Mixed stative and Whorf.

rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu
Thu Dec 19 16:04:03 UTC 2002


>> 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



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