: Assiniboine lacks a female imperative enclitic).

This intepretation is consistent with the idea that =pi is really an
augment marker meaning "and others" and not a pluralizer - a mark
indicating that there are more than one of whatever it is.

> Maybe I???m oversimplifying, but the whole non-verb question, at least
> in Assiniboine and its close relatives, seems to me to be handled in
> the syntax - the position determines the grammatical class within the
> clause, and the position in the clause determines whether the lexical
> item may be inflected or not.

I agree with this.  Things can be morphologically verbal - verbal
inflection, certain derivational markers, etc. - or morphological nominal
- occasional possessive inflection, no or very limited derivational
patterns - and they can also be applied verbally or nominally, indendently
of their morphological class.  Morphological nouns that are applied
verbally (predicatively) may become morphological verbs - inflectable - or
may not, in which case they have only third persons.  Morphological verbs
that are applied nominally may become uninflectable, in which case they
may become possessible (sometimes not), or they may remain inflectable -
'that which I cut with by pushing' = 'my saw'.  Syntactic environments
allow us to see nominal applications of morphological verbs and vice
versa, but the applications can exist outside of syntactic environments,
e.g., "Q.  How do you say 'saw'?  A.  That which he cuts with."


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 19 21:35:15 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 21:35:15 +0000
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.213515.0000.>

>>I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
>>as puerile<<

I apologize for having raised such a ?puerile? topic for discussion.  I am
still in the ?adolescence? of my career in linguistics and enjoy talking
with more mature-minded experts in the field who will tolerate my
?immaturity? in order to increase my learning curve!  I do find such topics
fascinating, even though they may be considered ?worn out? and stale by most
linguists.  I enjoy exploring a whole territory before focusing on any
particular region.  I have learned a lot from this discussion and hope to
learn more about many other things as time goes on.

Dave




Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html





>From: Wallace Chafe <chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:54:13 -0800
>
>I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
>as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
>associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
>with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
>are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
>umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
>book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
>second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
>Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".
>
>I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
>organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
>differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
>structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
>language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
>speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
>languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
>ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
>one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
>surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
>death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
>(he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
>linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
>MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
>but the rest of us certainly should care.
>Wally


_________________________________________________________________
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From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de  Thu Dec 19 21:57:57 2002
From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 22:57:57 +0100
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
In-Reply-To: <F30wG8nlsjH1dsDb7xB0000786e@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.225757.0100.>

At 21:35 19.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>I do find such topics fascinating, even though they may be considered
>"worn out" and stale by most linguists.

Not necessarily. As also had been pointed out there's touchy subjects and
one learns to avoid them. On the other hand, it indeed is interesting that
many beginners and actually also laypersons find topics such as LRHs
fascinating and seemingly also something like "instinctively plausible".
Despite the fact e.g. also Whorf's analysis of some Nootka example is not
particularly helpful in understanding what the language really is like.
Which is a pity as it makes it difficult to actually correlate such "gut"
assessments to linguistic structures. Perhaps Schulze wasn't completely off
the mark when he once said linguistic relativity is like, imagine a
romantic scene, an English couple will softly whisper something like "I
love you", a French couple "Je t'aime"... now the Chechen example I can't
remember, but the sound of pharyngealized vowels made the whole class laugh.

All the best,

Heike


From rankin at ku.edu  Thu Dec 19 22:52:24 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 16:52:24 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.165224.0600.>

I don't think most of the discussions here are puerile except in the most technical sense (i.e., reflecting relative innocent inexperience -- Latin puer 'boy'), and Wally isn't the sort to generate put-downs.  I feel it's useful to jump into discussions and try both to educate and to get an education.  Every time I try to explain some concept on the list I have to think through various aspects of it and I usually learn something myself doing it.  That's what makes the Siouan list one of the best around, and useful to experienced and inexperienced alike.  But I take Wally's point that there IS responsible research out there on linguistic relativity.  Whether it proves specific premises or not is a question for each reader to determine.

I'd recommend reading Wally's contribution plus that of Bowerman (if it's Melissa Bowerman).  I'm acquainted with both and trust their scientific objectivity.  Unfortunately, I believe that there is also a lot of "touchy-feelie", errant, personally motivated, non-scholarship on the same topic, much more than there was a few decades ago -- scientism in the service of politics.  Here in the States, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to label it Marxist simply because I'm not convinced many of the offenders are bright enough to read Marx.  And since 1991 he's less and less relevant anyway.  It's especially useful, then, to have Wally's recommendations for further reading.  My own not-very-technical view was expressed in my posting yesterday.

For some reason I'm often unhappy with analogical argument, and I'm not entirely sure I agree with the argument comparing semantics and phonology.  I guess I still have a hard time accepting many of the conclusions of those who take linguistic relativity in its strong form seriously.  Most linguists probably wouldn't argue with a weaker statement though.  Grammatical and semantic categories must have SOME kind of effect.  But what kind?  And how much?  If you want to read some really far-out fiction on the subject, try John Holbrook ("Jack") Vance's _Languages of Pao_ in which a rigid class system is maintained by having each group or trade learn its own language -- a language designed to keep the thoughts of individuals in a straight jacket.  There is other such science fiction, but I can't think of any other titles at the moment.

I'm also a little leary of saying the MIT people are hung up on universals.  If by universals, we mean what they call "UG", [yu: ji:], then I'd agree that a number of prominent practitioners are both narrow and sloppy.  But lots of responsible linguists are engaged in the search for universals, and those who approach it from a combination of field experience and typological comparison in institutions like Max Planck and RCLT are making good progress, I believe.

Bob

> I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
> as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
> associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
> with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
> are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
> umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
> book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
> second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
> Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".
>
> I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
> organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
> differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
> structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
> language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
> speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
> languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
> ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
> one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
> surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
> death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
> (he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
> linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
> MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
> but the rest of us certainly should care.
> Wally
>
>


From dvklinguist at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 19 23:47:35 2002
From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 23:47:35 +0000
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.234735.0000.>

>>the remaining question ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole
>>influenced by the way one organizes them for speaking?<<

Perhaps this should REALLY have been the phrasing for my original question.
When I suggested to Heike that our thoughts must fit into a "template" for
mutual comprehension and communication, I was referring to grammar or syntax
as the template we must use.  And, yes, just how much does the grammatical
or syntactical organization of a particular language "force" one to think or
understand in a certain way?  There's no doubt thought exists without
language--I can picture a concept without necessarily having a word for it
or without even being able to express it very well--which I suppose would be
called the universal form of "mentalese" (a la Pinker or Hansen) all of
humanity seems to share, regardless of their mother tongue or languages they
speak.  I think it is correct that the grammars of some languages may
highlight or emphasize one thing over another not emphasized in another
language.  And I guess the question now would be: HOW MUCH does that
grammatical emphasis or lack thereof from one language to the next affect a
culture's or individual's thought patterns, if at all?

As for the time issue, I find that some languages (especially the IE
languages) are very tense-oriented while others (e.g., perhaps most Native
American and Polynesian languages) are more aspect-oriented.  (Not sure if
these are the correct linguistic terms.)  I would say from what little I
know so far of Native American and Polynesian languages (having studied some
Hawaiian), these languages focus more on whether something is finished or
not (complete vs. incomplete action) without being so hung up on stating the
exact time or period.  In English we must think of the tense-factor before
we utter a single sentence to put it in a correct tense form (past, present,
or future) which is something these native languages don't seem to be so
concerned with.  Yes, they can emphasize time if they want to, but that
doesn't appear to be a standard part of their sentence structure as it is in
English. And, (here we go again!) does that less tense-oriented and more
aspect-oriented perspective affect the culture and how important they
perceive time to be?  Perhaps "Indian-" or "Hawaiian-" time is simply an
influence from their language and culture in that as long as something gets
done they don't care exactly when, as long as it happens (!).  But,
regardless of our language, I think we ourselves as individuals can
determine how important time is to each of us, although OUR society
definitely places a great emphasis on punctuality!

Dave



Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html





>From: Wallace Chafe <chafe at linguistics.ucsb.edu>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:54:13 -0800
>
>I didn't want to get involved in this discussion, much of which struck me
>as puerile, but Bob's recent message touched a raw nerve. In my opinion,
>associating recent quite responsible research on this important question
>with post-modernism does it a serious disservice. A couple basic sources
>are Gumperz and Levinson, "Rethinking Linguistic Relativity", and Putz (u
>umlaut) and Verspoor, "Explorations in Linguistic Relativity". In the first
>book, the papers by Slobin and by Bowerman are especially cogent. In the
>second there's even a paper by me. I should also mention the survey by
>Penny Lee, "The Whorf Theory Complex".
>
>I see it like this. Nobody would dispute the observation that languages
>organize sounds differently. Why, then, shouldn't they organize thoughts
>differently as well? The way languages organize thoughts produces semantic
>structures, which I should think anyone who's worked with more than one
>language would agree are different. So as long as one is "thinking for
>speaking" (Slobin's term), one necessarily thinks differently in different
>languages. But not all thought is linguistic, and the remaining question
>ought to be, how much are one's thoughts as a whole influenced by the way
>one organizes them for speaking? Whorf didn't exactly put it that way, and
>surely he at times exaggerated the influence. But sixty years after his
>death we really ought to go beyond arguing about what Whorf really meant
>(he wasn't always consistent), and examining carefully the relation between
>linguistically determined semantic structures and thought in general. The
>MIT bunch doesn't care about such things, they're so hung up on universals,
>but the rest of us certainly should care.
>Wally


_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus


From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Fri Dec 20 00:41:23 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 18:41:23 -0600
Subject: The Whorf Hypothesis
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.184123.0600.>

> Perhaps Schulze wasn't completely off
> the mark when he once said linguistic relativity is like, imagine a
> romantic scene, an English couple will softly whisper something like "I
> love you", a French couple "Je t'aime"... now the Chechen example I can't
> remember, but the sound of pharyngealized vowels made the whole class
laugh.

Or how about OP "Xta'widhe"?  ;-)

We had a young Omaha student going into heart surgery
this semester, who gleefully memorized the phrase:

      Xta'widhe, noNde'skidhe-haaa'!
      (I love you, sweetheart!)

delivered with vampirically mortuary tone, just to
freak out her doctors when she woke up!

Rory


From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu  Fri Dec 20 02:38:11 2002
From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 20:38:11 -0600
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
Message-ID: <THU.19.DEC.2002.203811.0600.>

>On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
>>   ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
>>     gini' koNbdhe'goN.
>>   I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
>>     sound asleep, which I love, will recover.
>>
>> To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
>> each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
>> verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
>> to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
>> and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
>> Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
>> toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
>> could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
>> It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
>> attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
>> statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
>> whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 John Koontz wrote back:
> I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
> still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
> but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
> extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
> embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
> Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
> The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
> clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
> there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.

Thanks, John!  I was going to be disappointed if nobody jumped on me for
that posting!  Now please bear with me while I try to unravel what you
just said, given that I don't savvy most of your key words!

Definitions needed, preferably with examples:

  Head
    (I found a brief discussion of this concept in an article by Johanna
    Nichols, Language 62:1, to which I was referred by another linguist
    in a private email.  It seems the head is the indispensible part, as
    opposed to other parts that are dependent.  The central noun is the
    head of a noun phrase, with adjectives and possessive nouns dependent.
    A predicate is the head of the sentence, an auxilliary verb is head
    with respect to a lexical verb, an adposition is the head of an
    adpositional phrase, and a main clause is head over a subordinate
    clause.  These different "head" designations, as rankings of relative
    importance, do not seem comparable to me; presented like this, I'm
    not yet convinced of the validity of the concept.)

  Embedding/embedded clause

  Context/context clause

  Trace

  Focussed element

  Determiner
    (Would this be, e.g., the positional/article /khe/ in the example
    above?)


> As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
> I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
> languages.

You'd need to define exactly what your criterion is for "finite verb".
If there are no non-finite verbs in Siouan, then the distinction ceases
to be a factor within the language.  In fact, I think we're actually
saying the same thing here.  Your criterion (perhaps inflectability?)
makes them all finite, while mine (singular, demand-bearing, crux of
sentence) may make none of them finite.  Either way, the distinction
between finite and non-finite verbs is critical in Indo-European, but
meaningless in Siouan.


>  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
> (noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
> nominalization of inflected forms.

Could you illustrate this with an example or two?  I'm not sure I see
the connection.


>  It is possible for a subordination
> marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner
and/or
> a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.

For example?

>  It is possible to
> raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
> this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.

And three examples would be?  (Sorry, I'm still lost!)

> There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.

In OP, there are (functionally) four independent pronominals:

      e'          s/he, it, they
      wi'         I
      dhi'        you
      oNgu'       we

and these do not change according to whether they are subject or object.
Is this what you are referring to here?


Sorry if I'm a bit dense on the terminology, but I did lard the original
post with all due disclamatories!  ;-)

Rory


From munro at ucla.edu  Mon Dec 23 04:32:57 2002
From: munro at ucla.edu (Pamela Munro)
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 20:32:57 -0800
Subject: statives and inchoatives
Message-ID: <SUN.22.DEC.2002.203257.0800.>

I've been travelling and am sorry I'm just answering this. (It was originally
called "The Whorf Hypothesis", but I don't think I'm saying anything about that
here.)

I may have missed some earlier reference to Mojave (Mohave), a language I know
something about, which (like Siouan langauges, and many other languages all
around the world), expresses "adjectival" concepts with verbs.

In such languages, I think there are at least three different strategies for
handling stative concepts (e.g. "The man is tall") versus inchoative concepts
(e.g. "The man gets tall").

-- There may be a special auxiliary verb, comparable to English "gets". (This
is true in Chickasaw, for example; Chickasaw is a Muskogean language spoken in
Oklahoma, whose grammar is generally very similar to both Siouan and Yuman.)

-- There may be a special grammatical affix that changes the meaning of the
root verb. (This is true in Pima, a Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Arizona, and
in the Zapotec languages of Oaxaca, for example.) In some languages the
"stative" concept may be basic and the inchoative is derived (I believe this is
the best analysis of Pima), in others, it is the stative meaning that is
derived (I believe this is the best analysis of the Zapotec languages I'm
familiar with).

-- There may be no explicit marking of the difference, and context (the
surrounding discourse, associated adverbs, etc.) may help the speaker
differentiate these meanings. I've reviewed my notes on Mojave, as well as the
fairly closely related Yuman language Tolkapaya Yavapai, and I think that's the
best analysis of the data there.

Of course it is true that each language can differentiate these concepts. They
just do it differently.

Pam



David Kaufman wrote:

> >>>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
> >>>as a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be,
> >>>and which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical
> >>>investigations).  What comes closest to your proposal is the category of
> >>>resultative, i.e. a category denoing a state resultant from a process.
> >>>Again, stative and resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old
> >>>World, too.<<<
>
> I guess what I'm curious to know here is whether there would be an
> alternative in Hidatsa/Crow/Mojave and any other language that expresses
> "(The) man talls" construct to distinguish between the state of BEING tall
> and the process of GROWING TALLER.  Unfortunately all I have is the
> dictionary from 1886 by Matthew Washington in Hidatsa, and nothing from
> these other languages, and we haven't heard from our Hidatsa expert yet,
> John Boyle, who would probably know best from his research on Hidatsa.  If
> there are alternate methods depending on whether one is referring to a state
> or process, then that would correlate with IE languages (i.e., he is tall,
> he is getting taller).  If not, then I'm still left wondering why this
> attribute would be stated only in a verb form.  I realize one could say it's
> because they don't use adjectives, but why choose a verb form instead,
> unless an adjective has much in common with a verb (?).
>
> I agree that both of these polarized views are too extreme and the real
> answer lies somewhere in the middle in a big "grey" area.  I believe, as
> Pinker says, we can think without words and remember "gists" of
> conversations which are not the same as remembering a bunch of words, but I
> also believe that spoken or written language has to fit into a grammatical
> construct template in order for our thoughts to make sense to another
> speaker of the same language.  How much our grammatical construct template
> limits us in how we think or expresses nuances in different languages I'm
> not sure about.
>
> After several years of studying different languages (mostly European and now
> just beginning Native American) I too find it difficult to come up with
> adequate answers, and I only hope that as my multilingual and mutlicultural
> awareness increases I will be able to find more answers!
>
> Thanks for the input!
>
> Dave
>
> >From: "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu>
> >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> >To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> >Subject: Re: The Whorf Hypothesis
> >Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 15:54:40 -0600
> >
> >
> > >But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller)
> >as
> >a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
> >which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
> >What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
> >category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
> >resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too,
> >
> >Indeed.  It seems to be the case that every language capable, using one
> >mechanism or another, to convey all the nuances of other languages.
> >
> > >This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
> > >to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
> > >process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
> >
> > >It is a romantic though understandable view, . . .
> >
> >To me, that sums it up nicely.  When I was a student in the early '60's the
> >Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis was mentioned, but understood to be
> >unprovable.  It was essentially dropped from the linguistics curriculum
> >(but not always from Anthropology).  Now, thanks to Post Modernism and the
> >like, it has returned.  But there are still no tests that would enable one
> >to prove the theory.  So, the very same theory can be totally "out" one
> >year but be totally "in" another year, with no evidence adduced for either
> >view really.  This fact doesn't tell us a lot about the nature of language,
> >but it says a great deal about the state of American social science.
> >
> >Taking one view allows the "scholar" to emphasize the similarities among
> >all speakers of natural languages and denigrate his "touchy-feely"
> >colleagues.  Taking the other view allows people to give in to romantic
> >prejudices and popular stereotypes and feel all warm and fuzzy about
> >essentially Rousseauesque views of natural man.  Obviously there are those
> >who gravitate to one or the other of these extremes.  I have never felt
> >comfortable with either one.
> >
> >I have had bilingual students, especially one American girl who had been
> >raised in Japan and was about as close to bilingualism as you can get, who
> >insisted that she reacted to stimuli quite differently depending on the
> >language milieu she was interacting in.  But, of course, these were
> >subjective statements, and she couldn't really describe exactly what it was
> >that was different.  I took her feelings and statements seriously, but
> >couldn't verify them.
> >
> >I've been a linguist for 35 or 40 years and still don't have answers to
> >these connundrums.  But I think that, as scientists, we have to ask one or
> >two questions.
> >
> >1)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be falsified?  If the answer
> >is "no", then it is useless as a scientific theory.
> >
> >2)  Can the linguistic relativity hypothesis be proved?  If not, then it's
> >still a useless theory.  If experiments are possible, then they should be
> >designed and performed, preferably by someone with a neutral outlook.
> >
> >Otherwise we're being self-indulgent to maintain either of the polar views.
> >
> >By the way, I once gave a seminar on the work of Edward Sapir and didn't
> >find that he really supported linguistic relativity strongly.  So I tend to
> >leave his name out of it and attribute it to Benjamin Lee Whorf.
> >
> >Bob
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
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--
Pamela Munro
Professor, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543 USA
http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/linguistics/people/munro/munro.htm


From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com  Wed Dec 25 01:16:44 2002
From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant)
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 01:16:44 -0000
Subject: season's greetings
Message-ID: <WED.25.DEC.2002.011644.0000.ANTHONY.GRANT3@BTINTERNET.COM>

Dear All:

Season's Greetings for Christmas and the New Year from an English Americanist.

Best wishes

Anthony Grant
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From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Sat Dec 28 21:50:22 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 14:50:22 -0700
Subject: Native American verbs vs. nouns
In-Reply-To: <OFEDAA9A32.1FE54CBA-ON86256C95.00061B0C@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.28.DEC.2002.145022.0700.>

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 John Koontz wrote back:
> > I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
> > still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
> > but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
> > extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
> > embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
> > Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
> > The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
> > clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
> > there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.
>
> Thanks, John!  I was going to be disappointed if nobody jumped on me for
> that posting!

I didn't want you to feel that no one was paying attention, though it's a
time of the year when people really aren't paying much attention, I'm
afraid.  Social activities tend to overwhelm everything else.  Not to
mention the end of the Semester.

> Definitions needed, preferably with examples:
>
>   Head ...

Also, the noun described by a relative clause is the head of the relative
clause, which is what I was referring to here.  The concept of head is a
central element of current syntactic theory though not exactly an
innovation within it.  What is, I think characteristic of modern
approaches is an insistence that a head be endocentric, i.e., a variety of
the thing of which it is a head.  This impacts the assessment of what
might be the head of a construction, and of what the boundaries of the
construct might be.

>   Embedding/embedded clause
>   Context/context clause
>   trace

A subordinate clause is embedded in a sentence, which is, of course, a
clause itself - the main clause.  A subordinate clause typically functions
like certain simpler elements of a sentence, e.g., an adverbial clause
acts like an adverb, an adjectival (or relative) clauses acts like an
adjective, a noun clause (or complement clause) as a noun, and so on.
The idea (and this is not new) is that these clauses are embedded within
the higher level or context clause provided by either the sentence or some
other embedded clause.  A typical notation is to put square brackets,
perhaps labelled in some way around the clause.

[[[[[[[[ShoN'ge ska] u'joN] abthiN'] wakHe'ga] zhoN't?e] kHe xta'athe] kHe
gini'] koNbthe'goN]

[I hope [[[[[the [beautiful [white horse]] that I have] which is sick] and
lying sound asleep], which I love], will recover]]

A more parallel construction in English would be:

[I hope that [[[[[[[the horse which is white] which is beautiful] that I
have] which is sick] which is asleep] which I love] will recover]]

I've simplfied here somewhat, but this shows what I mean about OP putting
the most deeply embedded stuff first and then just appending more to it as
it's pushed deeper.  By contrast, the situation in English tends to push
things deeper into the middle.  In more detail:

Things are roughly parallel, but inverted in order with complement clases:

[[shoN'ge gini'] koNbthe'goN]

[I hope [the horse will recover]]

With relative clauses you get the extraction of the head in English and
the English adjectival construction offers a modified noun phrase
alternative without real parallel in OP.

[[shoN'ge ska] kHe xta'athe]     [I love the [white horse]]

[[shoN'ge abthiN'] wakHe'ga]     [(the) [horse that I have] is sick]

You could look at the English in this latter case as:

[(the) [horse [that I have]] is sick]

In the relative clause 'horse' is extracted out of the embedded clause 'I
have (the) horse' and raised into the main clause, leaving the relative
pronoun 'that' behind as its trace in the relative clause proper [that I
have].  And this trace has to be at the beginning (awkwardly sometimes
called the head!) of the embedded clause, rather than after the verb as in
'I have (the) horse'.

In essence, OP substitutes noun clauses for relative clauses.

>   Focussed element

The thing that a sentence (or clause) is about, to which attention is
directed, e.g., in this case the horse.  The focus of a relative clause is
its head.

>   Determiner
>     (Would this be, e.g., the positional/article /khe/ in the example
>     above?)

Yes.  Articles and demonstratives are called determiners.  I've been
simplifying things by not marking determined nouns which their own set of
brackets, but, normally it would be:

I love [the [sick horse]]

[[[shoN'ge wakHe'ga] khe] xtaathe]

> > As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
> > I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
> > languages.
>
> You'd need to define exactly what your criterion is for "finite verb".

Any verb which is inflected for person is finite.  As far as I know, this
is not a practice unique to me.  I would consider an OP third person verb
to be inflected, albeit there is no prefix (or suffix)  to indicate it.
This is one of the crosses that students of languages with "zero" pronouns
(or unmarked personal categories) have to bear.  But in particular, there
is nothing in Omaha-Ponca that I have noticed that seems analogous to a
participle or gerund or infinitive or verbal noun.  I could be wrong,
because I don't feel that I control all of the complementizing verb
structures (I hope that, I think that,  ..., etc.).

I have to be a little careful in saying 'nothing analogous' because I mean
to exclude analogies that rely on what I take to be finite subordinate
clauses, e.g.,

wathatHa=i egoN, noNzhiN=i

which could be translated 'having eaten, he stood up', but is clearly
(to me) structured more analogously to 'when he had eaten, he stood up'.
(I made this example up, and it may fail in some respect, though I think t
is essentially correct.)

I would argue this because, in the first person I believe it would be

wabthatHe egoN, anoNzhiN


with both verbs inflected.  There are, of course, languages in which
things called participles can be inflected or at least possessed, but in
those cases there is something about the language that distinguishes the
sort of forms called participles (or subordinate mood verbs) from main
verbs and there is nothing like that here (apart from the conjunction
egoN).  The inflection follows the main verb pattern, and there is no
additional affix to indicate that the verb is participial or subordinate,
apart from that egoN.

I could repeat this sort of example for forms tantamount to 'I want the
horse to get well', which I would argue were structured like 'I observed
that the horse got well', but I think this might suffice to show where I'm
coming from.

> If there are no non-finite verbs in Siouan, then the distinction ceases
> to be a factor within the language.

Not really.  It might become harder to observe within the context of the
language alone, but the lack, or rather absence, of non-finite forms
imposes and/or reflects a particular structural pattern in the language,
nevertheless.  Finite forms work one way (I observed thathe got well);
non-finite ones work another (I want him to get better).

English offers a variety of subordinating structures, using finite
clauses, participles, infinitives, etc.  The Siouan languages I know all
use finite clauses only.  There are languages which use participles and
infinitives only, e.g., most Eskimo languages.

> >  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
> > (noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
> > nominalization of inflected forms.
>
> Could you illustrate this with an example or two?  I'm not sure I see
> the connection.

I mean that there are no affixes that convert verbs to nouns (infinitives
or other verbal or deverbative nouns) or adjectives (participles).  You
just use the verb (unmodified) as a noun, or you just form a relative
(essentially a noun clause) to produce the modification.

There are no analogs of -tion, -ness, -ity, or even 'to ...'.  There are
no analogs of -ish, -ly, -ing, etc.

So, to say something like 'a working solution' you have to provide a
structure like 'it works that it solves it'.

If you need a new noun in OP you provide a predicate form:  either a verb,
or a noun plus a verb, etc.  The verb can be as elaborately derived as
necessary.  The only non-verbal modifiers are other nouns, in
constructions like poNka wa?u.

> > It is possible for a subordination
> > marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner
> > and/or a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.
>
> For example?

If all relative clauses were marked by e or ga or some article, like

shoNge wakHega e                (not actually required)
the horse which was sick

But you do need e (or some other determiner) with most nouns if you add a
postposition.  A very limited set of nouns will take a postposition like
=di directly, e.g., ttiadi, and the morphology may be peculiar, as it is
in this case:  tti + di => ttiadi.

niugashupa editHoN 'from the pond'
oNnoNzhiN editHoN 'from where we stood'

Examples of subordinators derived from postpositions don't occur in OP.

Examples of subordinators derived from verbs - well, egoN 'be so' is
rampant.

> > It is possible to
> > raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
> > this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.
>
> And three examples would be?  (Sorry, I'm still lost!)

noNghi'de oNska' I hear well (ear I-clear)

thewithe 'I sent you' (go-I:you-cause)

moN gia'gha=i'He made him an arrow'
moN dhia'gha=i 'He made you an arrow'

> > There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.
>
> In OP, there are (functionally) four independent pronominals:
>
>       e'          s/he, it, they
>       wi'         I
>       dhi'        you
>       oNgu'       we
>
> and these do not change according to whether they are subject or object.
> Is this what you are referring to here?

Yes.  Also, there are no locative forms.


From jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu  Mon Dec 30 22:04:19 2002
From: jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu (John Boyle)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:04:19 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.160419.0600.>

Hi All,

I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
could all get together for dinner while we're there.

See many of you soon,

John Boyle


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Mon Dec 30 22:17:35 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:17:35 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <a04320400ba3671c3265d@[68.72.160.42]>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.161735.0600.>

I'm arriving at 4:05 pm on the 1st, from Houston. Staying at the Atlanta
Hilton.  Anybody coming in that evening and wanting to get together a group
for dinner around 7pm?
Carolyn Quintero

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of John Boyle
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Conference programs


Hi All,

I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
could all get together for dinner while we're there.

See many of you soon,

John Boyle


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Mon Dec 30 22:26:37 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:26:37 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <OFAFE56D6A.05BCAA4C-ON86256C95.0002C667@unl.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.162637.0600.>

FYI conference attendees:

The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around $26.00,
takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called The
Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
There is no hotel shuttle.
Carolyn


From rankin at ku.edu  Mon Dec 30 23:11:59 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:11:59 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.171159.0600.>

I know I have some of those around.  If I don't find them in time for LSA, please remind me afterward.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: John Boyle <jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
Subject: Conference programs


> Hi All,
>
> I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
> programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
> need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
> could all get together for dinner while we're there.
>
> See many of you soon,
>
> John Boyle
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Mon Dec 30 23:13:16 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:13:16 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.171316.0600.>

I'll be splitting a room with JEK; feel free to buzz us.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Quintero <cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:17 PM
Subject: RE: Conference programs


> I'm arriving at 4:05 pm on the 1st, from Houston. Staying at the Atlanta
> Hilton.  Anybody coming in that evening and wanting to get together a group
> for dinner around 7pm?
> Carolyn Quintero
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of John Boyle
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: Conference programs
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
> programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
> need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
> could all get together for dinner while we're there.
>
> See many of you soon,
>
> John Boyle
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Mon Dec 30 23:14:38 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:14:38 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.171438.0600.>

Public transport (metro train) comes right to the airport for those who take the time to figger it out.  Much less cost.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Carolyn Quintero <cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:26 PM
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


> FYI conference attendees:
>
> The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around $26.00,
> takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called The
> Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
> There is no hotel shuttle.
> Carolyn
>


From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU  Mon Dec 30 23:33:39 2002
From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:33:39 -0700
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <002201c2b051$41902340$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.163339.0700.>

Three of us, at least, from Boulder will be arriving around 5:00 at the
airport.  Dinner around 7:00 sounds good to me.  Armik (Mirzayan) and
Hartwell (Francis) will be rooming together, and I'm sharing with Willem
deReuse.  We'll try to make contact with you once we get there.

David

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:

> I'm arriving at 4:05 pm on the 1st, from Houston. Staying at the Atlanta
> Hilton.  Anybody coming in that evening and wanting to get together a group
> for dinner around 7pm?
> Carolyn Quintero
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of John Boyle
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 4:04 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: Conference programs
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I was just wondering if people going to the LSA could look for old
> programs for the Siouan and Caddoan conferences.  We specifically
> need 1, 3 - 9, 11, 15, and 20. I also thought it would be nice if we
> could all get together for dinner while we're there.
>
> See many of you soon,
>
> John Boyle
>


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 00:02:11 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 19:02:11 -0500
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212301631540.12386-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.190211.0500.>

Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at 7:00
(maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet you
there.

Linda
-------------------


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 00:53:50 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 18:53:50 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <200212310002.TAA02849@indiana.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.30.DEC.2002.185350.0600.>

Ok, LInda, let's gather at 7 near the check-in counter and depart at 7:15.
I'll be there!
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Linda Cumberland
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Conference programs


Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at 7:00
(maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet you
there.

Linda
-------------------


From John.Koontz at colorado.edu  Tue Dec 31 08:33:56 2002
From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 01:33:56 -0700
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <002301c2b052$847ebb20$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.013356.0700.>

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:
> The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around $26.00,
> takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called The
> Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
> There is no hotel shuttle.

I seem to recall a train, but it's been a while, and I'm not sure it was
Atlanta ... or the Hilton, for that matter.


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 14:43:15 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:43:15 -0500
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.40.0212310132420.1786-100000@spot.colorado.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.094315.0500.>

I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
hassle-free.

Linda
-------------------
> On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:
> > The fellow at the Hilton says taxi from the airport costs around
$26.00,
> > takes about 25 minutes.  Also there is a shuttle service, called
The
> > Alternate Shuttle (he thinks), for $22.00 round trip.
> > There is no hotel shuttle.
>
> I seem to recall a train, but it's been a while, and I'm not sure it
was
> Atlanta ... or the Hilton, for that matter.
>
>
>
>
>


From CaRudin1 at wsc.edu  Tue Dec 31 15:02:59 2002
From: CaRudin1 at wsc.edu (Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:02:59 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.090259.0600.>

Thanks!  It's great to have local logistics info.   Like an idiot I'm
coming in at the last minute -- Thursday morning instead of Wednesday
afternoon -- for reasons I can't now recall, it seemed sensible at the time
when I was making reservations.  So I 'll miss the dinner.  Oh well!   You
guys enjoy it.  See you all Thursday.
Catherine


I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
hassle-free.

Linda


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 15:27:17 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:27:17 -0500
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <OF18385808.28E91000-ON86256CA0.0052283B@wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.102717.0500.>

Here's the website for MARTA - it has the rail map.  I think you need
to get off at either Five Points or Peachtree Center, but you can
probably check that against the hotel website, which ought to say
which MARTA stop it's closest to.

http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/getthere.htm

Linda


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 15:59:25 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 09:59:25 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.095925.0600.>

That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.

B.


----- Original Message -----
From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
Subject: RE: Conference programs


> Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
> Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at 7:00
> (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet you
> there.
>
> Linda
> -------------------
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 16:11:43 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:11:43 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.101143.0600.>

OK, now I'm confused.  Maybe I didn't read the dates properly.  Are people getting together for dinner on Wed. the 1st or Thurs the 2nd?  I'm coming in on Thursday and I think John is too (otherwise he doesn't have a room for Wed. night and is just finding it out).  We'd better clear this up or there'll be a lot of lost souls wandering around LSA on one evening or the other.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC <CaRudin1 at wsc.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


>
> Thanks!  It's great to have local logistics info.   Like an idiot I'm
> coming in at the last minute -- Thursday morning instead of Wednesday
> afternoon -- for reasons I can't now recall, it seemed sensible at the time
> when I was making reservations.  So I 'll miss the dinner.  Oh well!   You
> guys enjoy it.  See you all Thursday.
> Catherine
>
>
> I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
> right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
> from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
> and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
> is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
> convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
> be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
> to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
> You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
> someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
> MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
> hassle-free.
>
> Linda
>
>
>


From lcumberl at indiana.edu  Tue Dec 31 16:16:20 2002
From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:16:20 -0500
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <001101c2b0e5$985fa6c0$d1b5ed81@computer>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.111620.0500.>

Of course it is.  Sorry. And thanks. L.
-------------------
> That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.
>
> B.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
> Subject: RE: Conference programs
>
>
> > Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
> > Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at
7:00
> > (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet
you
> > there.
> >
> > Linda
> > -------------------
> >
>
>
>


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 16:27:06 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:27:06 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
In-Reply-To: <OF18385808.28E91000-ON86256CA0.0052283B@wsc.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.102706.0600.>

It's nice to have this train info.  The fellow at the Hilton knew only
taxis, had to go ask someone about shuttles at my insistence and I got a
vague answer, and he never mentioned trains!
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Catherine
Rudin/HU/AC/WSC
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:03 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi



Thanks!  It's great to have local logistics info.   Like an idiot I'm
coming in at the last minute -- Thursday morning instead of Wednesday
afternoon -- for reasons I can't now recall, it seemed sensible at the time
when I was making reservations.  So I 'll miss the dinner.  Oh well!   You
guys enjoy it.  See you all Thursday.
Catherine


I'm from Atlanta and I can confirm that the MARTA train has a station
right in the airport. If I recall correctly, there is a stop one block
from the Hilton. There are maps posted outside and inside the train,
and a person in the toll booth you can ask. I don't know what the fare
is now, but when I left (in 1997) it was $1.25.  It is incredibly
convenient, fast and comfortable.  Getting on at the airport, you'll
be the first on and assured of a seat, and there are areas in each car
to put your luggage, so you don't have it knocking around your feet.
You can take a seat next to or across from it if you're worried about
someone grabbing it and hopping off with it.  When I lived in Atlanta
MARTA was the only way I ever went to the airport - pretty much
hassle-free.

Linda


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 16:31:52 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 10:31:52 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <200212311616.LAA19004@indiana.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.103152.0600.>

I was talking about dinner on the 1st, since many seem to be arriving on the
1st.
Carolyn
??

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Linda Cumberland
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 10:16 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Conference programs


Of course it is.  Sorry. And thanks. L.
-------------------
> That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.
>
> B.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
> Subject: RE: Conference programs
>
>
> > Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
> > Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at
7:00
> > (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet
you
> > there.
> >
> > Linda
> > -------------------
> >
>
>
>


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 17:50:52 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:50:52 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.115052.0600.>

It's coming back to me now.  As I recall, Peachtree Center is sorta-kinda across the street from the Hilton Towers (and maybe south a little?), so that's probably the exit you want.  I *think* you walk east from the MARTA stop, but you'd better check a map.  I'm sure we can find a map of downtown ATL on the web somewhere.

Also, Peachtree Center has a number of places you can get a decent breakfast (as opposed to the $20 breakfasts in the hotel).

I think Linda should pick a restaurant for us, as she's the native.  I lived in Atlanta from 1956-60 when I was in college, but it's totally different now.

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Cc: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


> Here's the website for MARTA - it has the rail map.  I think you need
> to get off at either Five Points or Peachtree Center, but you can
> probably check that against the hotel website, which ought to say
> which MARTA stop it's closest to.
>
> http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/getthere.htm
>
> Linda
>


From jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu  Tue Dec 31 17:46:10 2002
From: jpboyle at midway.uchicago.edu (John Boyle)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:46:10 -0600
Subject: Conference programs
In-Reply-To: <000301c2b0ea$1ffe71c0$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.114610.0600.>

I'll be arriving Wednesday, but I've already made dinner plans with
my mother (who is coming down from Augusta).  If people are still up
maybe we could meet up after dinner for a drink?  Also, since a
number of people are arriving Thursday morning maybe we could also
get together then as well?  I'm sure we'll all see each other since
we'll probably be going to many of the same talks so it shouldn't be
too hard to organize.  See you all soon.

John Boyle





>I was talking about dinner on the 1st, since many seem to be arriving on the
>1st.
>Carolyn
>??
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Linda Cumberland
>Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 10:16 AM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Conference programs
>
>
>Of course it is.  Sorry. And thanks. L.
>-------------------
>>  That's the evening of the 2nd, I believe.
>>
>>  B.
>>
>>
>>  ----- Original Message -----
>>  From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
>>  To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
>>  Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 6:02 PM
>>  Subject: RE: Conference programs
>>
>>
>>  > Dinner on the 1st sounds good. I'll be staying with friends in
>>  > Atlanta, but if you let me know where you will be gathering at
>7:00
>>  > (maybe near the hotel check-in counter?) I'll drive in and meet
>you
>  > > there.
>  > >
>  > > Linda
>  > > -------------------
>  > >
>  >
>  >
>  >


From rankin at ku.edu  Tue Dec 31 18:24:43 2002
From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 12:24:43 -0600
Subject: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.122443.0600.>

OK, this is the sub-map you want (below).  It covers the main downtown area including 5Points and Peachtree Center.  You can click on "zoom" after the map loads until you get good legibility.  Peachtree Center is in big red letters so you can't miss it.  Courtland St. runs N-S basically right thru/under the center.

And it *is* the Peachtree Center stop where you want to get off the train.  The hotel is right close by -- just ask one of the merchants in the Center (it's a big shopping center all indoors) or a cop for directions.

Thanks to Linda this should save everybody flying in a bunch of money.

http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/gridpages/sysmap_806.htm


----- Original Message -----
From: R. Rankin <rankin at KU.EDU>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 11:50 AM
Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi


> It's coming back to me now.  As I recall, Peachtree Center is sorta-kinda across the street from the Hilton Towers (and maybe south a little?), so that's probably the exit you want.  I *think* you walk east from the MARTA stop, but you'd better check a map.  I'm sure we can find a map of downtown ATL on the web somewhere.
>
> Also, Peachtree Center has a number of places you can get a decent breakfast (as opposed to the $20 breakfasts in the hotel).
>
> I think Linda should pick a restaurant for us, as she's the native.  I lived in Atlanta from 1956-60 when I was in college, but it's totally different now.
>
> Bob
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Linda Cumberland <lcumberl at indiana.edu>
> To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Cc: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:27 AM
> Subject: Re: Hilton Atlanta shuttle/taxi
>
>
> > Here's the website for MARTA - it has the rail map.  I think you need
> > to get off at either Five Points or Peachtree Center, but you can
> > probably check that against the hotel website, which ought to say
> > which MARTA stop it's closest to.
> >
> > http://www.itsmarta.com/lo/getthere/getthere.htm
> >
> > Linda
> >
>


From rwd0002 at unt.edu  Tue Dec 31 19:35:08 2002
From: rwd0002 at unt.edu (rwd0002 at unt.edu)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 13:35:08 -0600
Subject: Dinner on the first
In-Reply-To: <002201c2b051$41902340$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.133508.0600.>

Dear all:
I am arriving on the first in the afternoon; and would like to join Siouanists,
for dinner around 7 p.m. I am rooming with David Rood.

Willem de Reuse


From cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net  Tue Dec 31 19:55:41 2002
From: cqcqcq1 at earthlink.net (Carolyn Quintero)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 13:55:41 -0600
Subject: Dinner on the first
In-Reply-To: <1041363308.3e11f16c9c463@eaglemail.unt.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.135541.0600.>

Let's all meet on the first at 7 pm near the checkin counter at the Hilton.
Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of rwd0002 at unt.edu
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 1:35 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu; Carolyn Quintero
Subject: RE: Dinner on the first


Dear all:
I am arriving on the first in the afternoon; and would like to join
Siouanists,
for dinner around 7 p.m. I am rooming with David Rood.

Willem de Reuse


From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU  Tue Dec 31 22:01:36 2002
From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S)
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 15:01:36 -0700
Subject: new baggage rules at airports
In-Reply-To: <000001c2b106$98d03fe0$0e15460a@direcway.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.31.DEC.2002.150136.0700.>

Yes, the first is what I had in mind -- see you in the lobby about 7 if
all goes smoothly between Denver at that lobby.

Everyone should also be aware that there are new baggage inspection rules
going into effect tomorrow (the first).  All checked baggage has to be
inspected either by xray or by hand, and most airports don't have the xray
machines yet.  Don't put anything into checked luggage that might get hurt
by an xray however (they mention film specifically -- I don't know about
diskettes or cds, etc.), and DO NOT LOCK YOUR SUITCASE unless you want to
have the locks cut off by the inspectors.  I'm waiting to see how much
stuff gets stolen in this process.  Grrrrr.

David



David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Carolyn Quintero wrote:

> Let's all meet on the first at 7 pm near the checkin counter at the Hilton.
> Carolyn
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of rwd0002 at unt.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 1:35 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu; Carolyn Quintero
> Subject: RE: Dinner on the first
>
>
> Dear all:
> I am arriving on the first in the afternoon; and would like to join
> Siouanists,
> for dinner around 7 p.m. I am rooming with David Rood.
>
> Willem de Reuse
>