Information / nouns vs. verbs

Linda Cumberland lcumberl at indiana.edu
Fri Dec 13 18:20:43 UTC 2002


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
>
>
>



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