Winnebago -ga in Kinterms

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Sun Mar 3 07:48:01 UTC 2002


On Sat, 2 Mar 2002, Koontz John E wrote:
> Lipkind's discussion of possession with kinterms (p. 31) says that all
> kinterms with the prefix hi (fossilizd Px3 *i-) have first person
> posssesives in following hara, and the few terms without it take ga for
> the first person.  ...

I've also noticed in Lipkind, p. 50, "When referring to individuals by
kinship term or to animal characters in tales, this suffix (-ga) is added
as a mark of respect.  It is never used in address."

(Oops, it looks like this has been noticed in print before!)

Ex. j^aj^i'=ga 'father', ku'nuN=ga 'proper name for eldest son' (cf. OP
(iN)gdhaN), maNcos^u'c^ka 'Red-Grizzley-Bear' (a surname), kec^aN'gega
'turtle' (tale character).

The last of these, 'big turtle' (= snapping turtle?) seems to be another
case of -e- appearing before -ga, since this is keecaNk' in Miner.

I've also looked at kinship terms further in Lesser, and it appears that
it might be more accurate to say that when -ga is used with first persons
hi- is omitted, not the same as it being used when the term lacks hi-.
Specifically, all first persons are given with -(h)ara, including
hiuni=hara 'my mother' and hic^uNwiN=hara 'my father's sister'.  However,
the stem na(N)ni(N) 'mother' is listed as the vocative, and na(N)ni(N)=ga
is given as an alternaive to hiuni=raga for 'your mother'.  C^uNwiN=ga is
given as an alternative to hic^uNwiN=hara 'my mother'.  Also, dodo=ka is
given as the vocative of hic^ido=ra 'her elder brother'.  It's not clear
if we're dealing with regional and personal variation, regularization of
an originally more irregular system, or a system somewhat more complex
than the reporters realized, which is (or was?) perhaps being frozen in a
somewhat irregular or variable form.

JEK



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