Dakota ni(N)c^a

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Fri Oct 4 06:58:06 UTC 2002


I had proposed earlier to look at 'lack' verbs in other Mississippi Valley
languages:

Dakota (wa)niN'c^a

Ingham gives 'hace, not; lack, have missing' wanic^a vn (neuter verb,
i.e., stative), first person wama'nica or mawa'nica. ex. isto saNni wanica
'he had one arm missing'; ...; nuNge mawanice 'I have no ears, am
disobedient, obstinate'

I'm not aware that he lists a form without wa- and under 'lack, miss, be
short of' he gives naokpani va and yuchaN vn.

Buechel lists ni'ca 'be destitute of, have none of', first person manica.
He lists wanica 'none', but gives manica as the first person.

IO n(~)iNn(~)e ~ n(~)iN<ng>e 'there is/are no, none, nothing, be without'
The sequence *VNke comes out VNn~e in Ioway (?) and VN<ng>r in Otoe (?).
The <ng> is eng, and n is regularly n~ (enye) before i or e or iN.

Wi his^jara' niNiNk 'to be blind'  Lit. 'to lack eyes'.  The inflection is
his^jara hiNniNk 'I ...', with the first person patient hiN-.

Also, nuNuNg^niN'k, nuNuNg^ra'niNk 'be deaf', lit. 'to lack earholes', cf.
Dakota 'disobedient'.  First person nuNuNriniNk with i(N) first person
patient after a vowel:  -ra + iN => i(N), (N) unnoticed before n.

I believe these idioms may be the only attestations of the form in
Winnebago.

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



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