Omaha-Ponca 'to say' (RE: Dhegiha prehistory, cont.)

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> A couple of points responding to John.  First, it is my under-
> standing from Kathy Shea, that Ponca (as opposed to Omaha)
> preserves the /ph/ 1st person forms in verbs like e-he 'say',
> i.e., Ponca has /ephe/ like Kaw-Osage, but unlike Quapaw. If
> that is the case, the isogloss is not diagnostic for subgrouping.

I've been meaning to comment in regard to this that my recollection is
that the ph first person is found in Ponca only with eg(i)=..e 'to say
to', not e=..e 'to say', e.g., egiphe 'I said to him', but ehe 'I said'.
This is actually true of Omaha, too, as far as I know, i.e., it is
generally true in the OP texts collected by Dorsey.  The evidence of Osage
ephe (eps^e), etc., confirms that reduction of ph to h in OP is secondary
in e'=..e.

Confusingly, there is an adverb e'gihe 'headlong, onward without
hesitation'.