From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Apr 2 20:11:47 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:11:47 -0600 Subject: AIHEC Report Message-ID: Hi gang: I am back from the American Indian Higher Education Cosortium meeting in Fargo, ND attended by 35 Indian Colleges. I visited with a number of Lakota speakers who say susweca is the Lakota form for dragonfly. They never heard of Ps'ko, but thought it was a bird. Dr. Elton Lawrance gave a talk on the 1862-66 prison letters written in Dakota that are in the Minnesota Historical Society. Some of the letters were written by his great grandfather. He said it took him all of one evening to translate one sentence as the terms they use are not known today. He has the Sisseton-Wahpeton Community College at work on the project with the Rev. Clifford Canku and Rev. Michael Simon (Presbyterians) as well as others assisting him. I saw a video made at Ft. Berthold showing various individuals giving the sign language sign for a word or command, and then pronouncing the term in Hidatsa. English sub-titles were used. It ran for about 15 or 20 minutes. Toksta ake, Louis Garcia From rankin at ku.edu Wed Apr 2 20:51:55 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:51:55 -0600 Subject: AIHEC Report Message-ID: > I saw a video made at Ft. Berthold showing various individuals giving the sign language sign for a word or command, and then pronouncing the term in Hidatsa. English sub-titles were used. It ran for about 15 or 20 minutes. Thanks for the report; it sounds like a good meeting. I think the work at Ft. Berthold is especially interesting. There are not nearly enough linguists and Native People documenting the Plains Sign Language. Among professional linguists, I only know of Brenda Farnell, whose work with Assiniboine is very good. Future generations will want to know not only what the signs for various concepts were but also how they were strung together in sentences. This latter is important because the order of spoken words is often very differetn in Lakota/Dakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, Hidatsa and other groups that used the sign language. So did they all put the signs in the same order when they used them, or did they use the order of the words in their spoken languages? These questions and others are important, and I'm glad that some of the people who can still sign fluently are working on the problem(s). Bob Rankin Univ. of Kansas From ahartley at d.umn.edu Wed Apr 2 21:56:00 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 15:56:00 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." Thanks, Alan From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Apr 2 22:19:03 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 16:19:03 -0600 Subject: Sign Language Message-ID: Bob: I have a video tape given to me by Ken Woody (Custer Battlefield employee). It shows Col. Dodge doing signs as well as Indians telling stories with signs. This as well as other old films deposited in various archives are a rich source of information. I think there is one of Tom Mix showing signs too. Contact Ken, through the National Park Service. Later, LouieG From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Thu Apr 3 13:52:40 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 07:52:40 -0600 Subject: Sign Language Message-ID: Hau Friends: I made a mistate yesterday. It was Tim McCoy who made the film short on the sign language. I remember as a kid paying 15 cents to see the movies on Saturday. You saw the newsreel and Tim McCoy too. Later, LouieG From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Apr 3 16:39:27 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:39:27 -0700 Subject: Correction on sun/moon 'RE: Colors in Dakota' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > ... Though in principle *R and *W appear as n and m only and *r and *w > appears as n/m or dh/w depending the nasality of the next vowel, there > are some exceptions, in the sense that some *R + V sequences appear in > Dhegiha or sometimes just Omaha-Ponca as nVN. The 'sun/moon' word is > one of the former. Oops, the root shape here is not *RV, but *WV, cf. Dakotan wi-, IO bi (I think?), appearing in OP as mi(N), though I think 'moon' has innovated n (niaNba for expected miaNba) in OP. It's not clear in OP that the m is a problem, but the root also appears in Osage as mi(N), and here we would expect pi, so it seems that Proto-Dhegiha had *wiN (or *WiN?) irregularly instead of expected *Wi. Confusingly, R and W represent actual sounds, while V means 'any vowel', and N indicates nasalization. Three different expedient uses of capitalization! The R and W symbols are particularly awkward expedients for representing unknown sounds in the r-to-t and w-to-p ranges. We usually read R and W as "funny r" and "funny w," with "funny" in the sense 'odd, unusual'. (This is the Siouanist answer to proto-Algonquian "theta.") The correspondences involved are quite regular, in spite of this particular exception, but seem to sit half way between the sets for *r and *t or *w and *p in terms of reflexes. *R and *W were recognized as sets by Dorsey, but get mixed with *r and *w in Wolff. I believe Kaufman had sorted them out again, and recopnstructed *?r and *?w. I forget how Matthews treated them. I think he may have followed Wolff in this, trying to provide a contextual account for the exceptions. From rankin at ku.edu Thu Apr 3 16:52:11 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 10:52:11 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: John and I puzzled over this one when we were trying to etymologize Lewis and Clark names for Moulton. It could be Algonquian, since nishnabe or something very close to it is 'man'. It also looks like Omaha /ni $nabe/ roughly 'dirty water'. The problem is the -otna in both instances. Maybe Jimm can enlighten us on whether "canoe making river" is a reasonable Otoe etymology. Shnabotna doesn't look like 'canoe making' to me though. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Alan H. Hartley [mailto:ahartley at d.umn.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 3:56 PM To: Siouan Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." Thanks, Alan From tleonard at prodigy.net Thu Apr 3 17:31:38 2003 From: tleonard at prodigy.net (Tom Leonard) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:31:38 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: I believe this is ni-$nabe toN(g)a - or "Big Dirty River", perhaps the name of a specific river or creek. TML > John and I puzzled over this one when we were trying to etymologize Lewis > and Clark names for Moulton. It could be Algonquian, since nishnabe or > something very close to it is 'man'. It also looks like Omaha /ni $nabe/ > roughly 'dirty water'. The problem is the -otna in both instances. Maybe > Jimm can enlighten us on whether "canoe making river" is a reasonable Otoe > etymology. Shnabotna doesn't look like 'canoe making' to me though. > > Bob > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alan H. Hartley [mailto:ahartley at d.umn.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 3:56 PM > To: Siouan > Subject: Nishnabotna etym. > > > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an > Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." > > Thanks, > > Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Apr 4 03:32:21 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 20:32:21 -0700 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. In-Reply-To: <3E8B5C70.9020402@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an > Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." I assume Clark was representing something like /nis^nabetone/. My recollections of working on this term for Moulton with Bob Rankin and Doug Parks are about the same as Bob's. It corresponds, I believe to the placename usually spelled Nishnabotna, which is somewhat syncopated over Clark's form. In accord with Tom Leonard's suggestion, /tone/ might possibly represent Osage or Kaw versions of /htaNka/ (Os) or /ttaNga/ (Ks), which I think may tend tend to lose the velar. Omaha-Ponca has /ttaNga/. The same form would come out /thaNe/ ~ /than[y]e/ in Ioway-Otoe, but IO substitutes another term for 'big'. The phonology isn't quite right for any of these, except maybe the hypothetical and entirely unattested IO one. Bob Rankin and I did note that same form s^nabe 'dirty' that Tom came up with. The name in that parallels the (Little and Big) Nemaha 'Miry River' in sense. Actually a lot of river names in this area embody a comment on the amount of sediment in the water (or maybe the soil on the banks). The IO term for 'boat' is ba(a)j^e < *Waat(e). One might just think to discern it in "bot," but then the rest of the word (after ni) doesn't work. Of course, it would be possible to have a term that implied boats and referred, say, to making them, but the form doesn't seem to have an etymology in those terms. What I have noticed since then is a form in LaFlesche 1930, the Osage dictionary, p. 107v ni-hni'-bo-shta 'two springs not far from each other, one clear and sweet, the other black and bitter. A strange feature in connection with these springs was that there was a peculiar movement that caused the Indians to call them shooting springs. This was the final camp of the second buffalo trail.' Immediately before this is ni-hni' 'water cold; a spring or well.' The remainder, bo-shta seems to have the 'shooting instrumental' (cf. OP mu=). The particular verb doesn't seem to be attested in LaFlesche as an independent form. I'd make the form in something less Omaha-influenced and more Osage looking, something like niN s^niN pos^ta. I think pos^taN might be 'to miss in shooting'. Osage does have bo-gthoN-tha 'to miss a mark' (LaFlesche 1930:294b). This would be poloNdha, or earlier on [pogloNdha ~ podloNdha]. I suppose this might have been heard as [podnodha], given the nasalized vowel (with [dha] alternating with [ra] or [la] or [na] or, in fast speech [a]). If the latter term were substituted for the first (and this substitution were deemed reasonable), I suppose a name like niN s^niN podnoN(n)a might be produced. That's probably a bit tendentious, however, and I'm pretty sure that we're not dealing with the same places, but only parallel names. I'm not sure that the 'spring' term is reall 'cold water', though IO has what I take to be n[y]i(N)riN=xti < niN sniN=xti 'very cold water'. JEK From goodtracks at GBRonline.com Fri Apr 4 04:05:50 2003 From: goodtracks at GBRonline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 22:05:50 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: Yes, I saw the suggestion that the name may have came from IOM. However, that is not likely. While, there in "nyi = water", canoe making would have to be from "baje = boat" and "?un (make; do)" [or] "gaxe (make; construct)". Several of the other suggested etymologies appear to hold greater promise. Jimm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rankin, Robert L" To: Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 10:52 AM Subject: RE: Nishnabotna etym. > John and I puzzled over this one when we were trying to etymologize Lewis > and Clark names for Moulton. It could be Algonquian, since nishnabe or > something very close to it is 'man'. It also looks like Omaha /ni $nabe/ > roughly 'dirty water'. The problem is the -otna in both instances. Maybe > Jimm can enlighten us on whether "canoe making river" is a reasonable Otoe > etymology. Shnabotna doesn't look like 'canoe making' to me though. > > Bob > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alan H. Hartley [mailto:ahartley at d.umn.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 3:56 PM > To: Siouan > Subject: Nishnabotna etym. > > > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an > Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." > > Thanks, > > Alan > > From rankin at ku.edu Fri Apr 4 15:37:36 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 09:37:36 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: I can't add a thing to John's analysis except that it might pay to look at the original handwriting in the L&C journals to see if anything else can be made of the last couple of syllables. That's sort of a last resort, I guess. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 9:32 PM To: Siouan Subject: Re: Nishnabotna etym. On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is > an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." I assume Clark was representing something like /nis^nabetone/. My recollections of working on this term for Moulton with Bob Rankin and Doug Parks are about the same as Bob's. It corresponds, I believe to the placename usually spelled Nishnabotna, which is somewhat syncopated over Clark's form. In accord with Tom Leonard's suggestion, /tone/ might possibly represent Osage or Kaw versions of /htaNka/ (Os) or /ttaNga/ (Ks), which I think may tend tend to lose the velar. Omaha-Ponca has /ttaNga/. The same form would come out /thaNe/ ~ /than[y]e/ in Ioway-Otoe, but IO substitutes another term for 'big'. The phonology isn't quite right for any of these, except maybe the hypothetical and entirely unattested IO one. Bob Rankin and I did note that same form s^nabe 'dirty' that Tom came up with. The name in that parallels the (Little and Big) Nemaha 'Miry River' in sense. Actually a lot of river names in this area embody a comment on the amount of sediment in the water (or maybe the soil on the banks). The IO term for 'boat' is ba(a)j^e < *Waat(e). One might just think to discern it in "bot," but then the rest of the word (after ni) doesn't work. Of course, it would be possible to have a term that implied boats and referred, say, to making them, but the form doesn't seem to have an etymology in those terms. What I have noticed since then is a form in LaFlesche 1930, the Osage dictionary, p. 107v ni-hni'-bo-shta 'two springs not far from each other, one clear and sweet, the other black and bitter. A strange feature in connection with these springs was that there was a peculiar movement that caused the Indians to call them shooting springs. This was the final camp of the second buffalo trail.' Immediately before this is ni-hni' 'water cold; a spring or well.' The remainder, bo-shta seems to have the 'shooting instrumental' (cf. OP mu=). The particular verb doesn't seem to be attested in LaFlesche as an independent form. I'd make the form in something less Omaha-influenced and more Osage looking, something like niN s^niN pos^ta. I think pos^taN might be 'to miss in shooting'. Osage does have bo-gthoN-tha 'to miss a mark' (LaFlesche 1930:294b). This would be poloNdha, or earlier on [pogloNdha ~ podloNdha]. I suppose this might have been heard as [podnodha], given the nasalized vowel (with [dha] alternating with [ra] or [la] or [na] or, in fast speech [a]). If the latter term were substituted for the first (and this substitution were deemed reasonable), I suppose a name like niN s^niN podnoN(n)a might be produced. That's probably a bit tendentious, however, and I'm pretty sure that we're not dealing with the same places, but only parallel names. I'm not sure that the 'spring' term is reall 'cold water', though IO has what I take to be n[y]i(N)riN=xti < niN sniN=xti 'very cold water'. JEK From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Fri Apr 4 18:00:44 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 12:00:44 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have somehow missed it) doesn�t give tense a very strong treatment. What I have seen is that Ho-Chunk seems to make a future - non-future distinction based on the suffix -kjene or the intentive -kje. Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. Jagu aire? Jagu e-ire? What say-3Pl? What did they say? Jagu anaaNk? Jagu e-naaNk? What say-3Pl? What are they saying? I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the future. Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative That man is singing (seated). waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN- naN man that (sit) sing- Declarative. That man sang. In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I�m especially curious about Chiwere)? Thank you. On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you all again. Henning Garvin UW-Madison Anthropology/Linguistics _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Fri Apr 4 21:15:07 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 14:15:07 -0700 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Lakota certainly, and as far as I can tell in the other Siouan languages, the category that corresponds most closely to English tense is "realis/irrealis". Lakota speakers distinguish events that are real, in the sense that they have occurred or are occurring, from everything else. The morpheme "kta/kte", Hochunk kje, marks "irrealis". Frequently, therefore that will match up with an English future, but it also matches various kinds of predictions, "maybe", and "probably" kinds of sentences, complements of verbs like "want" and "hope", etc. There are adverbs to indicate time, like "yesterday" or "a while ago" or "right now", and others to indicate the degree of confidence a speaker has in the probability of an event, but these categories aren't marked systematically on the verbs. Hope that helps. DAvid David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Henning Garvin wrote: > > I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in > general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have > somehow missed it) doesn�t give tense a very strong treatment. > What I have seen is that Ho-Chunk seems to make a future - non-future > distinction based on the suffix > -kjene or the intentive -kje. > > Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the > subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. > > Jagu aire? > Jagu e-ire? > What say-3Pl? > What did they say? > > Jagu anaaNk? > Jagu e-naaNk? > What say-3Pl? > What are they saying? > > I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there > is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only > form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the > future. > Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > That man is singing (seated). > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > That man sang. > > In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite > article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. > > My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what > i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read > in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I�m especially curious > about Chiwere)? Thank you. > > On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a > vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. > You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have > become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you > all again. > > Henning Garvin > UW-Madison > Anthropology/Linguistics > > _________________________________________________________________ > Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > From rankin at ku.edu Fri Apr 4 21:39:33 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 15:39:33 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I think that in those Siouan languages where tense morphology may actually exist, it represents an innovation. Often it seems to involve an auxiliary, *?uN 'do, be' with one or more prefixes that has become grammaticalized. There really are no past tense morphemes, per se. I would say that this statement about the lack of tense is true even for the so-called 'future'. If you ask for a sentence in future time, you will normally get a reply with (iN)-ktA in Dakota and its equivalent in other languages. But this affix means both more and less than 'future tense'. You'll also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' and other utterances that make it clear that what it really marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something that hasn't actually happened. There is plenty of morphology that marks modalities and plenty that marks aspect (progressive/continuative, habitual, perfect, etc.). Ordinarily, if time reference is really required, it is provided with an adverb or a temporal conjunction. I did a talk on this when I was in Australia and can send a copy of the draft if you like. It isn't very polished. It is the progressive or continuative aspect that usually uses the positional auxiliaries (although Mauricio Mixco also finds it in use with other constructions as well in his Mandan sketch). But action of the verb can be progressive in the past or the future as well as the present, so the positionals don't necessarily mark present. The traditional grammarians who produced the earlier (often very good) grammars of Dakota, Lakota, etc. used terms like 'future' because they didn't distinguish 'kind of action' from 'time of action' in their grammars. It is still used to translate ktA today by some. But, as I say, I don't think it's tense per-se. >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. Jagu aire? Jagu e-ire? What say-3Pl? What did they say? Jagu anaaNk? Jagu e-naaNk? What say-3Pl? What are they saying? HC may operate differently from LAK in this regard, but I'd guess that the difference between the two above examples would be non-continuing vs. continuing action, not tense. Try "what do they say?" for the first and "what were they saying" for the second and see what emerges. I can't begin to predict, but it should be interesting to contrast all four meanings. >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the future.Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative That man is singing (seated). waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN- naN man that (sit) sing- Declarative. That man sang. How about 'that man was singing' and 'that man sings well', where the first is progressive but in the past and the second is present but not progressive. I really wonder if you'll get any overt tense morphology. Bob Rankin >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. >My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm especially curious about Chiwere)? Thank you. >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you all again. Henning Garvin UW-Madison Anthropology/Linguistics From warr0120 at umn.edu Fri Apr 4 23:49:09 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 17:49:09 CST Subject: Tense Message-ID: Hi Bob, I'd love to see your draft paper on modalities and aspect in Dakota! Pat Warren On 4 Apr 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > I think that in those Siouan languages where tense > morphology may actually exist, it represents an > innovation. Often it seems to involve an auxiliary, > *?uN 'do, be' with one or more prefixes that has become > grammaticalized. There really are no past tense > morphemes, per se. I would say that this statement > about the lack of tense is true even for the so-called > 'future'. If you ask for a sentence in future time, > you will normally get a reply with (iN)-ktA in Dakota > and its equivalent in other languages. But this affix > means both more and less than 'future tense'. You'll > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' and > other utterances that make it clear that what it really > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something that > hasn't actually happened. > > There is plenty of morphology that marks modalities and > plenty that marks aspect (progressive/continuative, > habitual, perfect, etc.). Ordinarily, if time > reference is really required, it is provided with an > adverb or a temporal conjunction. I did a talk on this > when I was in Australia and can send a copy of the > draft if you like. It isn't very polished. > > It is the progressive or continuative aspect that > usually uses the positional auxiliaries (although > Mauricio Mixco also finds it in use with other > constructions as well in his Mandan sketch). But > action of the verb can be progressive in the past or > the future as well as the present, so the positionals > don't necessarily mark present. > > The traditional grammarians who produced the earlier > (often very good) grammars of Dakota, Lakota, etc. used > terms like 'future' because they didn't distinguish > 'kind of action' from 'time of action' in their > grammars. It is still used to translate ktA today by > some. But, as I say, I don't think it's tense per-se. > > >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is > given to indicate the > subject. However, in getting forms this actually is > the past tense. > > Jagu aire? > Jagu e-ire? > What say-3Pl? > What did they say? > > Jagu anaaNk? > Jagu e-naaNk? > What say-3Pl? > What are they saying? > > HC may operate differently from LAK in this regard, but > I'd guess that the difference between the two above > examples would be non-continuing vs. continuing action, > not tense. Try "what do they say?" for the first and > "what were they saying" for the second and see what > emerges. I can't begin to predict, but it should be > interesting to contrast all four meanings. > > >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists > these forms. Yet there > is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This > seems to be the only > form that indicates something took place in the past > rather than not in the > future.Past can be indicated through the absence of the > positional in other cases. > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > That man is singing (seated). > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > That man sang. > > How about 'that man was singing' and 'that man sings > well', where the first is progressive but in the past > and the second is present but not progressive. I > really wonder if you'll get any overt tense morphology. > > Bob Rankin > > >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced > with the indefenite > article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the > same effect. > > >My question is if you all think there is more to tense > in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening > in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper > somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm > especially curious > about Chiwere)? Thank you. > > >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as > a person with a > vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really > appreciate this List. > You all have no idea how much more efficient and > valuable my studies have become based on the archives > and current comments on this List. Thank you all > again. > > Henning Garvin > UW-Madison > Anthropology/Linguistics > > > From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Apr 5 01:11:37 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 19:11:37 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: Hello Henning, >I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in >general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have >somehow missed it) doesn't give tense a very strong treatment. >What I have seen is that Ho-Chunk seems to make a future - non-future >distinction based on the suffix >-kjene or the intentive -kje. You're raising an interesting question. David Rood's reply, based on Lakhota, sums up the doctrine on Siouan tense as I have learned it. That is, there is no grammatical timestamp on sentences, as there is in Indo-European, though time can be indicated explicitly by temporal adverbs. Instead, there is a particle of potentiality that follows the verb, which indicates that the action is only a possibility, an intent, or an inclination, not a fact. In Lakhota, this particle is ktA, in Omaha ttE, and in Winnebago it is apparently kjE. Since the future is only a possibility or an intent, not a fact, this particle is used to express what we Indo-European speakers would call the future. That being said, the actual grammar of making sentences seems to be bafflingly complex, and includes considerations English never thought of. My background in Siouan involves two years of Lakhota taken about a decade ago as a formal course, and about three years of Omaha going on now as a figure-it-out-by-the-seat-of-your-pants sequence. I would like to swap notes with you in grammatically comparing Winnebago to Omaha, but my own knowledge of Winnebago is almost nill. Could I ask you to help analyze your examples morphemically? >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the >subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. >Jagu aire? >Jagu e-ire? >What say-3Pl? >What did they say? >Jagu anaaNk? >Jagu e-naaNk? >What say-3Pl? >What are they saying? So /jagu/ means "what". I assume this is equivalent to Lakhota /taku/. Then we have /a/ or /e/ for "say". In OP it's the same. By Bob's and John's analysis, /e/ should be considered the basic form, and /a/ would be the ablauted form caused by an original leading a- in the following particle. Finally, we have two alternative modal particles, /ire/ and /naaNk/, at the end, which close the sentence. Both indicate that the subject of /e/ is 3rd person plural. Both force the /e/ to ablaut to /a/. But while /ire/ implies that the action is in the past, /naaNk/ implies that it is in the present. Have I understood your examples correctly? If so, could /naaNk/ be described as a positional? To me, it looks like OP /dhaNkHa'/, which shows up now and then in the Dorsey texts, apparently as the plural of /dhiNkhe'/, but which is denied by our modern speakers. In OP, these two terms seem to have the flavor of "sitting", or "object of the action". In OP, at least in the 19th century, sentences seldom ended with a verb; rather the final verb was almost always followed by one or more particles expressing the modality and the demand of the sentence. Your Winnebago particles /ire/ and /naaNk/ seem to behave in the same way. In 19th century OP, the modal particle /i/ directly followed a verb and made you focus on it as a discrete action. Alternatively, you could simply finish a sentence with a positional after the verb; this would indicate that the verb was the state of affairs with its subject in the classificatory state implied by the positional itself. Here, we set the scene rather than describe an occurrence. Or, as Bob has put it, the action is progressive. I don't recall whether modal particles in this position force ablaut in OP; my feeling is that they don't. However, they do force ablaut on the potential particle /ttE/ in constructions that indicate a fairly definite future: tta miNkHe I will tta tHe you will, s/he will tta akHa s/he will of their own accord tt(a) oNgatHoN we will The Winnebago particle /ire/ is especially interesting to me because of a discussion we had on the list just over a year ago about two alternate OP particles, /i/ and /bi/. The /bi/ at least ought to be cognate with Lakhota /pi/ and Chiwere /wi/. Doesn't Winnebago also have a pluralizing particle /wi/? I seem to recall from Lipkind that both /wi/ and /ire/ existed as pluralizing particles in Winnebago, but that /ire/ was only used in the 3rd person-- is this correct? Anyway, in 19th century OP, /bi/ and /i/ both make you focus on the act rather than the state, but /bi/ implies hearsay while /i/ implies the straight goods. Used in the 3rd person, both can be either singular or plural, though in other contexts, such as commands, both can be pluralizers. The view has been that /i/ is a variant of /bi/ in its origin, and hence equates to /pi/ and /wi/. But I wonder if it could not actually be cognate to at least part of HC /ire/ instead? Can /ire/ be analyzed in Winnebago? Do we have cognates of /ire/ in other Siouan languages? >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there >is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only >form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the >future. >Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. >waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. >waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. >man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative >That man is singing (seated). >waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. >waNk naNka naNwaN- naN >man that (sit) sing- Declarative. >That man sang. So /waNk/ is "man". The word /naNka/ or /naNk/ is a positional indicating "sitting" and "singular". Does this alternate with /naaNka/ or /naaNk/, with a long 'aN', meaning "sitting" and "plural"? In OP, a number of Dhegihan 'aN' sounds have shifted to 'iN', apparently when unaccented and preceding an accented syllable. Is shortness of the vowel also a factor in this? Compare OP /dhiNkHe'/, "sitting" and "singular" with OP /dhaNkHa'/, "sitting" and "plural". The verb /naNwaN/ means "sing". /naN/ is the declarative demand particle. What is /s^aN/? That should be important here, but I don't see a gloss for it. >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite >article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. >My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what >i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read >in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future >distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm especially curious >about Chiwere)? Thank you. Hope that helps some. And thank you if you can answer some of my scattered questions about Ho-Chunk! Rory >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a >vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. >You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have >become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you >all again. >Henning Garvin >UW-Madison >Anthropology/Linguistics From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Sat Apr 5 02:41:13 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 20:41:13 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I would >like to swap notes with you in grammatically comparing Winnebago to >Omaha, but my own knowledge of Winnebago is almost nill. Could I ask >you to help analyze your examples morphemically? Sure thing! > >Jagu aire? > >Jagu e-ire? > >What say-3Pl? > >What did they say? > > >Jagu anaaNk? > >Jagu e-naaNk? > >What say-3Pl? > >What are they saying? > >So /jagu/ means "what". I assume this is equivalent to Lakhota /taku/. > >Then we have /a/ or /e/ for "say". In OP it's the same. By Bob's >and John's analysis, /e/ should be considered the basic form, and /a/ >would be the ablauted form caused by an original leading a- in the >following particle. > >Finally, we have two alternative modal particles, /ire/ and /naaNk/, >at the end, which close the sentence. Both indicate that the subject >of /e/ is 3rd person plural. Both force the /e/ to ablaut to /a/. >But while /ire/ implies that the action is in the past, /naaNk/ implies >that it is in the present. > >Have I understood your examples correctly? Absolutely. > >If so, could /naaNk/ be described as a positional? >To me, it looks like OP /dhaNkHa'/, which shows up >now and then in the Dorsey texts, apparently as the >plural of /dhiNkhe'/, but which is denied by our >modern speakers. In OP, these two terms seem to >have the flavor of "sitting", or "object of the >action". That is another good question. As far as I can tell /naaNk/ simply implies plural regardless of the orientation of the subject. So it can be used when talking about a group of objects that are positioned vertically, horizontally, moving, 'sitting' or a mixture of all of these. It is curious though, that it occurs in the place where the positional would have occurred if the subject were singular. Both after the verb and also in the demonstrative. As far as demostratives go, basically /naNka/ would be 'that (sitting)' while /naaNka/ would be 'those'. The demonstrative is generally described as a the form /-ga/ attached to the positionals (/je/, /naNk/,/ak/) and to the plural form /naaNk/. Perhaps this somehow has lost its positional flavor over time. I am hoping someone with the comparative Siouan knowledge will be able to help out on this one. > >In OP, at least in the 19th century, sentences >seldom ended with a verb; rather the final verb >was almost always followed by one or more particles >expressing the modality and the demand of the >sentence. Your Winnebago particles /ire/ and >/naaNk/ seem to behave in the same way. > >In 19th century OP, the modal particle /i/ >directly followed a verb and made you focus on it >as a discrete action. Alternatively, you could >simply finish a sentence with a positional after >the verb; this would indicate that the verb was >the state of affairs with its subject in the >classificatory state implied by the positional >itself. Here, we set the scene rather than >describe an occurrence. Or, as Bob has put it, >the action is progressive. > >I don't recall whether modal particles in this >position force ablaut in OP; my feeling is that >they don't. However, they do force ablaut on the >potential particle /ttE/ in constructions that >indicate a fairly definite future: > > tta miNkHe I will > tta tHe you will, s/he will > tta akHa s/he will of their own accord > tt(a) oNgatHoN we will > >The Winnebago particle /ire/ is especially interesting >to me because of a discussion we had on the list just >over a year ago about two alternate OP particles, /i/ >and /bi/. The /bi/ at least ought to be cognate with >Lakhota /pi/ and Chiwere /wi/. Doesn't Winnebago also >have a pluralizing particle /wi/? I seem to recall >from Lipkind that both /wi/ and /ire/ existed as >pluralizing particles in Winnebago, but that /ire/ was >only used in the 3rd person-- is this correct? Yes, /-wi/ is the general pluralizer except in 3Pl, for which Lipkind does list /-ire/. Anyway, >in 19th century OP, /bi/ and /i/ both make you focus on >the act rather than the state, but /bi/ implies hearsay >while /i/ implies the straight goods. Used in the 3rd >person, both can be either singular or plural, though >in other contexts, such as commands, both can be >pluralizers. The view has been that /i/ is a variant >of /bi/ in its origin, and hence equates to /pi/ and >/wi/. But I wonder if it could not actually be cognate >to at least part of HC /ire/ instead? Can /ire/ be >analyzed in Winnebago? Do we have cognates of /ire/ in >other Siouan languages? Again I'm hoping the others can help us out on this. > > > >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet >there > > >is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the >only > > >form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in >the > >future. > >Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other >cases. > > >waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > >waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > >man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > >That man is singing (seated). > > >waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > >waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > >man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > >That man sang. > >So /waNk/ is "man". > >The word /naNka/ or /naNk/ is a positional indicating >"sitting" and "singular". Does this alternate with >/naaNka/ or /naaNk/, with a long 'aN', meaning "sitting" >and "plural"? In OP, a number of Dhegihan 'aN' sounds >have shifted to 'iN', apparently when unaccented and >preceding an accented syllable. Is shortness of the >vowel also a factor in this? Compare OP /dhiNkHe'/, >"sitting" and "singular" with OP /dhaNkHa'/, "sitting" >and "plural". See what I wrote above on demonstratives. The positional forms in HC are as follows: /naNk/ 'seated' /je/ 'vertical' /ak/ 'horizontal' /ak/ 'in motion' All of these indicate singular, and are seemingly replaced by /naaNk/ for indicating plural. > >The verb /naNwaN/ means "sing". > >/naN/ is the declarative demand particle. > >What is /s^aN/? That should be important here, but >I don't see a gloss for it. Sorry if it isn't clear. /naN/ and /s^aNnaN/ are the declarative suffix. the former is used follwing a vowel while the latter is used following a consonant. This is another interesting area. The form which follows vowels, /naN/, is rarely uttered in speech. Rather the statement is ended abruptly on the segment preceding the form and is often percieved by non-speakers as an unreleased stop. I think what you end up hearing is the oral closure made for the /n/. In /s^aNnaN/,which follows a consonant, only the initial syllable of the form is actually produced, and once again the statement ends abruptly. SO the /s^aN/ part of the word is produced, but not the rest of it. I am unaware of any attempt to seperate /s^aN/ from /naN/ but given my relative lack of experience that doesn't mean it isn't happening. I have been living under the impression these are allomorphs and never paid them much attention, but if there is another idea out there regarding this please let me know:) > >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite > >article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. > > >My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than >what > >i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I >read > >in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > >distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm especially >curious > > >about Chiwere)? Thank you. > >Hope that helps some. And thank you if you can >answer some of my scattered questions about Ho-Chunk! > >Rory This helps a great deal. All of it thus far. Hope you can make some sense of what I wrote and it helps to answer your questions. Henning _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus From rankin at ku.edu Sun Apr 6 00:57:00 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 18:57:00 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: Hi Pat, I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the statements/arguments work just about as well for Dakotan too. This draft is pretty rough. I was asked to talk on the subject while I was a Fellow at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology in Melbourne. I cobbled it together using a Quapaw text I had analyzed for a sketch of that language, an Omaha text from James Owen Dorsey (1890) and maybe one or two others. It doesn't set out to "prove" that Siouan lacks tense as a verbal category but rather concentrates on the use of aspect, constitutent order, temporal conjunctions and adverbs, as well as grammaticalized particles to convey time distinctions. It was strictly an oral presentation to accompany typological surveys of tense and time being dong there by Fritz Serzisko of the U. of Koeln. Best, Bob Rankin ----- Original Message ----- From: warr0120 To: Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 5:49 PM Subject: Re: Tense > Hi Bob, > > I'd love to see your draft paper on modalities and aspect in Dakota! > > Pat Warren > > On 4 Apr 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > I think that in those Siouan languages where tense > > morphology may actually exist, it represents an > > innovation. Often it seems to involve an auxiliary, > > *?uN 'do, be' with one or more prefixes that has become > > grammaticalized. There really are no past tense > > morphemes, per se. I would say that this statement > > about the lack of tense is true even for the so-called > > 'future'. If you ask for a sentence in future time, > > you will normally get a reply with (iN)-ktA in Dakota > > and its equivalent in other languages. But this affix > > means both more and less than 'future tense'. You'll > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' and > > other utterances that make it clear that what it really > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something that > > hasn't actually happened. > > > > There is plenty of morphology that marks modalities and > > plenty that marks aspect (progressive/continuative, > > habitual, perfect, etc.). Ordinarily, if time > > reference is really required, it is provided with an > > adverb or a temporal conjunction. I did a talk on this > > when I was in Australia and can send a copy of the > > draft if you like. It isn't very polished. > > > > It is the progressive or continuative aspect that > > usually uses the positional auxiliaries (although > > Mauricio Mixco also finds it in use with other > > constructions as well in his Mandan sketch). But > > action of the verb can be progressive in the past or > > the future as well as the present, so the positionals > > don't necessarily mark present. > > > > The traditional grammarians who produced the earlier > > (often very good) grammars of Dakota, Lakota, etc. used > > terms like 'future' because they didn't distinguish > > 'kind of action' from 'time of action' in their > > grammars. It is still used to translate ktA today by > > some. But, as I say, I don't think it's tense per-se. > > > > >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is > > given to indicate the > > subject. However, in getting forms this actually is > > the past tense. > > > > Jagu aire? > > Jagu e-ire? > > What say-3Pl? > > What did they say? > > > > Jagu anaaNk? > > Jagu e-naaNk? > > What say-3Pl? > > What are they saying? > > > > HC may operate differently from LAK in this regard, but > > I'd guess that the difference between the two above > > examples would be non-continuing vs. continuing action, > > not tense. Try "what do they say?" for the first and > > "what were they saying" for the second and see what > > emerges. I can't begin to predict, but it should be > > interesting to contrast all four meanings. > > > > >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists > > these forms. Yet there > > is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This > > seems to be the only > > form that indicates something took place in the past > > rather than not in the > > future.Past can be indicated through the absence of the > > positional in other cases. > > > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > > > waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > > > man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > > > That man is singing (seated). > > > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > > > waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > > > man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > > > That man sang. > > > > How about 'that man was singing' and 'that man sings > > well', where the first is progressive but in the past > > and the second is present but not progressive. I > > really wonder if you'll get any overt tense morphology. > > > > Bob Rankin > > > > >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced > > with the indefenite > > article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the > > same effect. > > > > >My question is if you all think there is more to tense > > in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening > > in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper > > somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > > distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm > > especially curious > > about Chiwere)? Thank you. > > > > >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as > > a person with a > > vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really > > appreciate this List. > > You all have no idea how much more efficient and > > valuable my studies have become based on the archives > > and current comments on this List. Thank you all > > again. > > > > Henning Garvin > > UW-Madison > > Anthropology/Linguistics > > > > > > > > From lcumberl at indiana.edu Sun Apr 6 01:52:47 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 20:52:47 -0500 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: <003c01c2fbd7$6efe5fa0$d1b5ed81@computer> Message-ID: Hi Bob, > > I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. > The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the > statements/arguments work just about as well for > Dakotan too. I'd like a copy, too, please. Re: conditionals: > You'll > > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' > and > > > other utterances that make it clear that what it > really > > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something > that > > > hasn't actually happened. In Assiniboine the conditionals are followed by tukha, and as far as I can tell, it's obligatory for this meaning. (I assume this is Lak. tkha, but it's not reduced in Asb). Examples: wana na=kta tukha 'you should go now' zhe nowaN=kta tukha 'he was supposed to sing (but he didn't)' mihiNkna hi=kta tukha 'my husband should have come (by now)' xtanihaN maghazhu=kta tukha 'it was supposed to rain yesterday' Then there's the contrasting set: nakhon?i?a=kta chiNka 'he wants to learn Nakoda' nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's doubtful that he will)' Linda From lcumberl at indiana.edu Sun Apr 6 02:11:45 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 21:11:45 -0500 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: <200304060152.UAA10341@iupui.edu> Message-ID: Oops - Freudian slip? this should be chiNka 'he wants', not wachiNka 'I want'! - Linda > nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's > doubtful that he will)' From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Apr 6 04:08:03 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 21:08:03 -0700 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Henning Garvin wrote: > I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in > general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have > somehow missed it) doesn't give tense a very strong treatment. I'll just chime in that I agree with others that verbs in the Siouan languages seem to be primarily marked for aspect, along with that irrealis marker usually glossed as future. Tense is introduced when sentences are glossed in English, because English does have tense marking. There's really nothing that corresponds to past vs. present in Dhegiha, though there are some enclitics in Omaha-Ponca glossed 'in the past' and there are time adverbs like 'now' and 'then'. The forms glossed 'then' usually work out to be demonstratives with various enclitic postpositions and don't mean so much 'in the past' but 'at some indicated time'. There are terms for 'today', 'tomorrow', etc. Actually, I think tense-based systems are a bit rare, though I'm certainly not an authority on typology! Tense marking is secondary in Indo-European. The oldest languages attest an earlier set of distinctions based on aspect (simple, continuous, perfect) and mood (real/unreal), sometimes with a fused temporal adverb (?) - the augment. Very Siouan in general concept, if not in detail. IE perfects and some present formations involve reduplication. Most of the subfamilies have a veneer of tense marking achieved by fusing an auxiliary verb to a verb root to form a past or future (Germanic weak verb pasts in dentals like English -ed, Latin imperfects and futures in -b-), usually resulting in two or three way aspect distinctions in the past" (including an innovated imperfect or past continuous) vs. a single present (the old continuous) and a single present (innovated or an old modal form). Some aspectual and mood formations of PIE date are probably of similar auxiliary origins (sigmatic or -s- aorists, -yV- desideratives, etc.). Most of the modern European IE languages have extensive more recently innovated auxiliary systems for future (always a bit modal), progressive and perfect. Because the histories of the languages and their writing systems extend far enough back to reveal the basis of these systems the auxiliaries are often written as independent words, even though they are actually phonologically as reduced and fused with the main verb as the comparable markers in the ancient languages (or modern Siouan languages). Russian and other Eastern Slavic languages (not sure about the Western and Southern Slavic languages) have reworked thing to produce a new aspect-heavy situation (with all verb stems having a past and a present or a past and a future, depending on their basic aspect). (This summary should give just about everyone on the lista chance to correct me on something!) JEK From warr0120 at umn.edu Sun Apr 6 07:29:04 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 01:29:04 CST Subject: Tense Message-ID: I don't know, Linda. Wouldn't want to distract you with the other dialects. There are those of us in the peanut gallery getting awfully anxious for your dissertation. Heehee Pat Wouldn't On 5 Apr 2003, Linda Cumberland wrote: > Hi Bob, > > > > > I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. > > The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the > > statements/arguments work just about as well for > > Dakotan too. > > I'd like a copy, too, please. > > Re: conditionals: > > > You'll > > > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' > > and > > > > other utterances that make it clear that what it > > really > > > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something > > that > > > > hasn't actually happened. > > > In Assiniboine the conditionals are followed by tukha, and as far as I > can tell, it's obligatory for this meaning. (I assume this is Lak. > tkha, but it's not reduced in Asb). Examples: > > wana na=kta tukha 'you should go now' > > zhe nowaN=kta tukha 'he was supposed to sing (but he didn't)' > > mihiNkna hi=kta tukha 'my husband should have come (by now)' > > xtanihaN maghazhu=kta tukha 'it was supposed to rain yesterday' > > Then there's the contrasting set: > > nakhon?i?a=kta chiNka 'he wants to learn Nakoda' > > nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's > doubtful that he will)' > > Linda > From tleonard at prodigy.net Sun Apr 6 18:28:49 2003 From: tleonard at prodigy.net (Tom Leonard) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 13:28:49 -0500 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: I think the original translator (perhaps) transcribed it "Neesh-nah-ba-to-na" incorrectly (i.e. "to-na" was, more than likely, supposed to be "ttaNga"). I don't think 'canoe making river' is/was the literal translation. Rather, I think "ni s^nabe ttaNga" (river-dirty-big) was/is probably an actual name for a specific river or creek -more than likely the spot considered good for making canoes. TML ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rankin, Robert L" To: Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 10:37 AM Subject: RE: Nishnabotna etym. > I can't add a thing to John's analysis except that it might pay to look at > the original handwriting in the L&C journals to see if anything else can be > made of the last couple of syllables. That's sort of a last resort, I > guess. > > Bob > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu] > Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 9:32 PM > To: Siouan > Subject: Re: Nishnabotna etym. > > > On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is > > an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." > > I assume Clark was representing something like /nis^nabetone/. > > My recollections of working on this term for Moulton with Bob Rankin and > Doug Parks are about the same as Bob's. It corresponds, I believe to the > placename usually spelled Nishnabotna, which is somewhat syncopated over > Clark's form. > > In accord with Tom Leonard's suggestion, /tone/ might possibly represent > Osage or Kaw versions of /htaNka/ (Os) or /ttaNga/ (Ks), which I think may > tend tend to lose the velar. Omaha-Ponca has /ttaNga/. The same form would > come out /thaNe/ ~ /than[y]e/ in Ioway-Otoe, but IO substitutes another > term for 'big'. The phonology isn't quite right for any of these, except > maybe the hypothetical and entirely unattested IO one. > > Bob Rankin and I did note that same form s^nabe 'dirty' that Tom came up > with. The name in that parallels the (Little and Big) Nemaha 'Miry River' > in sense. Actually a lot of river names in this area embody a comment on > the amount of sediment in the water (or maybe the soil on the banks). > > The IO term for 'boat' is ba(a)j^e < *Waat(e). One might just think to > discern it in "bot," but then the rest of the word (after ni) doesn't work. > Of course, it would be possible to have a term that implied boats and > referred, say, to making them, but the form doesn't seem to have an > etymology in those terms. > > What I have noticed since then is a form in LaFlesche 1930, the Osage > dictionary, p. 107v ni-hni'-bo-shta 'two springs not far from each other, > one clear and sweet, the other black and bitter. A strange feature in > connection with these springs was that there was a peculiar movement that > caused the Indians to call them shooting springs. This was the final camp > of the second buffalo trail.' > > Immediately before this is ni-hni' 'water cold; a spring or well.' The > remainder, bo-shta seems to have the 'shooting instrumental' (cf. OP mu=). > The particular verb doesn't seem to be attested in LaFlesche as an > independent form. > > I'd make the form in something less Omaha-influenced and more Osage looking, > something like niN s^niN pos^ta. > > I think pos^taN might be 'to miss in shooting'. Osage does have > bo-gthoN-tha 'to miss a mark' (LaFlesche 1930:294b). This would be > poloNdha, or earlier on [pogloNdha ~ podloNdha]. I suppose this might have > been heard as [podnodha], given the nasalized vowel (with [dha] alternating > with [ra] or [la] or [na] or, in fast speech [a]). > > If the latter term were substituted for the first (and this substitution > were deemed reasonable), I suppose a name like niN s^niN podnoN(n)a might be > produced. > > That's probably a bit tendentious, however, and I'm pretty sure that we're > not dealing with the same places, but only parallel names. > > I'm not sure that the 'spring' term is reall 'cold water', though IO has > what I take to be n[y]i(N)riN=xti < niN sniN=xti 'very cold water'. > > JEK From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Apr 6 21:42:55 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 16:42:55 -0500 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: Thanks to all for the help! From rankin at ku.edu Mon Apr 7 14:53:26 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 09:53:26 -0500 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I have a longer reply to your note of the weekend in my "outbox" at home, but my dial-up connection has failed and I can only do email from the office for the time being. I'll send it as soon as I can. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Linda Cumberland [mailto:lcumberl at indiana.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 7:53 PM To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Tense Hi Bob, > > I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. > The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the statements/arguments > work just about as well for Dakotan too. I'd like a copy, too, please. Re: conditionals: > You'll > > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' > and > > > other utterances that make it clear that what it > really > > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something > that > > > hasn't actually happened. In Assiniboine the conditionals are followed by tukha, and as far as I can tell, it's obligatory for this meaning. (I assume this is Lak. tkha, but it's not reduced in Asb). Examples: wana na=kta tukha 'you should go now' zhe nowaN=kta tukha 'he was supposed to sing (but he didn't)' mihiNkna hi=kta tukha 'my husband should have come (by now)' xtanihaN maghazhu=kta tukha 'it was supposed to rain yesterday' Then there's the contrasting set: nakhon?i?a=kta chiNka 'he wants to learn Nakoda' nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's doubtful that he will)' Linda From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 15:05:28 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 09:05:28 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. In-Reply-To: <001901c2fc6a$5f824120$5b2ad03f@Busprod.Com> Message-ID: On Sun, 6 Apr 2003, Tom Leonard wrote: > I think the original translator (perhaps) transcribed it > "Neesh-nah-ba-to-na" incorrectly (i.e. "to-na" was, more than likely, > supposed to be "ttaNga"). I don't think 'canoe making river' is/was > the literal translation. Rather, I think "ni s^nabe ttaNga" > (river-dirty-big) was/is probably an actual name for a specific river > or creek -more than likely the spot considered good for making canoes. The idea that "canoe making river" is a comment on the name rather than the translation is fairly reasonable. And the idea that Clark was not particularly adept as a transcriptionist is more or less widely accepted. The one problem that neither your Omaha explanation not my Osage explanation addresses is the claim that the term is Ioway-Otoe! From jmcbride at kayserv.net Mon Apr 7 15:28:37 2003 From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 10:28:37 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Ho! I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? WíblahaN, -Justin McBride -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Mon Apr 7 16:47:39 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 11:47:39 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Don�t think this will be a tremendous help to you, but James Stucki translated Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John plus a portion of Exdous into Ho-Chunk. The book is tremendously rare, but my tribe found one and paid handsomely for it. Hope this at elast gives hope that there may be one out there. Henning Garvin UW-Madison Anthropology/Linguistics >From: "Justin McBride" >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >To: >Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions >Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 10:28:37 -0500 >Ho! > >I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a >request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or >Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the >best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really >got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough >fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible >that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible >portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his >work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like >this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this >exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? > >W�blahaN, >-Justin McBride _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail From tleonard at prodigy.net Mon Apr 7 17:24:50 2003 From: tleonard at prodigy.net (Tom Leonard) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 12:24:50 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: J.O. Dorsey did translate portions of the Bible, a few prayers (e.g. the Lord's Prayer) and a few sermons. Not sure if Dorsey translated any hymns but we have lots of present day hymns recorded. TML ----- Original Message ----- From: Justin McBride To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 10:28 AM Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Ho! I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? WíblahaN, -Justin McBride -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 17:26:52 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 11:26:52 -0600 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions In-Reply-To: <003d01c2fd1a$5c450780$2b77f0c7@Language> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Justin McBride wrote: > But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If > Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, > isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and > perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know > nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this > question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, > does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU > (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? Dorsey went as a missionary - Episcopal? - to the Ponca. He left that position, ostensibly for reasons of health, though I gather it may have actually also been, at least in part, a matter of difficulties with the agent, as this is implied in a letter from Albert (?) Riggs I noticed in passing in the National Anthropological Archives's Dorsey Papers. Riggs mentions that Agent so-and-so is gone and suggests he can now return and would be welcome. Riggs, incidentally, worked with Paul Mazakute, a Dakota missionary to the Ponca who was literate in Santee. Some of Mazakute's notes on Ponca vocabulary are in the NAA in the Dorsey Papers. Instead of returning to missionary work, Dorsey went to work for the BAE, becoming one of their staff ethnographers - in effect a combination linguist and anthropologist. From that period on he worked primarily with the Omaha as opposed to the Ponca, though I'm not sure there was no further contact with Ponca speakers. In fact, I know he was involved in letter writing on behalf of the Poncas who came back from Oklahoma. Although Dorsey must have achieved some degree of fluency, he also made extensive use of bilingual consultants. I don't know if he was ever fluent enough to preach in Omaha or if he was fluent enough to do so during the very earliest period, when he was a missionary. It would be interesting to pursue this, of course. The principle authority on Dorsey is Ray DeMallie, by the way. A small number of notes dealing with missionary activity are mentioned in the NAA catalogs of the Dorsey Papers. I haven't consulted this material. I think that other material - I don't know if it would be fair to characterize it as "the bulk" - is on file in (Episcopal?) church archives at Vermillion. I noticed a reference to Dorsey materials there once in a list of arhival materials dealing with Native American languages. I have actually seen a xerox of a printed page from a (Presbyterian?) Omaha Hymnal. I was asked to see if I could translate the text and put it into a modern orthography. I did, and that was the last I heard of it. I believe this was prepared by Hamilton. It was in use in the Reformed Church in Macy. The Reformed Church is a small synod with congregations on various Native American Reservations in the Midwest, including, I think, the Santee, Winnebago, Omaha, and Fox (?) reservations. I suspect any religious materials in Omaha would be very little use with Kaw. The basic vocabulary is similar, though transmuted phonologically and semantically, but there are some differences in morphology (e.g., in the dative), and the function words (conjunctions, final particles, etc.) are rather difference between Dhegiha "dialects." None of this seems to have posed a great deal of difficulty for fluent speakers in the old days, but it might floor modern users, especially ones approaching the languages from English. I have seen one of two volumes of handwritten notes on Omaha (sermon texts, I think) by Hamilton. The owner showed it to me in confidence, explaining that he had only the one volume, having lent the other to someone who had failed to return it. He said he found the volumes on a trash heap. I understood him to mean in some pile of discards in a particular context, and didn't press the matter, as it was potentially sensitive and he was clearly nervous about showing the material to me. I recommended that he consider some sort of archival disposition at some point and named some possible candidates, leaving it at that. The man in question seemed to me the sort of person who would appreciate the importance of that. I do consider such materials interesting and intellectualy valuable, but I have never pursued these missionary-produced materials, because I am unsure to what extent they represent grammatically and lexically correct Omaha-Ponca. I don't feel that I've done justice to the more reliable materials prepared by Dorsey from native sources, let alone to the resource represented by present speakers of the language, and I've consciously left the potentially less reliable material out of consideration. This said, I believe that most such materials were prepared with the aid of native speakers every bit as conscientious and able as the ones working with linguists (often the same people, in fact). In short, second language errors by the missionaries are probably not a major issue. The only real problems with the materials might be non-native influences on the syntax and the existence of loan words (names and concepts). Of course, this might actually make the material rather more interesting than not, as it presents the reverse of the process of glossing native texts in English. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Mon Apr 7 18:03:45 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (ahartley at d.umn.edu) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 13:03:45 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > a letter from Albert (?) Riggs Stephen Return Riggs? From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com Mon Apr 7 18:45:06 2003 From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 19:45:06 +0100 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Dear Justin et al: My understanding is that Dorsey produced a book called Ponka wa-ba-ru A B C (or something like that) which was a reading book in Ponca. I haven't seen this but I'd e amazed if it didn't have some religious material in it. There was a book produced in Kaw (called something like "The First Kauzas Book") which was witten in an orthography of the sort devised by Rev. Jotham Meeker. This appeared in the 1840s, I think, and no copy of the original 300 printed is known to exist. As far as I know, no other book of ANY sort was ever produced in Kansa (or in Quapaw for that matter), but maybe Bob Rankin has superior info on this. Best Anthony Grant ----- Original Message ----- From: Justin McBride To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 4:28 PM Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Ho! I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? WíblahaN, -Justin McBride -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com Mon Apr 7 18:48:41 2003 From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 19:48:41 +0100 Subject: Dorsey Message-ID: Dear John: Yes, Dorsey was Episcopalian. Odd, since he came from Baltimore, which is a very Catholic city. Best Anthony -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 19:24:40 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 13:24:40 -0600 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions In-Reply-To: <1049738625.f3dcef73217b1@webmail.d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Apr 2003 ahartley at d.umn.edu wrote: > > a letter from Albert (?) Riggs > > Stephen Return Riggs? No, another member of the clan. I can't remember if he was a brother or a son, though I think the latter. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 19:40:41 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 13:40:41 -0600 Subject: Dorsey In-Reply-To: <006c01c2fd36$4fe0f780$f05f8351@a5h1k3> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Anthony Grant wrote: > Yes, Dorsey was Episcopalian. Odd, since he came from Baltimore, > which is a very Catholic city. Well, Maryland was the only colony founded as a Catholic refuge (by Lord Baltimore), but at least as a child in the suburbs I didn't notice an particularly predominance of Catholics around Baltmire or Annapolis in the 1950s. If you ask an American for the name of a Catholic city, they'd come up with Boston, I think. I don't know if I would have noticed, of course, if there were a lot of Catholics around, and perhaps things were difference a hundred years earlier, anyway. At present I think the various Christian sects are fairly randomly distributed across the US. I thought Dorsey was from the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. I think Episcopalianism had a strong presence in Virginia and the upper "Old South" at one point, and Maryland is not that different, culturally, from Virginia. The Tidewater accent area extends from Maryland down into North Carolina along the coast. JEK From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Mon Apr 7 20:02:42 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:02:42 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Hi gang: I think you are referring to Alfred Longly Riggs the son of Stephen Return. For those of you that are interested I have attached the story of a hymn that we use here at Bdecan Presbyterian Church. As I said I am not a linguist nor a very good writer. Later, LouieG -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Message 19 Bethany.doc Type: application/msword Size: 32768 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jmcbride at kayserv.net Mon Apr 7 20:56:06 2003 From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:56:06 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Hey, Gang, Thanks for all the great info and many good leads on the hymnal/Bible question. Some really fascinating stuff. I might be PM-ing a few of you for particulars later on. Thanks! -jm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Apr 8 15:43:58 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 10:43:58 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: > My understanding is that Dorsey produced a book called Ponka wa-ba-ru A B C (or something like that) which was a reading book in Ponca. I haven't seen this but I'd e amazed if it didn't have some religious material in it. There was a book produced in Kaw (called something like "The First Kauzas Book") which was witten in an orthography of the sort devised by Rev. Jotham Meeker. This appeared in the 1840s, I think, and no copy of the original 300 printed is known to exist. As far as I know, no other book of ANY sort was ever produced in Kansa (or in Quapaw for that matter), but maybe Bob Rankin has superior info on this. I've never run across a copy of the little book in Kaw. wish I had. I didn't find any trace of it in the archives of the KS State Historical Society library in Topeka. If 300 copies were originally produced, there must be one SOMEwhere. Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Apr 8 16:01:06 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 11:01:06 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: > I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? JOD's work with all the Dhegiha-speaking groups except Omaha-Ponca was exclusively linguistic as far as I know. He did his preaching during the early part of his career in Nebraska. After he joined the Bureau, he did data collection on all the other Dhegiha dialects, Biloxi and Tutelo and edited Riggs's materials, but I don't think he actually spent a lot of time in the Indian Territory during this period. He made a few trips and interviewed tribal elders when they came to Washington, but unless he conducted purely occasional services, he didn't produce religious materials in the languages he studied after the early 1880's. Most of my knowledge of Dorsey (apart from his field notes, etc.) come from his obituaries and the book by Hinsley with the lurid (but I hope/think humorously intended) title "Savages and Scientists", published by the Smithsonian Institution press. It also contains a photo of Dorsey. Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Tue Apr 8 17:26:42 2003 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 12:26:42 -0500 Subject: Dorsey Message-ID: Koontz John E wrote: > I thought Dorsey was from the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. J. O. Dorsey was born in Baltimore MD. Dorsey is a prominent MD family. George Bushotter settled in Hedgesville WV, about 30 miles from Harpers Ferry. Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Apr 8 23:30:43 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 17:30:43 -0600 Subject: Shoebox and Unicode Message-ID: I just heard from Peter Constable at SIL that an impending version of MS Word for Windows (I don't know which specific version) is supposed to include direct support for the Unicode principle of being able to composed characters from sequences of base characters and diacritic characters. He also indicates that SIL expects "soon" to release a version of Shoebox with Unicode support, though he didn't actually specify that it would handle composed diacritics. And, for what it's worth, my understanding is that Red Hat Linux 8 supports Unicode in some sense, though I mainly know about that in terms of the problems it causes for applications that don't yet support Unicode, e.g., Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf file viewer). JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Apr 9 00:29:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 18:29:01 -0600 Subject: Francis LaFlesche and Osage Plural Marking, etc. Message-ID: This is a comment for Regina Pustet, actually, whose new IJAL article comments on the puzzling difference between the Osage plural in LaFlesche 1932 and in subsequent work. The Osage plural (or augment) marker is =pi, usually fused with the male or female declarative as =p=a (=pa) or =p=e (=pe). This is attested from the late 1800s on, at least. The plural morpheme appears in the LaFlesche 1932 Osage dictionary in an entirely Omaha-Ponca form as =i (and maybe sometimes =bi, which occurs in Omaha-Ponca in certain circumscribed contexts). This is not Osage usage. It is one of several pervasive "Omahaisms" in LaFlesche's presentation of Osage here. I do not know the explanation of these, other than the obvious possibility that LaFlesche had a sort of an Osage-in/Omaha-out approach to remembering Osage. In his defense, the dictionary was published posthumously, so he may not have gotten to do all the editing he'd have liked to do, and, also, I believe things are essentially correct in his Osage texts, which contradicts the "Omaha-out" suggestion. The plurals are also right in Dorsey's Osage text. (Unfortunately, the texts in question are ritual texts, and so somewhat limited in variety as to vocabulary and morphology, which means they haven't attracted the attention that the Omaha texts have.) There are a number of other Omahaisms in LaFlesche 1932, including use of an orthography based largely on Omaha-Ponca phonetics. So bdg are used for ptk, for example. He did distinguish c (ts) (as ds), and he did mark ph/kh as psh and ksh (most of the time) before i and e. He somewhat less consistently represents ph/th ~ ch/kh as p/t ~ ts/k (without underdot) in other contexts. (In fact, ph and kh are px and kx where not psh and ksh, somewhat recalling the situation in Teton.) The underdot is used with tense stops (or preaspirates) pp/tt ~ cc/kk and ejectives. Ejectives are conceptualized as a tense stop plus an exploded (preglottalized) vowel. LaFlesche had difficulty distinguishing Osage u ([u-umlaut]) from Osage i, though he often writes iu or ui for u (and sometimes i). He also writes i for u. The two vowels merge in Osage. Not hearing u properly, he often writes o as u, following the phonetics of *o in Omaha-Ponca. LaFlesche records s : z as c-cedilla, which represents theta : edh as explained in the pronunciation key. I guess the key really only mentions theta, but there was certainly an edh variant, too. Only not in Osage. The pronuniciation key was lifted from his Omaha work and seems to reflect the pronunciation of the dialect of Omaha spoken in the WiNjage village where LaFlesche was raised. Most Omaha-Ponca speakers and all Osage speakers have s : z. The edh here almost certainly contrasts with the other, better known "edh" that Omaha-Ponca has for r or l. That may be really something like a retroflex l, though opinions differ. Anyway, it is l-like in many places, as the Osage version is rather r-like. Anyway, the r or l that comes out "edh" is not a voiced interdental, though it is acoustically similar to American English voiced th in various contexts. As far as I know, no Osage speakers have an actual theta or edh for LaFlesche's c-cedillas. They have s or z and always have, as far as the records show. Of course, there were a lot of Osage speakers at one point, so who knows. It doesn't seem likel, however, that LaFlesche actually encountered anyone with that usage. For some reason LaFlesche chose to merge s and z (or theta and edh) in his c-cedilla scheme. He also merges x and gh (gamma) as x. He does distinguish esh and zhee as sh : zh. The functional load of voicing in fricatives is low in Dhegiha (though everyone distinguishes, for example, si 'foot' vs. zi 'yellow'). The same low functional load combined with a few contrasts occurs in the rest of Mississippi Valley Siouan. But since zh comes from both *z and *y, there are more cases where merging sh and zh would get you in trouble. Or maybe it just feels distributionally wrong to combine them. Initial *y and hence initial zh is much more common than initial voiced fricatives. One other Omahaism of note is that LaFlesche inflects th-stems (the second edh) as bth-/(sh)n-/th-, mostly, whereas Osage actually does something like br-/sht- ~ sc-/dh-. Given his orthographic predilections, this might have been written bth-/sht- ~ sts-/th-, and, in fact, sometimes it is. Otherwise, he sometimes writes p < *W in instrumentals and elsewhere as m, the Omaha-Ponca version, e.g., Osage po comes out mu (or pu). LaFlesche may also have an Omaha-Ponca tendency in his definitions of words, but it is hard to be sure, because a lot of what bothers modern Osage speakers about his definitions is not really Omaha influence, but the influence of old fashioned educated English or old fashioned Western regional English, and specifically the English used in Native American contact situations. One final note: LaFlesche often annotates a form as "Om[aha] same" which is very helpful to students of Omaha-Ponca. A certain amount of caution has to be used with this, however. For example, t.se 'buffalo' is, of course, t.e (tte) in Omaha, even though t.se is marked as "Om. same." John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de Wed Apr 9 05:20:17 2003 From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 07:20:17 +0200 Subject: Shoebox and Unicode In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 17:30 08.04.03 -0600, Koontz John E wrote: >I just heard from Peter Constable at SIL that an impending version of MS >Word for Windows (I don't know which specific version) is supposed to >include direct support for the Unicode principle of being able to composed >characters from sequences of base characters and diacritic characters. What does he mean by "direct support" actually? Unicode is supported since Word 97, which is including the "Combining Diacritical Marks" range. >And, for what it's worth, my understanding is that Red Hat Linux 8 >supports Unicode in some sense, though I mainly know about that in terms >of the problems it causes for applications that don't yet support Unicode, >e.g., Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf file viewer). A word processor with implementations for various OSs incl. UNICes would be OpenOffice.org. Best, Heike From Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Wed Apr 9 11:12:11 2003 From: Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Pustet) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 13:12:11 +0200 Subject: Francis La Flesche and Osage Plural Marking, etc. Message-ID: Pustet schrieb: ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Kommentar: ---------- Hi John Thank you for your explicit comment - this is interesting. As for this strange "Osage" plural marker i, I didn't pursue the issue any further in the paper because I was busy enough with the person markers, and fortunately, the number suffixes didn't turn out to be that important for what I had in mind when writing the paper, i.e. investigating active-stative marking in Lakota and Osage contrastively. >The Osage plural (or augment) marker is =pi, usually fused with the >male or female declarative as =p=a (=pa) or =p=e (=pe). This is attested >from the late 1800s on, at least. The plural morpheme appears in the >LaFlesche 1932 Osage dictionary in an entirely Omaha-Ponca form as =i (and >maybe sometimes =bi, which occurs in Omaha-Ponca in certain circumscribed >contexts). This is not Osage usage. It is one of several pervasive >"Omahaisms" in LaFlesche's presentation of Osage here. >I do not know the explanation of these, other than the obvious >possibility that LaFlesche had a sort of an Osage-in/Omaha-out approach to >remembering Osage. In his defense, the dictionary was published >posthumously, so he may not have gotten to do all the editing he'd have >liked to do, and,also, I believe things are essentially correct in his Osage >texts, which contradicts the "Omaha-out" suggestion. The plurals are also >right in Dorsey's Osage text. (Unfortunately, the texts in question are >ritual texts, and so somewhat limited in variety as to vocabulary and >morphology, which means they haven't attracted the attention that the >Omaha texts have.) I don't know what kind of Omaha-Osage contact situation LaFlesche was in, if any, but could borrowing be an option in explaining his strange "Osage" plurals? >There are a number of other Omahaisms in LaFlesche 1932, including use >of an orthography based largely on Omaha-Ponca phonetics. Plus, the transcription is full of inconsistencies. As for the possible influence of Omaha-Ponca phonetics on LaFlesche's transcription, what you say suggests that he tried to work his way through Osage phonetics on the basis of an Omaha-Ponca template. I could imagine that linguists who have different native language backgrounds, when working on the same language, might come up with slightly different transcriptions. My own typological work with speakers of languages from (almost) all continents shows me, again and again, that in practice, a sound that occurs in two different languages, and is transcribed by the same IPA symbol, is not likely to have the very same acoustic/articulatory properties in the two languages. Best, Regina ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Diese Nachricht wurde ueber den WWW-Server des LRZ verschickt. http://www.lrz-muenchen.de Rechnername des Absenders: stnb-d932e6e7.pool.mediaways.net IP Adresse des Absenders: 217.50.230.231 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Apr 9 17:32:50 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 11:32:50 -0600 Subject: Francis La Flesche and Osage Plural Marking, etc. In-Reply-To: <200304091112.h39BCBc03960@nx113.slb.lrz-muenchen.de> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Pustet wrote: > Thank you for your explicit comment - this is interesting. As for this > strange "Osage" plural marker i, I didn't pursue the issue any further > in the paper because I was busy enough with the person markers, and > fortunately, the number suffixes didn't turn out to be that important > for what I had in mind when writing the paper, i.e. investigating > active-stative marking in Lakota and Osage contrastively. Right, I don't think any of the Omahaisms in LaFlesche would influence the result of this study. > I don't know what kind of Omaha-Osage contact situation LaFlesche was > in, if any, but could borrowing be an option in explaining his strange > "Osage" plurals? Joseph LaFlesche and his children, including Francis, were enrolled members of the Omaha Tribe. Joseph's brother (half-brother, I think) also named Francis, lived with the Ponca and I assume he was enrolled there, too, though I've read less about him. The paternal grandfather, Joseph's father, also named Joseph LaFlesche (or LaFleche) was a French trader, and his sons, including Francis's father Joseph, followed in his footsteps. I wonder if the senior Joseph LaFlesche might also have been metis. Not a lot is known about him, and Omaha and Ponca tradition tends to assess ethnic identity based on the father's ancestry. He is explicitly identified as French, but a great many people fell into categories regarded as whitemen (French) by the Omaha and related groups, but Indian by American authorities. I assume they would have been metis/mestizo in French/Spanish categorizations. I've not encountered anything on Joseph LaFlesche, Sr., that wasn't basically a footnote to the history of his sons. Francis was a native speaker of Omaha and fluent in English as a result of schooling. His father is reputed to have spoken Omaha, Otoe, Pawnee, and French, and to have learned a little English late in life. Francis LaFlesche was an acquainted with Dorsey and did some consulting on Omaha for him, but became associated with the ethnographer Alice Fletcher, who adopted him. They coauthored The Omaha Tribe, published by the BAE. He was an employee of the BIA, and later the BAE. As a BAE ethnographer he worked primarily on Osage, collecting a long series of ritual recitations and publishing them. The Osage Dictionary comes out of that and includes some earlier work from other sources. He is reputed to have been working on an Omaha dictionary in his latter years, but I assume this is the result of some contemporary confusion with the Osage dictionary, which, in the event, seems to be somewhere in between! It's generally considered (since it has been recognized) that the Omaha in Francis LaFlesche's Osage is due to influence from his native language. After all Omaha and Osage are very closely related, perhaps as close as some of the more distinct dialects of Dakotan. It's puzzling, though, that the texts he recorded seem less influenced in this way. In those, however, he had cultural reasons for reproducing the material exactly. In some cases at least he had to memorize the material, as the speakers would not permit recordings or transcription on the spot. These materials had to be memorized and reproduced exactly to be ritually effective. The case of the orthography and its implied phonetics may be a bit different. It was originally developed for use in The Omaha Tribe. There are traces of two stages in its development in that book. In some places the tense stops are spelled bp, dt, gk, in others just p, t, k (identical to the aspirates). The NAA has one piece of manuscript material for The Omaha Tribe that I was able to locate, the list of river names. In this list tense ptk are underdotted. But the dots disappear in the publication. I assume somebody - probably not Francis himself - decided to leave them out. I tend to suspect Fletcher overruled LaFlesche on the dots, but perhaps it was someone on the staff of the Government Printing Office or BAE. There are a few samples of Fletcher's transcriptions here and there, though mostly not in The Omaha Tribe. She writes th for s, for example, confirming that s was [theta] in the WiNjage village. In some cases she (and Francis) use the Hamilton transcription, which has ae for e, e for i, and so on. > Plus, the transcription is full of inconsistencies. As for the > possible influence of Omaha-Ponca phonetics on LaFlesche's > transcription, what you say suggests that he tried to work his way > through Osage phonetics on the basis of an Omaha-Ponca template. Yes. The same was true of the morphology as well, though this not evident in the texts, as far as I can tell. The Christian missionary quotations at the end of LaFlesche 1932 are also pretty much right. LaFlesche (or his postumous editor, whoever that may have been?) lifted them from another source. Carolyn Quintero has a full copy of that in her files. Incidentally, the verb miNkshe niNkshe thiNkshe is the animate 'sitting' positional. It is typically used as a definite article (with animate obviative sitting NPs), and as an auxiliary in various verbal constructions (continuous and future). It has a mixed ?/r inflectional pattern rather like the comparable form in Dakotan. The Omaha version has aspirated k as [kh], of course, rather than [ksh]. (And for those who don't know the LaFlesche system, the th here is edh, not aspirate t.) From Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Wed Apr 9 18:21:58 2003 From: Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Pustet) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 20:21:58 +0200 Subject: Osage plural Message-ID: Pustet schrieb: ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Kommentar: ---------- OK -- LaFlesche's strong Omaha background should explain a lot about his Osage transcription. But what I was wondering is whether the two languages were in a contact situation that made borrowing, i.e. complete adoption, of Omaha/Ponca plural -i into Osage possible. But actually, the more I think about it the less likely I find it that borrowing took place, or that LaFlesche just sort of confused the plural marker in Omaha/Ponca with the plural marker in Osage. There is an alternative explanation: if the original state of affairs is a plural marker -pi in Osage, it is conceivable that it was shortened to -i in the course of time. Such reductive processes are normal, especially with high-frequency items, as Bybee and others tell us, and plural markers are in this category. The Lakota plural marker, which happens to be -pi as well, is a case in point: in today's spoken Lakota, the full form -pi is not that frequent. Realizations of the plural marker run the gamut from -pi, -p, -b, -m, -mp to vowels or semivowels like -w, -u, -o, etc. That Osage -pi is still -pi in LaFlesche's and Dorsey's ceremonial texts would fit the overall picture because ceremonial language tends to be more conservative than everyday language, in which structural reduction happens first. Best, Regina ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Diese Nachricht wurde ueber den WWW-Server des LRZ verschickt. http://www.lrz-muenchen.de Rechnername des Absenders: stnb-d932e714.pool.mediaways.net IP Adresse des Absenders: 217.50.231.20 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Apr 10 14:43:13 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:43:13 -0600 Subject: Osage plural In-Reply-To: <200304091821.h39ILwG12421@nx113.slb.lrz-muenchen.de> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Pustet wrote: > OK -- LaFlesche's strong Omaha background should explain a lot about > his Osage transcription. But what I was wondering is whether the two > languages were in a contact situation that made borrowing, i.e. > complete adoption, of Omaha/Ponca plural -i into Osage possible. No, not really. The Omaha-Ponca-Ioway-Otoe area was separated from the Kaw-Osage area in the historical period by the Pawnee area. The impression conveyed by the Dorsey texts is that the Omaha were primarily in contact with the Otoe and Ponca and Pawnee, while the Ponca were primarily in contact with the Dakota and Omaha. In addition, the only attested instance of this plural pattern (and the other anomalous Omahaisms) is in LaFlesche's dictionary (but not his texts) in the early 1900s. The regular Osage pattern is found in earlier materials (limited, but extant), in the LaFlesche texts, and in more recent work with Osage. > But actually, the more I think about it the less likely I find it that > borrowing took place, or that LaFlesche just sort of confused the > plural marker in Omaha/Ponca with the plural marker in Osage. There is > an alternative explanation: if the original state of affairs is a > plural marker -pi in Osage, it is conceivable that it was shortened to > -i in the course of time. But Bristow and Quintero find pi ~ pa ~ pe today, and LaFlesche uses these, not i, in his texts. It is true that *pi has become i in Omaha-Ponca. In fact, in the speech of the two Omahas I worked with it had been reduced to nil except when certain other morphemes followed it. So adha=i 'he went' (in the 1890s) was adha, but adha=i=the remains adha=i=the, or wadhatha=i=ga=hau remains wadhatha=i=ga=hau. Actually, in the 1890s it was generally wadhatha=i=ga=ha. Use of =u in male speech has increased since then. I have the impression that Poncas may retain =i in final position, and I have heard annecdotally of recent Omaha speakers who did. Note that *pi remains bi in Omaha in (a) names, (b) in songs (at least in the 1890s), and (c) in certain morphological contexts, e.g., before =ama the quotative (so-called - it's more of a marker of reporting used for things that can't be personally vouched for), or in the negative plural =b=az^i. Rory Larson has pointed out that is generally associated with indirect/unvouched for contexts, even when nothing follows it, and that =i alternates with =bi in some morphological contexts to mark that distinction. Anyway, there's no doubt that both the true Osage plural/proximate and the Omaha plural/proximate are cognate with the Dakotan plural. They simply have different modern patterns of allomorphy, and LaFlesche's Osage Dictionary, for unknown reasons, but undoubtedly reflecting the Omaha ethnicity of its compiler, has the Omaha pattern. This does not seem to reflect anything about actual Osage usage at any point. > Such reductive processes are normal, especially with high-frequency > items, as Bybee and others tell us, and plural markers are in this > category. The Lakota plural marker, which happens to be -pi as well, > is a case in point: in today's spoken Lakota, the full form -pi is not > that frequent. Realizations of the plural marker run the gamut from > -pi, -p, -b, -m, -mp to vowels or semivowels like -w, -u, -o, etc. I've often wondered if just this sort of reduction probably explained the pattern of plurals in Crow-Hidatsa, where, in fact, vowels like this are the main plural marker in Crow. It could even explain =tu in Southeastern, e.g., Biloxi, if the -r- here is epenthetic between the stem and the plural "vowel." I assume the various reductions are parallel rather than old. It also looks to me like the present inflected future auxiliary of Crow and Hidatsa, which looks quite different from the situation in Dakotan, is linked to it by the habit in Dhegiha of combining =tta (reflex of *=ktE) with the standing and other positionals, =tta=miNkhe 'I will', tta=dhiNkhe 'you will', =tta=akha 'he will'. In short, the auxiliary pattern in CH could be a highly reduced variant of an analog of the Dhegiha construction. So =tta=miNkhe, etc., reduced to =wi, etc. In Omaha =tta=dhiNkhe can certainly reduce in fast speech to =tta=iNkh. > That Osage -pi is still -pi in LaFlesche's and Dorsey's ceremonial > texts would fit the overall picture because ceremonial language tends > to be more conservative than everyday language, in which structural > reduction happens first. Best, Regina The problem is that the informal daily speech of the last generations of Osage speakers has =pi ~ =p=e (essentially no male speakers recorded!), not =bi ~ =i. It is a bit distressing to have the major lexical resource for Osage contaminated (or maybe hybridized would be a better term) in this way, and even more so not to know exactly why, but we have what we have. I can attest that Omaha speakers who looked at LaFlesche were generally pleased with it. Still, a good deal about it is not Omaha-Ponca. It's not what I would have come up with myself as a generic, cross-dialect representation of Dhegiha, but maybe LaFlesche was groping toward something like that. Probably for such a purpose one would want to write =pi, even though Osage generally has =p=e, and Omaha-Ponca generally have =i. You'd probably want to write ptk or maybe ptck, instead of bdg. How you'd represent *W and *R, which come out mn in OP and ptc in Osage, I don't know. Maybe b and d? You'd want to write all five vowels, even if OP reduces i and u to i, and has something more like u for o. You'd definitely have to write aspiration, but maybe with h rather than the Osage x ~ s^ alternation. The second persons of *r-stems in *s^-R-, which come out s^n > n in OP and s^t > s^t ~ sc in Osage would be a problem. I guess they would have to be s^d, but the modern reflexes are rather different. From Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Thu Apr 10 18:42:33 2003 From: Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Pustet) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:42:33 +0200 Subject: Osage plural Message-ID: Pustet schrieb: ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Kommentar: ---------- Well, in that case, it looks like the "Omaha contamination hypothesis" is the only one we're left with. I brought up borrowing and reduction as possible explanations because I just couldn't believe that LaFlesche was that sloppy. ====== > OK -- LaFlesche's strong Omaha background should explain a lot about > his Osage transcription. But what I was wondering is whether the two > languages were in a contact situation that made borrowing, i.e. > complete adoption, of Omaha/Ponca plural -i into Osage possible. No, not really. The Omaha-Ponca-Ioway-Otoe area was separated from the Kaw-Osage area in the historical period by the Pawnee area. The impression conveyed by the Dorsey texts is that the Omaha were primarily in contact with the Otoe and Ponca and Pawnee, while the Ponca were primarily in contact with the Dakota and Omaha. In addition, the only attested instance of this plural pattern (and the other anomalous Omahaisms) is in LaFlesche's dictionary (but not his texts) in the early 1900s. The regular Osage pattern is found in earlier materials (limited, but extant), in the LaFlesche texts, and in more recent work with Osage. > But actually, the more I think about it the less likely I find it that > borrowing took place, or that LaFlesche just sort of confused the > plural marker in Omaha/Ponca with the plural marker in Osage. There is > an alternative explanation: if the original state of affairs is a > plural marker -pi in Osage, it is conceivable that it was shortened to > -i in the course of time. But Bristow and Quintero find pi ~ pa ~ pe today, and LaFlesche uses these, not i, in his texts. It is true that *pi has become i in Omaha-Ponca. In fact, in the speech of the two Omahas I worked with it had been reduced to nil except when certain other morphemes followed it. So adha=i 'he went' (in the 1890s) was adha, but adha=i=the remains adha=i=the, or wadhatha=i=ga=hau remains wadhatha=i=ga=hau. Actually, in the 1890s it was generally wadhatha=i=ga=ha. Use of =u in male speech has increased since then. I have the impression that Poncas may retain =i in final position, and I have heard annecdotally of recent Omaha speakers who did. Note that *pi remains bi in Omaha in (a) names, (b) in songs (at least in the 1890s), and (c) in certain morphological contexts, e.g., before =ama the quotative (so-called - it's more of a marker of reporting used for things that can't be personally vouched for), or in the negative plural =b=az^i. Rory Larson has pointed out that is generally associated with indirect/unvouched for contexts, even when nothing follows it, and that =i alternates with =bi in some morphological contexts to mark that distinction. Anyway, there's no doubt that both the true Osage plural/proximate and the Omaha plural/proximate are cognate with the Dakotan plural. They simply have different modern patterns of allomorphy, and LaFlesche's Osage Dictionary, for unknown reasons, but undoubtedly reflecting the Omaha ethnicity of its compiler, has the Omaha pattern. This does not seem to reflect anything about actual Osage usage at any point. > Such reductive processes are normal, especially with high-frequency > items, as Bybee and others tell us, and plural markers are in this > category. The Lakota plural marker, which happens to be -pi as well, > is a case in point: in today's spoken Lakota, the full form -pi is not > that frequent. Realizations of the plural marker run the gamut from > -pi, -p, -b, -m, -mp to vowels or semivowels like -w, -u, -o, etc. I've often wondered if just this sort of reduction probably explained the pattern of plurals in Crow-Hidatsa, where, in fact, vowels like this are the main plural marker in Crow. It could even explain =tu in Southeastern, e.g., Biloxi, if the -r- here is epenthetic between the stem and the plural "vowel." I assume the various reductions are parallel rather than old. It also looks to me like the present inflected future auxiliary of Crow and Hidatsa, which looks quite different from the situation in Dakotan, is linked to it by the habit in Dhegiha of combining =tta (reflex of *=ktE) with the standing and other positionals, =tta=miNkhe 'I will', tta=dhiNkhe 'you will', =tta=akha 'he will'. In short, the auxiliary pattern in CH could be a highly reduced variant of an analog of the Dhegiha construction. So =tta=miNkhe, etc., reduced to =wi, etc. In Omaha =tta=dhiNkhe can certainly reduce in fast speech to =tta=iNkh. > That Osage -pi is still -pi in LaFlesche's and Dorsey's ceremonial > texts would fit the overall picture because ceremonial language tends > to be more conservative than everyday language, in which structural > reduction happens first. Best, Regina The problem is that the informal daily speech of the last generations of Osage speakers has =pi ~ =p=e (essentially no male speakers recorded!), not =bi ~ =i. It is a bit distressing to have the major lexical resource for Osage contaminated (or maybe hybridized would be a better term) in this way, and even more so not to know exactly why, but we have what we have. I can attest that Omaha speakers who looked at LaFlesche were generally pleased with it. Still, a good deal about it is not Omaha-Ponca. It's not what I would have come up with myself as a generic, cross-dialect representation of Dhegiha, but maybe LaFlesche was groping toward something like that. Probably for such a purpose one would want to write =pi, even though Osage generally has =p=e, and Omaha-Ponca generally have =i. You'd probably want to write ptk or maybe ptck, instead of bdg. How you'd represent *W and *R, which come out mn in OP and ptc in Osage, I don't know. Maybe b and d? You'd want to write all five vowels, even if OP reduces i and u to i, and has something more like u for o. You'd definitely have to write aspiration, but maybe with h rather than the Osage x ~ s^ alternation. The second persons of *r-stems in *s^-R-, which come out s^n > n in OP and s^t > s^t ~ sc in Osage would be a problem. I guess they would have to be s^d, but the modern reflexes are rather different. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Diese Nachricht wurde ueber den WWW-Server des LRZ verschickt. http://www.lrz-muenchen.de Rechnername des Absenders: stnb-d932e6c6.pool.mediaways.net IP Adresse des Absenders: 217.50.230.198 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Apr 10 20:23:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 14:23:01 -0600 Subject: Osage plural In-Reply-To: <200304101842.h3AIgXJ17433@nx112.slb.lrz-muenchen.de> Message-ID: On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Pustet wrote: > Well, in that case, it looks like the "Omaha contamination hypothesis" > is the only one we're left with. I brought up borrowing and reduction > as possible explanations because I just couldn't believe that > LaFlesche was that sloppy. I've been meaning to note that I've realized in rereading some of my comments that expressions like Osage-in/Omaha-out and contamination have potentially offensive readings that I didn't intend. In particular, I didn't intend any analogy to garbage-in/garbage-out, and I meant contamination only in the sense of adding a non-native element relative to Osage, not in a sense of adding something inherently unworthy or dangerous (like a poison) or of adding something with less merit. I'd also like to address the issue of whether LaFlesche's Omahaisms (which could as well be Poncaisms or Omaha-Poncaisms, except that he was specifically an Omaha) should be regarded as sloppy or deficient. They are certainly contrary to the scientific principle of representing what is observed accurately. And, since they make it harder for a subsequent non-Omaha-Ponca or non-Osage speaking linguist later on to figure out what was actually observed, such an individual would naturally regret them, as I do. However, I don't feel that Francis LaFlesche approached this task as a detached scientific observer, but rather as a culturally-internal literary exercise. So, he probably wasn't simply being careless or unconcerned. On the other hand, he didn't say what he was doing, perhaps because he did die before the project was completed, and so we are left to wonder what precisely he did have in mind. I don't think he willfully misrepresented matters, because he doesn't seem like the sort of personality to do that wantonly, and no suitable motive appears for doing it otherwise. I don't think he was, for example, caught in mid-revision from an Osage-oriented text to an Omaha-Ponca-oriented text, because the mechanics of modifying a dictionary manuscript at the time would militate against first correcting one affix or enclitic system and then another. I don't think he was really trying to produce a generic Dhegiha dictionary, suitable for use by all the Dhegiha groups, because the changes made don't seem consistent with that goal, and I haven't noticed any other tendencies in that direction, apart from the observation in the The Omaha Tribe that the five tribes are cognate, meaning, I take it, that they have very obviously related languages and many parallel social institutions. I'm left with something like what Regina originally suggested - that the texts are morphologically correct because LaFlesche felt a strong duty to reproduce them exactly in all details, while the dictionary reverts in some respects to Omaha-Ponca norms because the results are are approximately and satisfactorily correct and good enough for the context - a context to which he presumably felt a considerable obligation as well. In that case I suppose I would be claiming, in essence, that the "pronunciation" differences between the two plural systems, which seem real and significant to us, meant less to LaFlesche observationally than such matters as using ts instead of t before e and i. I'm not sure I quite believe that, but so far it's the best I'be been able to manage. It might be possible to make some deductions from a consideration of LaFlesche's manuscript (or slip file), perhaps by comparison with Dorsey's Osage slip file, which, as far as I know, is the only manuscript on the subject. I believe the NAA has the manuscript for the Osage Dictionary, or at least the slip file, which I suspect would have been the bulk of the manuscript for such a work, and the source from which it would have been typeset. It occurs to me to wonder if the Government Printing Office has an archive of notes on its publications for the BAE separate from the BAE/NAA materials. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Fri Apr 11 23:03:22 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:03:22 -0500 Subject: Nishnabotna again Message-ID: John Luttig in his Journal of a Fur-Trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri 1812-1813 (p. 41) refers to the Nishnabotna as the Ichinipokine River. I'm by no means sure it's the same word, but if it is, does it shed any light? (Luttig was a native speaker of German.) Alan From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Wed Apr 16 23:46:58 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 18:46:58 -0500 Subject: Osage plural Message-ID: (John wrote:) > Note that *pi remains bi in Omaha in (a) names, (b) in songs > (at least in the 1890s), and (c) in certain morphological > contexts, e.g., before =ama the quotative (so-called - it's > more of a marker of reporting used for things that can't be > personally vouched for), or in the negative plural =b=az^i. > Rory Larson has pointed out that is generally associated with > indirect/unvouched for contexts, even when nothing follows it, > and that =i alternates with =bi in some morphological contexts > to mark that distinction. I'd like to revise my position slightly from what I was arguing when first grappling with this. First, the dichotomy between =i and =bi is quite regular in the Dorsey texts. If the verb is followed by =i, the speaker is asserting it on his own account as the straight goods. If the verb is followed by =bi, it means that the speaker is absolving himself of responsibility for the implication of what he has just said. Thus, =bi is regularly used in reporting hearsay, or in describing a former hypothesis. In the latter role, it may cover supposition or expectation ("supposed to"). In third person declarative statements, neither =i nor =bi normally has anything to do with plurality. They do indicate that the concept is complete rather than progressive, and that it is independent of outside influence. In commands, and in statements and exhortations that use the potential particle /tte/, =i at least signals plurality. There are a few very rare, but illuminating cases, however, in which =i is replaced by =bi in these contexts. Usually, you command a group of people in the form: V=i ga! But if you are conveying someone else's command, you can cast it in the form: N V=bi ga!, where N is the name of the party whose command you are conveying! Similarly, [Concept] tta=i conveys the speaker's assertion that [Concept] is to take place, while [Concept] tta=bi says that [Concept] was supposed to take place, but perhaps didn't. In these cases, I don't know whether =bi would be used in the singular or not. I'm also not clear yet on the use of these particles in declarative you- and we- statements. Tragically, both particles seem to be moribund in modern Omaha. When we first discussed the =i vs. =bi issue, I offered defenses for three situations in which my distinction of =i, fact, vs. =bi, hearsay, seemed to run into trouble: a) The name of the giant killed by Rabbit: Ttaxti-gikhida=bi, glossed as He-For-Whom-They-Shoot-Deer Trouble: By this translation, the particle should be =i, not =bi. Defense: Names are conservative; this one dates to a time when the =i vs. =bi dichotomy had not yet been made. At that time, there was only *bi < MVS *pi, and it indicated plurality. Bound up in a name, the /b/ sound was retained, even as it was lost in comparable derivations from active speech. b) The song in "The Lament of the Fawn over its Mother": In the narrative portion of this story, =i is used in the dialogue over whether the beings were men or crows; yet in the song portion, =bi appears in the same positions that =i had just above. Trouble: If =i and =bi appear in the same place with the same meaning, then maybe they are merely speech variants of the same thing. Defense: Songs, like names, are conservative, because they are memorized. The narrative part, however, is not memorized, and hence reflects standard speech at the time the whole piece was recorded. c) Sentences with =i in the narrative: Normally, the narrative (non-dialogue) portion of the myths has the =bi form. Every now and then, however, the narrative shifts to the =i form for a sentence or two. Trouble: This is a counter-example to the rule of =bi for reporting hearsay. Defense: This shift is stylistic. It may occur for the same reason that we sometimes shift from past to present tense in telling a story: to make it seem more immediate to the listener. Also, the =i form is surely the most common one in daily speech, and requires less vocalization; shifting to it may just indicate a moment of laziness. Of these three "defenses", I think only the third is still necessary. In the "fawn" story (Dorsey p358), the fawn and its mother argue as follows: Fawn: NaNha', dhe'ama ni'ashiNga =i ha. Mother, these men (decl) (emph) Mother, these are men. Mother: AN'khazhi, ni'ashiNga =ba'zhi, kka'gha =i he. Not so, men not-(decl), crows (decl) (emph) No, they're not men, they're crows. The fawn proves correct; the mother is shot and butchered by the hunters. The fawn returns and sings the lament: NaNha', nia'shiNga' =bi ehe', kkagha' =bi eshe' dhaN'shti. Mother, men (hyp) I say, crows (hyp) you say (past). Mother, I said they were men, you said they were crows. In fact, the alternative use of =i and =bi here is exactly as it should be. In the first pair, the two are directly asserting their respective claims as to the identity of the beings, which requires =i. But in the song, the fawn is recalling these assertions as hypotheses that had been stated. As both the correct and the incorrect assertion are reviewed as former hypotheses, =bi is the appropriate particle. Thus, the "song defense" is not needed here. The "giant" story revolves around a giant for whom hunters shot deer, but dared not butcher for themselves, as the giant claimed all kills for himself. The story suggests a thread of outrage over this oppression. I think the inspiration for this story is almost certainly some ancient chief who imposed tribute upon the ancestors of the Omahas, and whose overthrow is here celebrated in a somewhat garbled way as one might expect after a few hundred years of retelling. The giant himself is outraged that Rabbit presumes to cut up a deer without the giant's permission. The name Ttaxti-gikhida=bi is glossed "He-for-whom-they-shoot-deer", but it might actually be better understood as "He-for-whom-deer-are-supposed-to-be-shot". That is, it could be the expectation that tribute is to be rendered to him, rather than the bland observation that people shoot deer for him, that is the true force of this name. In that case, =bi rather than =i would be grammatically appropriate. I've looked through the Omaha names listed in Fletcher and La Flesche. There seem to be about two dozen that use =bi and none that use =i. U'nizha=bi (Meaning uncertain) INshta'dha=bi INshta', eye; dha, cause, bi, he is. Appointed eyes. Refers to the appointed leader of the chase. This name belonged to one who was hereditary leader of the chase. I'nikasha=bi Refers to tribal pipes-- objects by which the tribe is identified as a people. Nia'dishtaga=bi Ni, water; adi, there; shta, from iNshta, eye; gabdha, to open. (See Legend of the Sacred Pole, p. 70), where the name appears without elision. Te'hutaN=bi Te, buffalo; hutaNbi, bellowing. (See ritual, p. 298.) DhispaN=bi To feel of. Refers to corn. (See ritual, p. 266.) WanaN'shekhidha=bi One who is made soldier. Gi'dhikaN=bi He to whom a place is yielded. DaN'a=bi (Meaning uncertain) Mi'naNda=bi The only sun. GiaN'ha=bi Gi, from him; aN'ha, to flee; bi, who is. One who is fled from. EzhnaN'gidha=bi EzhnaN', only; gidhabi, who is favored-- gi, possessive sign; dha, favored; bi, who is. The favored son(?) Wahu'dha=bi One of whom permission is asked. Appears in treaty of 1815. Sigdhe'naNpha=bi Sigdhe, footprints; naNphabi, to fear. One whose footprints, even, are feared. GdhedaN'naNpha=bi Hawk who is feared. Udha'ga=bi Refers to wolf. Uma'a=bi Cut into pieces and spread (scattered?). NaN?aN'=bi NaN?aN, to hear; bi, who is. One who is heard. I'iNga=bi I'iNga, rejected; bi, who is. Dha?e'gidha=bi Dha?e, from dha?edhe, liked or beloved; gi, passive; bi, who is. Refers to a calf that is caressed by its mother. I'kuha=bi I, is; kuhe, fear of the unknown; bi, who is. One who is feared. I'bahaN=bi I'bahaN, to know; bi, he is. He is known. Refers to a chief's son. A striking feature of most of these names is that the subject referred to is passivized. The person being named is known, feared, beloved, rejected, heard, deferred to, appointed to office, or has his eyes opened. Usually the subject's status depends upon the attitude or behavior of others toward him. In contrast, names in which the focus is the subject of an active or stative verb normally are not followed by either =i or =bi. Names like this are numerous, but a good example pair can be found in the names of the magnificent dogs in the story "WahaNdhishige and WakaNdagi", p. 109. In these cases, no entity class noun is specified for them, but only their action with respect to an object: MaN'ze =dhaxaN' Iron breaks-by-mouth Breaks-iron-with-his-teeth IN'?e =dhashi'zhe Stone shivers-by-mouth Shivers-stones-with-his-teeth In a 19th century Omaha statement, these verbs would have to be followed by =i or =bi, unless the implication was that someone else was responsible for their action. That would be a reasonable supposition for dogs, but this is regular for human names as well, and even so, the latter expression should probably come out as IN'?e=dhashi'zhe=e. So whereas a statement uses =i and =bi to signal that the concept is complete rather than progressive, and independent of outside influence, with =i indicating assertion and =bi indicating hypothesis, a name generally uses =bi to signal that the subject is in a passive state relative to the operation of others. It is likely that this =bi imparts a normative claim rather than a factual one. In the texts, there seems to be another use of =i as well. It is certainly most commonly used as described above for statements, but sometimes =i also seems to be used to indicate passivization, much in the way that =bi is used in building names, only with declarative rather than normative force. In statements, I think only =i is used this way. Occasionally this or some other important use of =i will show up in combination with one of the regular =i's or =bi's, as either =i=i or =i=bi. In any case, the =bi that shows up in a name may well indicate the plurality of passivization that occurs in Dakotan; but we cannot be sure that no other semantic implications are involved. A name ending in =bi might mean e.g. "He-who-is-to-be-feared" as easily as "He-who-is-feared". Therefore, I don't think the "name defense" is needed either, though it seems to be true that only =bi occurs in names. > Anyway, there's no doubt that both the true Osage > plural/proximate and the Omaha plural/proximate are > cognate with the Dakotan plural. They simply have > different modern patterns of allomorphy, and LaFlesche's > Osage Dictionary, for unknown reasons, but undoubtedly > reflecting the Omaha ethnicity of its compiler, has the > Omaha pattern. This does not seem to reflect anything > about actual Osage usage at any point. The "name defense" and the "song defense" both rested on the assumption that =i was a recent derivation from =bi. If these riders go away, then I'm not sure that that assumption itself is necessary either. John and Regina have both been arguing on the basis of this assumption, that =i is a reflex of MVS *pi, and that its existence in that form is a quirk unique to OP. Regina has suggested that Osage might have borrowed =i from OP, or that =i might simply be a speech variation of Osage =pi, to explain the =i forms that show up in the La Flesche dictionary of Osage. Against this, John points out the geographical separation of Osage from OP, and the fact that both modern Osage and a set of early ritual texts use =pi for pluralizing; he suspects that La Flesche's Omaha background may somehow have corrupted the dictionary. In OP, we are fortunate enough to have a very rich literature recorded from fully fluent speakers in the late 19th century, which provides a wide variety of grammatical usages. In that language, =i and =bi are radically distinct elements which contrast with each other, while simultaneously signalling several different semantic implications, not just plurality. Given how deeply and subtly embedded these particles are in 19th century OP, can we really be sure that related languages like Osage did not have a comparable contrastive pair? If they did, Osage presumably used the =pi particle most commonly, unlike OP where =i was more frequent. In the old ritual texts, =pi might by chance have been the one used in the grammar of the ritual, and replicated throughout because the grammar there was always the same. In modern times, =pi might indeed be used for plural, in a grammar largely restructured in a process similar to creolization over a hundred years of close exposure to English. In between, Francis La Flesche may have caught some genuine Osage =i forms. His Omaha background may have made it especially likely that he would. Thinking as an Omaha, he might have been trying to elicit =i forms: "Could you say: 'MiNdse kHe oNgdhuza=i' ?" he might have asked, trying to fill out his paradigm, and his elderly informants would nod indulgently and reply, "Yes, you could say that!", though the Osage meaning might have been odd and notably different from what he thought he was getting at. I've looked at the short collection of Osage sayings at the end of the dictionary, which I understand are supposed to be basically correct, and not from La Flesche. There is one case in which =i appears, in the tta=i tHe form which is common in Omaha, and which in the context indicates a very certain future. There are also two or three cases in which =bi is used for what is singular in the translation. Both =azhi and =bazhi are used for the negative plural. If this material is valid, it seems unlikely to me that Osage =pi was simply a pluralizer at the time it was collected. It is certainly true, though, that =bi (=pi) occurs in many places where we would find =i in 19th century Omaha. To me, it seems entirely probable that OP =bi and =i have been distinct particles for a long time, most likely back to proto-Dhegiha and possibly back to MVS. I agree that OP =bi and Osage =pi descend from MVS *pi. But I would like to ask John and other comparativists what evidence causes us to be sure that OP =i derives from the same particle. Rory From dvklinguist at hotmail.com Tue Apr 22 19:57:44 2003 From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 12:57:44 -0700 Subject: Siouan conference Message-ID: Hi all, I wanted to get more info on the Siouan conference this year, which I believe is being held in Michigan (?) in August (?). Wanted to verify this info and find out more about it. I'm very interested in attending and would like to meet all of you involved in Siouan linguistics. As you may remember, I'm the one particularly interested in Ho-Chunk. Thanks, Dave Kaufman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Apr 2 20:11:47 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:11:47 -0600 Subject: AIHEC Report Message-ID: Hi gang: I am back from the American Indian Higher Education Cosortium meeting in Fargo, ND attended by 35 Indian Colleges. I visited with a number of Lakota speakers who say susweca is the Lakota form for dragonfly. They never heard of Ps'ko, but thought it was a bird. Dr. Elton Lawrance gave a talk on the 1862-66 prison letters written in Dakota that are in the Minnesota Historical Society. Some of the letters were written by his great grandfather. He said it took him all of one evening to translate one sentence as the terms they use are not known today. He has the Sisseton-Wahpeton Community College at work on the project with the Rev. Clifford Canku and Rev. Michael Simon (Presbyterians) as well as others assisting him. I saw a video made at Ft. Berthold showing various individuals giving the sign language sign for a word or command, and then pronouncing the term in Hidatsa. English sub-titles were used. It ran for about 15 or 20 minutes. Toksta ake, Louis Garcia From rankin at ku.edu Wed Apr 2 20:51:55 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 14:51:55 -0600 Subject: AIHEC Report Message-ID: > I saw a video made at Ft. Berthold showing various individuals giving the sign language sign for a word or command, and then pronouncing the term in Hidatsa. English sub-titles were used. It ran for about 15 or 20 minutes. Thanks for the report; it sounds like a good meeting. I think the work at Ft. Berthold is especially interesting. There are not nearly enough linguists and Native People documenting the Plains Sign Language. Among professional linguists, I only know of Brenda Farnell, whose work with Assiniboine is very good. Future generations will want to know not only what the signs for various concepts were but also how they were strung together in sentences. This latter is important because the order of spoken words is often very differetn in Lakota/Dakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, Hidatsa and other groups that used the sign language. So did they all put the signs in the same order when they used them, or did they use the order of the words in their spoken languages? These questions and others are important, and I'm glad that some of the people who can still sign fluently are working on the problem(s). Bob Rankin Univ. of Kansas From ahartley at d.umn.edu Wed Apr 2 21:56:00 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 15:56:00 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." Thanks, Alan From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Wed Apr 2 22:19:03 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 16:19:03 -0600 Subject: Sign Language Message-ID: Bob: I have a video tape given to me by Ken Woody (Custer Battlefield employee). It shows Col. Dodge doing signs as well as Indians telling stories with signs. This as well as other old films deposited in various archives are a rich source of information. I think there is one of Tom Mix showing signs too. Contact Ken, through the National Park Service. Later, LouieG From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Thu Apr 3 13:52:40 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 07:52:40 -0600 Subject: Sign Language Message-ID: Hau Friends: I made a mistate yesterday. It was Tim McCoy who made the film short on the sign language. I remember as a kid paying 15 cents to see the movies on Saturday. You saw the newsreel and Tim McCoy too. Later, LouieG From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Apr 3 16:39:27 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:39:27 -0700 Subject: Correction on sun/moon 'RE: Colors in Dakota' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, Koontz John E wrote: > ... Though in principle *R and *W appear as n and m only and *r and *w > appears as n/m or dh/w depending the nasality of the next vowel, there > are some exceptions, in the sense that some *R + V sequences appear in > Dhegiha or sometimes just Omaha-Ponca as nVN. The 'sun/moon' word is > one of the former. Oops, the root shape here is not *RV, but *WV, cf. Dakotan wi-, IO bi (I think?), appearing in OP as mi(N), though I think 'moon' has innovated n (niaNba for expected miaNba) in OP. It's not clear in OP that the m is a problem, but the root also appears in Osage as mi(N), and here we would expect pi, so it seems that Proto-Dhegiha had *wiN (or *WiN?) irregularly instead of expected *Wi. Confusingly, R and W represent actual sounds, while V means 'any vowel', and N indicates nasalization. Three different expedient uses of capitalization! The R and W symbols are particularly awkward expedients for representing unknown sounds in the r-to-t and w-to-p ranges. We usually read R and W as "funny r" and "funny w," with "funny" in the sense 'odd, unusual'. (This is the Siouanist answer to proto-Algonquian "theta.") The correspondences involved are quite regular, in spite of this particular exception, but seem to sit half way between the sets for *r and *t or *w and *p in terms of reflexes. *R and *W were recognized as sets by Dorsey, but get mixed with *r and *w in Wolff. I believe Kaufman had sorted them out again, and recopnstructed *?r and *?w. I forget how Matthews treated them. I think he may have followed Wolff in this, trying to provide a contextual account for the exceptions. From rankin at ku.edu Thu Apr 3 16:52:11 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 10:52:11 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: John and I puzzled over this one when we were trying to etymologize Lewis and Clark names for Moulton. It could be Algonquian, since nishnabe or something very close to it is 'man'. It also looks like Omaha /ni $nabe/ roughly 'dirty water'. The problem is the -otna in both instances. Maybe Jimm can enlighten us on whether "canoe making river" is a reasonable Otoe etymology. Shnabotna doesn't look like 'canoe making' to me though. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Alan H. Hartley [mailto:ahartley at d.umn.edu] Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 3:56 PM To: Siouan Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." Thanks, Alan From tleonard at prodigy.net Thu Apr 3 17:31:38 2003 From: tleonard at prodigy.net (Tom Leonard) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:31:38 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: I believe this is ni-$nabe toN(g)a - or "Big Dirty River", perhaps the name of a specific river or creek. TML > John and I puzzled over this one when we were trying to etymologize Lewis > and Clark names for Moulton. It could be Algonquian, since nishnabe or > something very close to it is 'man'. It also looks like Omaha /ni $nabe/ > roughly 'dirty water'. The problem is the -otna in both instances. Maybe > Jimm can enlighten us on whether "canoe making river" is a reasonable Otoe > etymology. Shnabotna doesn't look like 'canoe making' to me though. > > Bob > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alan H. Hartley [mailto:ahartley at d.umn.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 3:56 PM > To: Siouan > Subject: Nishnabotna etym. > > > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an > Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." > > Thanks, > > Alan From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Fri Apr 4 03:32:21 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 20:32:21 -0700 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. In-Reply-To: <3E8B5C70.9020402@d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an > Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." I assume Clark was representing something like /nis^nabetone/. My recollections of working on this term for Moulton with Bob Rankin and Doug Parks are about the same as Bob's. It corresponds, I believe to the placename usually spelled Nishnabotna, which is somewhat syncopated over Clark's form. In accord with Tom Leonard's suggestion, /tone/ might possibly represent Osage or Kaw versions of /htaNka/ (Os) or /ttaNga/ (Ks), which I think may tend tend to lose the velar. Omaha-Ponca has /ttaNga/. The same form would come out /thaNe/ ~ /than[y]e/ in Ioway-Otoe, but IO substitutes another term for 'big'. The phonology isn't quite right for any of these, except maybe the hypothetical and entirely unattested IO one. Bob Rankin and I did note that same form s^nabe 'dirty' that Tom came up with. The name in that parallels the (Little and Big) Nemaha 'Miry River' in sense. Actually a lot of river names in this area embody a comment on the amount of sediment in the water (or maybe the soil on the banks). The IO term for 'boat' is ba(a)j^e < *Waat(e). One might just think to discern it in "bot," but then the rest of the word (after ni) doesn't work. Of course, it would be possible to have a term that implied boats and referred, say, to making them, but the form doesn't seem to have an etymology in those terms. What I have noticed since then is a form in LaFlesche 1930, the Osage dictionary, p. 107v ni-hni'-bo-shta 'two springs not far from each other, one clear and sweet, the other black and bitter. A strange feature in connection with these springs was that there was a peculiar movement that caused the Indians to call them shooting springs. This was the final camp of the second buffalo trail.' Immediately before this is ni-hni' 'water cold; a spring or well.' The remainder, bo-shta seems to have the 'shooting instrumental' (cf. OP mu=). The particular verb doesn't seem to be attested in LaFlesche as an independent form. I'd make the form in something less Omaha-influenced and more Osage looking, something like niN s^niN pos^ta. I think pos^taN might be 'to miss in shooting'. Osage does have bo-gthoN-tha 'to miss a mark' (LaFlesche 1930:294b). This would be poloNdha, or earlier on [pogloNdha ~ podloNdha]. I suppose this might have been heard as [podnodha], given the nasalized vowel (with [dha] alternating with [ra] or [la] or [na] or, in fast speech [a]). If the latter term were substituted for the first (and this substitution were deemed reasonable), I suppose a name like niN s^niN podnoN(n)a might be produced. That's probably a bit tendentious, however, and I'm pretty sure that we're not dealing with the same places, but only parallel names. I'm not sure that the 'spring' term is reall 'cold water', though IO has what I take to be n[y]i(N)riN=xti < niN sniN=xti 'very cold water'. JEK From goodtracks at GBRonline.com Fri Apr 4 04:05:50 2003 From: goodtracks at GBRonline.com (Jimm GoodTracks) Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 22:05:50 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: Yes, I saw the suggestion that the name may have came from IOM. However, that is not likely. While, there in "nyi = water", canoe making would have to be from "baje = boat" and "?un (make; do)" [or] "gaxe (make; construct)". Several of the other suggested etymologies appear to hold greater promise. Jimm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rankin, Robert L" To: Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 10:52 AM Subject: RE: Nishnabotna etym. > John and I puzzled over this one when we were trying to etymologize Lewis > and Clark names for Moulton. It could be Algonquian, since nishnabe or > something very close to it is 'man'. It also looks like Omaha /ni $nabe/ > roughly 'dirty water'. The problem is the -otna in both instances. Maybe > Jimm can enlighten us on whether "canoe making river" is a reasonable Otoe > etymology. Shnabotna doesn't look like 'canoe making' to me though. > > Bob > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alan H. Hartley [mailto:ahartley at d.umn.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 3:56 PM > To: Siouan > Subject: Nishnabotna etym. > > > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is an > Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." > > Thanks, > > Alan > > From rankin at ku.edu Fri Apr 4 15:37:36 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 09:37:36 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: I can't add a thing to John's analysis except that it might pay to look at the original handwriting in the L&C journals to see if anything else can be made of the last couple of syllables. That's sort of a last resort, I guess. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu] Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 9:32 PM To: Siouan Subject: Re: Nishnabotna etym. On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is > an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." I assume Clark was representing something like /nis^nabetone/. My recollections of working on this term for Moulton with Bob Rankin and Doug Parks are about the same as Bob's. It corresponds, I believe to the placename usually spelled Nishnabotna, which is somewhat syncopated over Clark's form. In accord with Tom Leonard's suggestion, /tone/ might possibly represent Osage or Kaw versions of /htaNka/ (Os) or /ttaNga/ (Ks), which I think may tend tend to lose the velar. Omaha-Ponca has /ttaNga/. The same form would come out /thaNe/ ~ /than[y]e/ in Ioway-Otoe, but IO substitutes another term for 'big'. The phonology isn't quite right for any of these, except maybe the hypothetical and entirely unattested IO one. Bob Rankin and I did note that same form s^nabe 'dirty' that Tom came up with. The name in that parallels the (Little and Big) Nemaha 'Miry River' in sense. Actually a lot of river names in this area embody a comment on the amount of sediment in the water (or maybe the soil on the banks). The IO term for 'boat' is ba(a)j^e < *Waat(e). One might just think to discern it in "bot," but then the rest of the word (after ni) doesn't work. Of course, it would be possible to have a term that implied boats and referred, say, to making them, but the form doesn't seem to have an etymology in those terms. What I have noticed since then is a form in LaFlesche 1930, the Osage dictionary, p. 107v ni-hni'-bo-shta 'two springs not far from each other, one clear and sweet, the other black and bitter. A strange feature in connection with these springs was that there was a peculiar movement that caused the Indians to call them shooting springs. This was the final camp of the second buffalo trail.' Immediately before this is ni-hni' 'water cold; a spring or well.' The remainder, bo-shta seems to have the 'shooting instrumental' (cf. OP mu=). The particular verb doesn't seem to be attested in LaFlesche as an independent form. I'd make the form in something less Omaha-influenced and more Osage looking, something like niN s^niN pos^ta. I think pos^taN might be 'to miss in shooting'. Osage does have bo-gthoN-tha 'to miss a mark' (LaFlesche 1930:294b). This would be poloNdha, or earlier on [pogloNdha ~ podloNdha]. I suppose this might have been heard as [podnodha], given the nasalized vowel (with [dha] alternating with [ra] or [la] or [na] or, in fast speech [a]). If the latter term were substituted for the first (and this substitution were deemed reasonable), I suppose a name like niN s^niN podnoN(n)a might be produced. That's probably a bit tendentious, however, and I'm pretty sure that we're not dealing with the same places, but only parallel names. I'm not sure that the 'spring' term is reall 'cold water', though IO has what I take to be n[y]i(N)riN=xti < niN sniN=xti 'very cold water'. JEK From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Fri Apr 4 18:00:44 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 12:00:44 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have somehow missed it) doesn?t give tense a very strong treatment. What I have seen is that Ho-Chunk seems to make a future - non-future distinction based on the suffix -kjene or the intentive -kje. Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. Jagu aire? Jagu e-ire? What say-3Pl? What did they say? Jagu anaaNk? Jagu e-naaNk? What say-3Pl? What are they saying? I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the future. Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative That man is singing (seated). waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN- naN man that (sit) sing- Declarative. That man sang. In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I?m especially curious about Chiwere)? Thank you. On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you all again. Henning Garvin UW-Madison Anthropology/Linguistics _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From rood at spot.Colorado.EDU Fri Apr 4 21:15:07 2003 From: rood at spot.Colorado.EDU (ROOD DAVID S) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 14:15:07 -0700 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In Lakota certainly, and as far as I can tell in the other Siouan languages, the category that corresponds most closely to English tense is "realis/irrealis". Lakota speakers distinguish events that are real, in the sense that they have occurred or are occurring, from everything else. The morpheme "kta/kte", Hochunk kje, marks "irrealis". Frequently, therefore that will match up with an English future, but it also matches various kinds of predictions, "maybe", and "probably" kinds of sentences, complements of verbs like "want" and "hope", etc. There are adverbs to indicate time, like "yesterday" or "a while ago" or "right now", and others to indicate the degree of confidence a speaker has in the probability of an event, but these categories aren't marked systematically on the verbs. Hope that helps. DAvid David S. Rood Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Colorado 295 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0295 USA rood at colorado.edu On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Henning Garvin wrote: > > I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in > general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have > somehow missed it) doesn?t give tense a very strong treatment. > What I have seen is that Ho-Chunk seems to make a future - non-future > distinction based on the suffix > -kjene or the intentive -kje. > > Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the > subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. > > Jagu aire? > Jagu e-ire? > What say-3Pl? > What did they say? > > Jagu anaaNk? > Jagu e-naaNk? > What say-3Pl? > What are they saying? > > I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there > is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only > form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the > future. > Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > That man is singing (seated). > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > That man sang. > > In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite > article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. > > My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what > i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read > in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I?m especially curious > about Chiwere)? Thank you. > > On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a > vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. > You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have > become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you > all again. > > Henning Garvin > UW-Madison > Anthropology/Linguistics > > _________________________________________________________________ > Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > From rankin at ku.edu Fri Apr 4 21:39:33 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 15:39:33 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I think that in those Siouan languages where tense morphology may actually exist, it represents an innovation. Often it seems to involve an auxiliary, *?uN 'do, be' with one or more prefixes that has become grammaticalized. There really are no past tense morphemes, per se. I would say that this statement about the lack of tense is true even for the so-called 'future'. If you ask for a sentence in future time, you will normally get a reply with (iN)-ktA in Dakota and its equivalent in other languages. But this affix means both more and less than 'future tense'. You'll also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' and other utterances that make it clear that what it really marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something that hasn't actually happened. There is plenty of morphology that marks modalities and plenty that marks aspect (progressive/continuative, habitual, perfect, etc.). Ordinarily, if time reference is really required, it is provided with an adverb or a temporal conjunction. I did a talk on this when I was in Australia and can send a copy of the draft if you like. It isn't very polished. It is the progressive or continuative aspect that usually uses the positional auxiliaries (although Mauricio Mixco also finds it in use with other constructions as well in his Mandan sketch). But action of the verb can be progressive in the past or the future as well as the present, so the positionals don't necessarily mark present. The traditional grammarians who produced the earlier (often very good) grammars of Dakota, Lakota, etc. used terms like 'future' because they didn't distinguish 'kind of action' from 'time of action' in their grammars. It is still used to translate ktA today by some. But, as I say, I don't think it's tense per-se. >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. Jagu aire? Jagu e-ire? What say-3Pl? What did they say? Jagu anaaNk? Jagu e-naaNk? What say-3Pl? What are they saying? HC may operate differently from LAK in this regard, but I'd guess that the difference between the two above examples would be non-continuing vs. continuing action, not tense. Try "what do they say?" for the first and "what were they saying" for the second and see what emerges. I can't begin to predict, but it should be interesting to contrast all four meanings. >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the future.Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative That man is singing (seated). waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. waNk naNka naNwaN- naN man that (sit) sing- Declarative. That man sang. How about 'that man was singing' and 'that man sings well', where the first is progressive but in the past and the second is present but not progressive. I really wonder if you'll get any overt tense morphology. Bob Rankin >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. >My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm especially curious about Chiwere)? Thank you. >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you all again. Henning Garvin UW-Madison Anthropology/Linguistics From warr0120 at umn.edu Fri Apr 4 23:49:09 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 17:49:09 CST Subject: Tense Message-ID: Hi Bob, I'd love to see your draft paper on modalities and aspect in Dakota! Pat Warren On 4 Apr 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > I think that in those Siouan languages where tense > morphology may actually exist, it represents an > innovation. Often it seems to involve an auxiliary, > *?uN 'do, be' with one or more prefixes that has become > grammaticalized. There really are no past tense > morphemes, per se. I would say that this statement > about the lack of tense is true even for the so-called > 'future'. If you ask for a sentence in future time, > you will normally get a reply with (iN)-ktA in Dakota > and its equivalent in other languages. But this affix > means both more and less than 'future tense'. You'll > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' and > other utterances that make it clear that what it really > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something that > hasn't actually happened. > > There is plenty of morphology that marks modalities and > plenty that marks aspect (progressive/continuative, > habitual, perfect, etc.). Ordinarily, if time > reference is really required, it is provided with an > adverb or a temporal conjunction. I did a talk on this > when I was in Australia and can send a copy of the > draft if you like. It isn't very polished. > > It is the progressive or continuative aspect that > usually uses the positional auxiliaries (although > Mauricio Mixco also finds it in use with other > constructions as well in his Mandan sketch). But > action of the verb can be progressive in the past or > the future as well as the present, so the positionals > don't necessarily mark present. > > The traditional grammarians who produced the earlier > (often very good) grammars of Dakota, Lakota, etc. used > terms like 'future' because they didn't distinguish > 'kind of action' from 'time of action' in their > grammars. It is still used to translate ktA today by > some. But, as I say, I don't think it's tense per-se. > > >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is > given to indicate the > subject. However, in getting forms this actually is > the past tense. > > Jagu aire? > Jagu e-ire? > What say-3Pl? > What did they say? > > Jagu anaaNk? > Jagu e-naaNk? > What say-3Pl? > What are they saying? > > HC may operate differently from LAK in this regard, but > I'd guess that the difference between the two above > examples would be non-continuing vs. continuing action, > not tense. Try "what do they say?" for the first and > "what were they saying" for the second and see what > emerges. I can't begin to predict, but it should be > interesting to contrast all four meanings. > > >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists > these forms. Yet there > is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This > seems to be the only > form that indicates something took place in the past > rather than not in the > future.Past can be indicated through the absence of the > positional in other cases. > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > That man is singing (seated). > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > That man sang. > > How about 'that man was singing' and 'that man sings > well', where the first is progressive but in the past > and the second is present but not progressive. I > really wonder if you'll get any overt tense morphology. > > Bob Rankin > > >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced > with the indefenite > article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the > same effect. > > >My question is if you all think there is more to tense > in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening > in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper > somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm > especially curious > about Chiwere)? Thank you. > > >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as > a person with a > vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really > appreciate this List. > You all have no idea how much more efficient and > valuable my studies have become based on the archives > and current comments on this List. Thank you all > again. > > Henning Garvin > UW-Madison > Anthropology/Linguistics > > > From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Sat Apr 5 01:11:37 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 19:11:37 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: Hello Henning, >I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in >general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have >somehow missed it) doesn't give tense a very strong treatment. >What I have seen is that Ho-Chunk seems to make a future - non-future >distinction based on the suffix >-kjene or the intentive -kje. You're raising an interesting question. David Rood's reply, based on Lakhota, sums up the doctrine on Siouan tense as I have learned it. That is, there is no grammatical timestamp on sentences, as there is in Indo-European, though time can be indicated explicitly by temporal adverbs. Instead, there is a particle of potentiality that follows the verb, which indicates that the action is only a possibility, an intent, or an inclination, not a fact. In Lakhota, this particle is ktA, in Omaha ttE, and in Winnebago it is apparently kjE. Since the future is only a possibility or an intent, not a fact, this particle is used to express what we Indo-European speakers would call the future. That being said, the actual grammar of making sentences seems to be bafflingly complex, and includes considerations English never thought of. My background in Siouan involves two years of Lakhota taken about a decade ago as a formal course, and about three years of Omaha going on now as a figure-it-out-by-the-seat-of-your-pants sequence. I would like to swap notes with you in grammatically comparing Winnebago to Omaha, but my own knowledge of Winnebago is almost nill. Could I ask you to help analyze your examples morphemically? >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is given to indicate the >subject. However, in getting forms this actually is the past tense. >Jagu aire? >Jagu e-ire? >What say-3Pl? >What did they say? >Jagu anaaNk? >Jagu e-naaNk? >What say-3Pl? >What are they saying? So /jagu/ means "what". I assume this is equivalent to Lakhota /taku/. Then we have /a/ or /e/ for "say". In OP it's the same. By Bob's and John's analysis, /e/ should be considered the basic form, and /a/ would be the ablauted form caused by an original leading a- in the following particle. Finally, we have two alternative modal particles, /ire/ and /naaNk/, at the end, which close the sentence. Both indicate that the subject of /e/ is 3rd person plural. Both force the /e/ to ablaut to /a/. But while /ire/ implies that the action is in the past, /naaNk/ implies that it is in the present. Have I understood your examples correctly? If so, could /naaNk/ be described as a positional? To me, it looks like OP /dhaNkHa'/, which shows up now and then in the Dorsey texts, apparently as the plural of /dhiNkhe'/, but which is denied by our modern speakers. In OP, these two terms seem to have the flavor of "sitting", or "object of the action". In OP, at least in the 19th century, sentences seldom ended with a verb; rather the final verb was almost always followed by one or more particles expressing the modality and the demand of the sentence. Your Winnebago particles /ire/ and /naaNk/ seem to behave in the same way. In 19th century OP, the modal particle /i/ directly followed a verb and made you focus on it as a discrete action. Alternatively, you could simply finish a sentence with a positional after the verb; this would indicate that the verb was the state of affairs with its subject in the classificatory state implied by the positional itself. Here, we set the scene rather than describe an occurrence. Or, as Bob has put it, the action is progressive. I don't recall whether modal particles in this position force ablaut in OP; my feeling is that they don't. However, they do force ablaut on the potential particle /ttE/ in constructions that indicate a fairly definite future: tta miNkHe I will tta tHe you will, s/he will tta akHa s/he will of their own accord tt(a) oNgatHoN we will The Winnebago particle /ire/ is especially interesting to me because of a discussion we had on the list just over a year ago about two alternate OP particles, /i/ and /bi/. The /bi/ at least ought to be cognate with Lakhota /pi/ and Chiwere /wi/. Doesn't Winnebago also have a pluralizing particle /wi/? I seem to recall from Lipkind that both /wi/ and /ire/ existed as pluralizing particles in Winnebago, but that /ire/ was only used in the 3rd person-- is this correct? Anyway, in 19th century OP, /bi/ and /i/ both make you focus on the act rather than the state, but /bi/ implies hearsay while /i/ implies the straight goods. Used in the 3rd person, both can be either singular or plural, though in other contexts, such as commands, both can be pluralizers. The view has been that /i/ is a variant of /bi/ in its origin, and hence equates to /pi/ and /wi/. But I wonder if it could not actually be cognate to at least part of HC /ire/ instead? Can /ire/ be analyzed in Winnebago? Do we have cognates of /ire/ in other Siouan languages? >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet there >is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the only >form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in the >future. >Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other cases. >waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. >waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. >man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative >That man is singing (seated). >waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. >waNk naNka naNwaN- naN >man that (sit) sing- Declarative. >That man sang. So /waNk/ is "man". The word /naNka/ or /naNk/ is a positional indicating "sitting" and "singular". Does this alternate with /naaNka/ or /naaNk/, with a long 'aN', meaning "sitting" and "plural"? In OP, a number of Dhegihan 'aN' sounds have shifted to 'iN', apparently when unaccented and preceding an accented syllable. Is shortness of the vowel also a factor in this? Compare OP /dhiNkHe'/, "sitting" and "singular" with OP /dhaNkHa'/, "sitting" and "plural". The verb /naNwaN/ means "sing". /naN/ is the declarative demand particle. What is /s^aN/? That should be important here, but I don't see a gloss for it. >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite >article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. >My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than what >i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read >in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future >distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm especially curious >about Chiwere)? Thank you. Hope that helps some. And thank you if you can answer some of my scattered questions about Ho-Chunk! Rory >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as a person with a >vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really appreciate this List. >You all have no idea how much more efficient and valuable my studies have >become based on the archives and current comments on this List. Thank you >all again. >Henning Garvin >UW-Madison >Anthropology/Linguistics From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Sat Apr 5 02:41:13 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 20:41:13 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I would >like to swap notes with you in grammatically comparing Winnebago to >Omaha, but my own knowledge of Winnebago is almost nill. Could I ask >you to help analyze your examples morphemically? Sure thing! > >Jagu aire? > >Jagu e-ire? > >What say-3Pl? > >What did they say? > > >Jagu anaaNk? > >Jagu e-naaNk? > >What say-3Pl? > >What are they saying? > >So /jagu/ means "what". I assume this is equivalent to Lakhota /taku/. > >Then we have /a/ or /e/ for "say". In OP it's the same. By Bob's >and John's analysis, /e/ should be considered the basic form, and /a/ >would be the ablauted form caused by an original leading a- in the >following particle. > >Finally, we have two alternative modal particles, /ire/ and /naaNk/, >at the end, which close the sentence. Both indicate that the subject >of /e/ is 3rd person plural. Both force the /e/ to ablaut to /a/. >But while /ire/ implies that the action is in the past, /naaNk/ implies >that it is in the present. > >Have I understood your examples correctly? Absolutely. > >If so, could /naaNk/ be described as a positional? >To me, it looks like OP /dhaNkHa'/, which shows up >now and then in the Dorsey texts, apparently as the >plural of /dhiNkhe'/, but which is denied by our >modern speakers. In OP, these two terms seem to >have the flavor of "sitting", or "object of the >action". That is another good question. As far as I can tell /naaNk/ simply implies plural regardless of the orientation of the subject. So it can be used when talking about a group of objects that are positioned vertically, horizontally, moving, 'sitting' or a mixture of all of these. It is curious though, that it occurs in the place where the positional would have occurred if the subject were singular. Both after the verb and also in the demonstrative. As far as demostratives go, basically /naNka/ would be 'that (sitting)' while /naaNka/ would be 'those'. The demonstrative is generally described as a the form /-ga/ attached to the positionals (/je/, /naNk/,/ak/) and to the plural form /naaNk/. Perhaps this somehow has lost its positional flavor over time. I am hoping someone with the comparative Siouan knowledge will be able to help out on this one. > >In OP, at least in the 19th century, sentences >seldom ended with a verb; rather the final verb >was almost always followed by one or more particles >expressing the modality and the demand of the >sentence. Your Winnebago particles /ire/ and >/naaNk/ seem to behave in the same way. > >In 19th century OP, the modal particle /i/ >directly followed a verb and made you focus on it >as a discrete action. Alternatively, you could >simply finish a sentence with a positional after >the verb; this would indicate that the verb was >the state of affairs with its subject in the >classificatory state implied by the positional >itself. Here, we set the scene rather than >describe an occurrence. Or, as Bob has put it, >the action is progressive. > >I don't recall whether modal particles in this >position force ablaut in OP; my feeling is that >they don't. However, they do force ablaut on the >potential particle /ttE/ in constructions that >indicate a fairly definite future: > > tta miNkHe I will > tta tHe you will, s/he will > tta akHa s/he will of their own accord > tt(a) oNgatHoN we will > >The Winnebago particle /ire/ is especially interesting >to me because of a discussion we had on the list just >over a year ago about two alternate OP particles, /i/ >and /bi/. The /bi/ at least ought to be cognate with >Lakhota /pi/ and Chiwere /wi/. Doesn't Winnebago also >have a pluralizing particle /wi/? I seem to recall >from Lipkind that both /wi/ and /ire/ existed as >pluralizing particles in Winnebago, but that /ire/ was >only used in the 3rd person-- is this correct? Yes, /-wi/ is the general pluralizer except in 3Pl, for which Lipkind does list /-ire/. Anyway, >in 19th century OP, /bi/ and /i/ both make you focus on >the act rather than the state, but /bi/ implies hearsay >while /i/ implies the straight goods. Used in the 3rd >person, both can be either singular or plural, though >in other contexts, such as commands, both can be >pluralizers. The view has been that /i/ is a variant >of /bi/ in its origin, and hence equates to /pi/ and >/wi/. But I wonder if it could not actually be cognate >to at least part of HC /ire/ instead? Can /ire/ be >analyzed in Winnebago? Do we have cognates of /ire/ in >other Siouan languages? Again I'm hoping the others can help us out on this. > > > >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists these forms. Yet >there > > >is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This seems to be the >only > > >form that indicates something took place in the past rather than not in >the > >future. > >Past can be indicated through the absence of the positional in other >cases. > > >waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > >waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > >man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > >That man is singing (seated). > > >waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > >waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > >man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > >That man sang. > >So /waNk/ is "man". > >The word /naNka/ or /naNk/ is a positional indicating >"sitting" and "singular". Does this alternate with >/naaNka/ or /naaNk/, with a long 'aN', meaning "sitting" >and "plural"? In OP, a number of Dhegihan 'aN' sounds >have shifted to 'iN', apparently when unaccented and >preceding an accented syllable. Is shortness of the >vowel also a factor in this? Compare OP /dhiNkHe'/, >"sitting" and "singular" with OP /dhaNkHa'/, "sitting" >and "plural". See what I wrote above on demonstratives. The positional forms in HC are as follows: /naNk/ 'seated' /je/ 'vertical' /ak/ 'horizontal' /ak/ 'in motion' All of these indicate singular, and are seemingly replaced by /naaNk/ for indicating plural. > >The verb /naNwaN/ means "sing". > >/naN/ is the declarative demand particle. > >What is /s^aN/? That should be important here, but >I don't see a gloss for it. Sorry if it isn't clear. /naN/ and /s^aNnaN/ are the declarative suffix. the former is used follwing a vowel while the latter is used following a consonant. This is another interesting area. The form which follows vowels, /naN/, is rarely uttered in speech. Rather the statement is ended abruptly on the segment preceding the form and is often percieved by non-speakers as an unreleased stop. I think what you end up hearing is the oral closure made for the /n/. In /s^aNnaN/,which follows a consonant, only the initial syllable of the form is actually produced, and once again the statement ends abruptly. SO the /s^aN/ part of the word is produced, but not the rest of it. I am unaware of any attempt to seperate /s^aN/ from /naN/ but given my relative lack of experience that doesn't mean it isn't happening. I have been living under the impression these are allomorphs and never paid them much attention, but if there is another idea out there regarding this please let me know:) > >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced with the indefenite > >article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the same effect. > > >My question is if you all think there is more to tense in Ho-Chunk than >what > >i have read? What is happening in other Siouan langauges. I believe I >read > >in a paper somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > >distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm especially >curious > > >about Chiwere)? Thank you. > >Hope that helps some. And thank you if you can >answer some of my scattered questions about Ho-Chunk! > >Rory This helps a great deal. All of it thus far. Hope you can make some sense of what I wrote and it helps to answer your questions. Henning _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus From rankin at ku.edu Sun Apr 6 00:57:00 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (R. Rankin) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 18:57:00 -0600 Subject: Tense Message-ID: Hi Pat, I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the statements/arguments work just about as well for Dakotan too. This draft is pretty rough. I was asked to talk on the subject while I was a Fellow at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology in Melbourne. I cobbled it together using a Quapaw text I had analyzed for a sketch of that language, an Omaha text from James Owen Dorsey (1890) and maybe one or two others. It doesn't set out to "prove" that Siouan lacks tense as a verbal category but rather concentrates on the use of aspect, constitutent order, temporal conjunctions and adverbs, as well as grammaticalized particles to convey time distinctions. It was strictly an oral presentation to accompany typological surveys of tense and time being dong there by Fritz Serzisko of the U. of Koeln. Best, Bob Rankin ----- Original Message ----- From: warr0120 To: Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 5:49 PM Subject: Re: Tense > Hi Bob, > > I'd love to see your draft paper on modalities and aspect in Dakota! > > Pat Warren > > On 4 Apr 2003, R. Rankin wrote: > > I think that in those Siouan languages where tense > > morphology may actually exist, it represents an > > innovation. Often it seems to involve an auxiliary, > > *?uN 'do, be' with one or more prefixes that has become > > grammaticalized. There really are no past tense > > morphemes, per se. I would say that this statement > > about the lack of tense is true even for the so-called > > 'future'. If you ask for a sentence in future time, > > you will normally get a reply with (iN)-ktA in Dakota > > and its equivalent in other languages. But this affix > > means both more and less than 'future tense'. You'll > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' and > > other utterances that make it clear that what it really > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something that > > hasn't actually happened. > > > > There is plenty of morphology that marks modalities and > > plenty that marks aspect (progressive/continuative, > > habitual, perfect, etc.). Ordinarily, if time > > reference is really required, it is provided with an > > adverb or a temporal conjunction. I did a talk on this > > when I was in Australia and can send a copy of the > > draft if you like. It isn't very polished. > > > > It is the progressive or continuative aspect that > > usually uses the positional auxiliaries (although > > Mauricio Mixco also finds it in use with other > > constructions as well in his Mandan sketch). But > > action of the verb can be progressive in the past or > > the future as well as the present, so the positionals > > don't necessarily mark present. > > > > The traditional grammarians who produced the earlier > > (often very good) grammars of Dakota, Lakota, etc. used > > terms like 'future' because they didn't distinguish > > 'kind of action' from 'time of action' in their > > grammars. It is still used to translate ktA today by > > some. But, as I say, I don't think it's tense per-se. > > > > >Most often, the 3Pl subject form -ire (or -hire) is > > given to indicate the > > subject. However, in getting forms this actually is > > the past tense. > > > > Jagu aire? > > Jagu e-ire? > > What say-3Pl? > > What did they say? > > > > Jagu anaaNk? > > Jagu e-naaNk? > > What say-3Pl? > > What are they saying? > > > > HC may operate differently from LAK in this regard, but > > I'd guess that the difference between the two above > > examples would be non-continuing vs. continuing action, > > not tense. Try "what do they say?" for the first and > > "what were they saying" for the second and see what > > emerges. I can't begin to predict, but it should be > > interesting to contrast all four meanings. > > > > >I think Miner is the only one that correctly lists > > these forms. Yet there > > is no extensive treatment of tense in his work. This > > seems to be the only > > form that indicates something took place in the past > > rather than not in the > > future.Past can be indicated through the absence of the > > positional in other cases. > > > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaNks^aNnaN. > > > > waNk naNka naNwaN-naNk-s^aNaN. > > > > man that (sit) sing-POS (sit)-Declarative > > > > That man is singing (seated). > > > > waNk naNka naNwaNnaN. > > > > waNk naNka naNwaN- naN > > > > man that (sit) sing- Declarative. > > > > That man sang. > > > > How about 'that man was singing' and 'that man sings > > well', where the first is progressive but in the past > > and the second is present but not progressive. I > > really wonder if you'll get any overt tense morphology. > > > > Bob Rankin > > > > >In the above forms the demonstrative can be replaced > > with the indefenite > > article -iz^aN or the defenite article -ra with the > > same effect. > > > > >My question is if you all think there is more to tense > > in Ho-Chunk than what i have read? What is happening > > in other Siouan langauges. I believe I read in a paper > > somewhere that Lakhota also makes a future-non-future > > distinction. Do positionals have a similar effect (I'm > > especially curious > > about Chiwere)? Thank you. > > > > >On a side note, a budding linguist like myself, and as > > a person with a > > vested interest in Ho-Chunk langauge study I really > > appreciate this List. > > You all have no idea how much more efficient and > > valuable my studies have become based on the archives > > and current comments on this List. Thank you all > > again. > > > > Henning Garvin > > UW-Madison > > Anthropology/Linguistics > > > > > > > > From lcumberl at indiana.edu Sun Apr 6 01:52:47 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 20:52:47 -0500 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: <003c01c2fbd7$6efe5fa0$d1b5ed81@computer> Message-ID: Hi Bob, > > I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. > The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the > statements/arguments work just about as well for > Dakotan too. I'd like a copy, too, please. Re: conditionals: > You'll > > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' > and > > > other utterances that make it clear that what it > really > > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something > that > > > hasn't actually happened. In Assiniboine the conditionals are followed by tukha, and as far as I can tell, it's obligatory for this meaning. (I assume this is Lak. tkha, but it's not reduced in Asb). Examples: wana na=kta tukha 'you should go now' zhe nowaN=kta tukha 'he was supposed to sing (but he didn't)' mihiNkna hi=kta tukha 'my husband should have come (by now)' xtanihaN maghazhu=kta tukha 'it was supposed to rain yesterday' Then there's the contrasting set: nakhon?i?a=kta chiNka 'he wants to learn Nakoda' nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's doubtful that he will)' Linda From lcumberl at indiana.edu Sun Apr 6 02:11:45 2003 From: lcumberl at indiana.edu (Linda Cumberland) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 21:11:45 -0500 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: <200304060152.UAA10341@iupui.edu> Message-ID: Oops - Freudian slip? this should be chiNka 'he wants', not wachiNka 'I want'! - Linda > nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's > doubtful that he will)' From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Sun Apr 6 04:08:03 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 21:08:03 -0700 Subject: Tense In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Henning Garvin wrote: > I have a small question that regards tense in Ho-Chunk and Siouan in > general. Most of the literature that I have gone through (and I could have > somehow missed it) doesn't give tense a very strong treatment. I'll just chime in that I agree with others that verbs in the Siouan languages seem to be primarily marked for aspect, along with that irrealis marker usually glossed as future. Tense is introduced when sentences are glossed in English, because English does have tense marking. There's really nothing that corresponds to past vs. present in Dhegiha, though there are some enclitics in Omaha-Ponca glossed 'in the past' and there are time adverbs like 'now' and 'then'. The forms glossed 'then' usually work out to be demonstratives with various enclitic postpositions and don't mean so much 'in the past' but 'at some indicated time'. There are terms for 'today', 'tomorrow', etc. Actually, I think tense-based systems are a bit rare, though I'm certainly not an authority on typology! Tense marking is secondary in Indo-European. The oldest languages attest an earlier set of distinctions based on aspect (simple, continuous, perfect) and mood (real/unreal), sometimes with a fused temporal adverb (?) - the augment. Very Siouan in general concept, if not in detail. IE perfects and some present formations involve reduplication. Most of the subfamilies have a veneer of tense marking achieved by fusing an auxiliary verb to a verb root to form a past or future (Germanic weak verb pasts in dentals like English -ed, Latin imperfects and futures in -b-), usually resulting in two or three way aspect distinctions in the past" (including an innovated imperfect or past continuous) vs. a single present (the old continuous) and a single present (innovated or an old modal form). Some aspectual and mood formations of PIE date are probably of similar auxiliary origins (sigmatic or -s- aorists, -yV- desideratives, etc.). Most of the modern European IE languages have extensive more recently innovated auxiliary systems for future (always a bit modal), progressive and perfect. Because the histories of the languages and their writing systems extend far enough back to reveal the basis of these systems the auxiliaries are often written as independent words, even though they are actually phonologically as reduced and fused with the main verb as the comparable markers in the ancient languages (or modern Siouan languages). Russian and other Eastern Slavic languages (not sure about the Western and Southern Slavic languages) have reworked thing to produce a new aspect-heavy situation (with all verb stems having a past and a present or a past and a future, depending on their basic aspect). (This summary should give just about everyone on the lista chance to correct me on something!) JEK From warr0120 at umn.edu Sun Apr 6 07:29:04 2003 From: warr0120 at umn.edu (warr0120) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 01:29:04 CST Subject: Tense Message-ID: I don't know, Linda. Wouldn't want to distract you with the other dialects. There are those of us in the peanut gallery getting awfully anxious for your dissertation. Heehee Pat Wouldn't On 5 Apr 2003, Linda Cumberland wrote: > Hi Bob, > > > > > I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. > > The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the > > statements/arguments work just about as well for > > Dakotan too. > > I'd like a copy, too, please. > > Re: conditionals: > > > You'll > > > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' > > and > > > > other utterances that make it clear that what it > > really > > > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something > > that > > > > hasn't actually happened. > > > In Assiniboine the conditionals are followed by tukha, and as far as I > can tell, it's obligatory for this meaning. (I assume this is Lak. > tkha, but it's not reduced in Asb). Examples: > > wana na=kta tukha 'you should go now' > > zhe nowaN=kta tukha 'he was supposed to sing (but he didn't)' > > mihiNkna hi=kta tukha 'my husband should have come (by now)' > > xtanihaN maghazhu=kta tukha 'it was supposed to rain yesterday' > > Then there's the contrasting set: > > nakhon?i?a=kta chiNka 'he wants to learn Nakoda' > > nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's > doubtful that he will)' > > Linda > From tleonard at prodigy.net Sun Apr 6 18:28:49 2003 From: tleonard at prodigy.net (Tom Leonard) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 13:28:49 -0500 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: I think the original translator (perhaps) transcribed it "Neesh-nah-ba-to-na" incorrectly (i.e. "to-na" was, more than likely, supposed to be "ttaNga"). I don't think 'canoe making river' is/was the literal translation. Rather, I think "ni s^nabe ttaNga" (river-dirty-big) was/is probably an actual name for a specific river or creek -more than likely the spot considered good for making canoes. TML ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rankin, Robert L" To: Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 10:37 AM Subject: RE: Nishnabotna etym. > I can't add a thing to John's analysis except that it might pay to look at > the original handwriting in the L&C journals to see if anything else can be > made of the last couple of syllables. That's sort of a last resort, I > guess. > > Bob > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu] > Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 9:32 PM > To: Siouan > Subject: Re: Nishnabotna etym. > > > On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Alan H. Hartley wrote: > > Can anyone tell me the meaning of the river-name written by William > > Clark in 1804 as Neesh-nah-ba-to-na? Clark identifies it as Omaha, but > > Gary Moulton, in his end-note, says "According to Thomas Say [it] is > > an Oto Indian name signifying 'canoe making river'." > > I assume Clark was representing something like /nis^nabetone/. > > My recollections of working on this term for Moulton with Bob Rankin and > Doug Parks are about the same as Bob's. It corresponds, I believe to the > placename usually spelled Nishnabotna, which is somewhat syncopated over > Clark's form. > > In accord with Tom Leonard's suggestion, /tone/ might possibly represent > Osage or Kaw versions of /htaNka/ (Os) or /ttaNga/ (Ks), which I think may > tend tend to lose the velar. Omaha-Ponca has /ttaNga/. The same form would > come out /thaNe/ ~ /than[y]e/ in Ioway-Otoe, but IO substitutes another > term for 'big'. The phonology isn't quite right for any of these, except > maybe the hypothetical and entirely unattested IO one. > > Bob Rankin and I did note that same form s^nabe 'dirty' that Tom came up > with. The name in that parallels the (Little and Big) Nemaha 'Miry River' > in sense. Actually a lot of river names in this area embody a comment on > the amount of sediment in the water (or maybe the soil on the banks). > > The IO term for 'boat' is ba(a)j^e < *Waat(e). One might just think to > discern it in "bot," but then the rest of the word (after ni) doesn't work. > Of course, it would be possible to have a term that implied boats and > referred, say, to making them, but the form doesn't seem to have an > etymology in those terms. > > What I have noticed since then is a form in LaFlesche 1930, the Osage > dictionary, p. 107v ni-hni'-bo-shta 'two springs not far from each other, > one clear and sweet, the other black and bitter. A strange feature in > connection with these springs was that there was a peculiar movement that > caused the Indians to call them shooting springs. This was the final camp > of the second buffalo trail.' > > Immediately before this is ni-hni' 'water cold; a spring or well.' The > remainder, bo-shta seems to have the 'shooting instrumental' (cf. OP mu=). > The particular verb doesn't seem to be attested in LaFlesche as an > independent form. > > I'd make the form in something less Omaha-influenced and more Osage looking, > something like niN s^niN pos^ta. > > I think pos^taN might be 'to miss in shooting'. Osage does have > bo-gthoN-tha 'to miss a mark' (LaFlesche 1930:294b). This would be > poloNdha, or earlier on [pogloNdha ~ podloNdha]. I suppose this might have > been heard as [podnodha], given the nasalized vowel (with [dha] alternating > with [ra] or [la] or [na] or, in fast speech [a]). > > If the latter term were substituted for the first (and this substitution > were deemed reasonable), I suppose a name like niN s^niN podnoN(n)a might be > produced. > > That's probably a bit tendentious, however, and I'm pretty sure that we're > not dealing with the same places, but only parallel names. > > I'm not sure that the 'spring' term is reall 'cold water', though IO has > what I take to be n[y]i(N)riN=xti < niN sniN=xti 'very cold water'. > > JEK From ahartley at d.umn.edu Sun Apr 6 21:42:55 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 16:42:55 -0500 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. Message-ID: Thanks to all for the help! From rankin at ku.edu Mon Apr 7 14:53:26 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 09:53:26 -0500 Subject: Tense Message-ID: I have a longer reply to your note of the weekend in my "outbox" at home, but my dial-up connection has failed and I can only do email from the office for the time being. I'll send it as soon as I can. Bob -----Original Message----- From: Linda Cumberland [mailto:lcumberl at indiana.edu] Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 7:53 PM To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Tense Hi Bob, > > I'll generate a .pdf file and email it if that's OK. > The paper is about the Quapaw language, but the statements/arguments > work just about as well for Dakotan too. I'd like a copy, too, please. Re: conditionals: > You'll > > > also get it with conditionals, modals 'may, might' > and > > > other utterances that make it clear that what it > really > > > marks is 'irrealis mode'. It just marks something > that > > > hasn't actually happened. In Assiniboine the conditionals are followed by tukha, and as far as I can tell, it's obligatory for this meaning. (I assume this is Lak. tkha, but it's not reduced in Asb). Examples: wana na=kta tukha 'you should go now' zhe nowaN=kta tukha 'he was supposed to sing (but he didn't)' mihiNkna hi=kta tukha 'my husband should have come (by now)' xtanihaN maghazhu=kta tukha 'it was supposed to rain yesterday' Then there's the contrasting set: nakhon?i?a=kta chiNka 'he wants to learn Nakoda' nakhon?i?a=kta wachiNka tukha 'he wants to learn Nakoda (but it's doubtful that he will)' Linda From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 15:05:28 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 09:05:28 -0600 Subject: Nishnabotna etym. In-Reply-To: <001901c2fc6a$5f824120$5b2ad03f@Busprod.Com> Message-ID: On Sun, 6 Apr 2003, Tom Leonard wrote: > I think the original translator (perhaps) transcribed it > "Neesh-nah-ba-to-na" incorrectly (i.e. "to-na" was, more than likely, > supposed to be "ttaNga"). I don't think 'canoe making river' is/was > the literal translation. Rather, I think "ni s^nabe ttaNga" > (river-dirty-big) was/is probably an actual name for a specific river > or creek -more than likely the spot considered good for making canoes. The idea that "canoe making river" is a comment on the name rather than the translation is fairly reasonable. And the idea that Clark was not particularly adept as a transcriptionist is more or less widely accepted. The one problem that neither your Omaha explanation not my Osage explanation addresses is the claim that the term is Ioway-Otoe! From jmcbride at kayserv.net Mon Apr 7 15:28:37 2003 From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 10:28:37 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Ho! I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? W?blahaN, -Justin McBride -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hhgarvin at hotmail.com Mon Apr 7 16:47:39 2003 From: hhgarvin at hotmail.com (Henning Garvin) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 11:47:39 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Don?t think this will be a tremendous help to you, but James Stucki translated Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John plus a portion of Exdous into Ho-Chunk. The book is tremendously rare, but my tribe found one and paid handsomely for it. Hope this at elast gives hope that there may be one out there. Henning Garvin UW-Madison Anthropology/Linguistics >From: "Justin McBride" >Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu >To: >Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions >Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 10:28:37 -0500 >Ho! > >I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a >request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or >Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the >best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really >got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough >fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible >that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible >portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his >work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like >this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this >exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? > >W?blahaN, >-Justin McBride _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail From tleonard at prodigy.net Mon Apr 7 17:24:50 2003 From: tleonard at prodigy.net (Tom Leonard) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 12:24:50 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: J.O. Dorsey did translate portions of the Bible, a few prayers (e.g. the Lord's Prayer) and a few sermons. Not sure if Dorsey translated any hymns but we have lots of present day hymns recorded. TML ----- Original Message ----- From: Justin McBride To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 10:28 AM Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Ho! I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? W?blahaN, -Justin McBride -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 17:26:52 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 11:26:52 -0600 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions In-Reply-To: <003d01c2fd1a$5c450780$2b77f0c7@Language> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Justin McBride wrote: > But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If > Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, > isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and > perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know > nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this > question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, > does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU > (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? Dorsey went as a missionary - Episcopal? - to the Ponca. He left that position, ostensibly for reasons of health, though I gather it may have actually also been, at least in part, a matter of difficulties with the agent, as this is implied in a letter from Albert (?) Riggs I noticed in passing in the National Anthropological Archives's Dorsey Papers. Riggs mentions that Agent so-and-so is gone and suggests he can now return and would be welcome. Riggs, incidentally, worked with Paul Mazakute, a Dakota missionary to the Ponca who was literate in Santee. Some of Mazakute's notes on Ponca vocabulary are in the NAA in the Dorsey Papers. Instead of returning to missionary work, Dorsey went to work for the BAE, becoming one of their staff ethnographers - in effect a combination linguist and anthropologist. From that period on he worked primarily with the Omaha as opposed to the Ponca, though I'm not sure there was no further contact with Ponca speakers. In fact, I know he was involved in letter writing on behalf of the Poncas who came back from Oklahoma. Although Dorsey must have achieved some degree of fluency, he also made extensive use of bilingual consultants. I don't know if he was ever fluent enough to preach in Omaha or if he was fluent enough to do so during the very earliest period, when he was a missionary. It would be interesting to pursue this, of course. The principle authority on Dorsey is Ray DeMallie, by the way. A small number of notes dealing with missionary activity are mentioned in the NAA catalogs of the Dorsey Papers. I haven't consulted this material. I think that other material - I don't know if it would be fair to characterize it as "the bulk" - is on file in (Episcopal?) church archives at Vermillion. I noticed a reference to Dorsey materials there once in a list of arhival materials dealing with Native American languages. I have actually seen a xerox of a printed page from a (Presbyterian?) Omaha Hymnal. I was asked to see if I could translate the text and put it into a modern orthography. I did, and that was the last I heard of it. I believe this was prepared by Hamilton. It was in use in the Reformed Church in Macy. The Reformed Church is a small synod with congregations on various Native American Reservations in the Midwest, including, I think, the Santee, Winnebago, Omaha, and Fox (?) reservations. I suspect any religious materials in Omaha would be very little use with Kaw. The basic vocabulary is similar, though transmuted phonologically and semantically, but there are some differences in morphology (e.g., in the dative), and the function words (conjunctions, final particles, etc.) are rather difference between Dhegiha "dialects." None of this seems to have posed a great deal of difficulty for fluent speakers in the old days, but it might floor modern users, especially ones approaching the languages from English. I have seen one of two volumes of handwritten notes on Omaha (sermon texts, I think) by Hamilton. The owner showed it to me in confidence, explaining that he had only the one volume, having lent the other to someone who had failed to return it. He said he found the volumes on a trash heap. I understood him to mean in some pile of discards in a particular context, and didn't press the matter, as it was potentially sensitive and he was clearly nervous about showing the material to me. I recommended that he consider some sort of archival disposition at some point and named some possible candidates, leaving it at that. The man in question seemed to me the sort of person who would appreciate the importance of that. I do consider such materials interesting and intellectualy valuable, but I have never pursued these missionary-produced materials, because I am unsure to what extent they represent grammatically and lexically correct Omaha-Ponca. I don't feel that I've done justice to the more reliable materials prepared by Dorsey from native sources, let alone to the resource represented by present speakers of the language, and I've consciously left the potentially less reliable material out of consideration. This said, I believe that most such materials were prepared with the aid of native speakers every bit as conscientious and able as the ones working with linguists (often the same people, in fact). In short, second language errors by the missionaries are probably not a major issue. The only real problems with the materials might be non-native influences on the syntax and the existence of loan words (names and concepts). Of course, this might actually make the material rather more interesting than not, as it presents the reverse of the process of glossing native texts in English. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Mon Apr 7 18:03:45 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (ahartley at d.umn.edu) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 13:03:45 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > a letter from Albert (?) Riggs Stephen Return Riggs? From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com Mon Apr 7 18:45:06 2003 From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 19:45:06 +0100 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Dear Justin et al: My understanding is that Dorsey produced a book called Ponka wa-ba-ru A B C (or something like that) which was a reading book in Ponca. I haven't seen this but I'd e amazed if it didn't have some religious material in it. There was a book produced in Kaw (called something like "The First Kauzas Book") which was witten in an orthography of the sort devised by Rev. Jotham Meeker. This appeared in the 1840s, I think, and no copy of the original 300 printed is known to exist. As far as I know, no other book of ANY sort was ever produced in Kansa (or in Quapaw for that matter), but maybe Bob Rankin has superior info on this. Best Anthony Grant ----- Original Message ----- From: Justin McBride To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 4:28 PM Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Ho! I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? W?blahaN, -Justin McBride -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com Mon Apr 7 18:48:41 2003 From: Anthony.Grant3 at btinternet.com (Anthony Grant) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 19:48:41 +0100 Subject: Dorsey Message-ID: Dear John: Yes, Dorsey was Episcopalian. Odd, since he came from Baltimore, which is a very Catholic city. Best Anthony -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 19:24:40 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 13:24:40 -0600 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions In-Reply-To: <1049738625.f3dcef73217b1@webmail.d.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Apr 2003 ahartley at d.umn.edu wrote: > > a letter from Albert (?) Riggs > > Stephen Return Riggs? No, another member of the clan. I can't remember if he was a brother or a son, though I think the latter. JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Mon Apr 7 19:40:41 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 13:40:41 -0600 Subject: Dorsey In-Reply-To: <006c01c2fd36$4fe0f780$f05f8351@a5h1k3> Message-ID: On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Anthony Grant wrote: > Yes, Dorsey was Episcopalian. Odd, since he came from Baltimore, > which is a very Catholic city. Well, Maryland was the only colony founded as a Catholic refuge (by Lord Baltimore), but at least as a child in the suburbs I didn't notice an particularly predominance of Catholics around Baltmire or Annapolis in the 1950s. If you ask an American for the name of a Catholic city, they'd come up with Boston, I think. I don't know if I would have noticed, of course, if there were a lot of Catholics around, and perhaps things were difference a hundred years earlier, anyway. At present I think the various Christian sects are fairly randomly distributed across the US. I thought Dorsey was from the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. I think Episcopalianism had a strong presence in Virginia and the upper "Old South" at one point, and Maryland is not that different, culturally, from Virginia. The Tidewater accent area extends from Maryland down into North Carolina along the coast. JEK From Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc Mon Apr 7 20:02:42 2003 From: Louis_Garcia at littlehoop.cc (Louis Garcia) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:02:42 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Hi gang: I think you are referring to Alfred Longly Riggs the son of Stephen Return. For those of you that are interested I have attached the story of a hymn that we use here at Bdecan Presbyterian Church. As I said I am not a linguist nor a very good writer. Later, LouieG -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Message 19 Bethany.doc Type: application/msword Size: 32768 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jmcbride at kayserv.net Mon Apr 7 20:56:06 2003 From: jmcbride at kayserv.net (Justin McBride) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 15:56:06 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: Hey, Gang, Thanks for all the great info and many good leads on the hymnal/Bible question. Some really fascinating stuff. I might be PM-ing a few of you for particulars later on. Thanks! -jm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Apr 8 15:43:58 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 10:43:58 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: > My understanding is that Dorsey produced a book called Ponka wa-ba-ru A B C (or something like that) which was a reading book in Ponca. I haven't seen this but I'd e amazed if it didn't have some religious material in it. There was a book produced in Kaw (called something like "The First Kauzas Book") which was witten in an orthography of the sort devised by Rev. Jotham Meeker. This appeared in the 1840s, I think, and no copy of the original 300 printed is known to exist. As far as I know, no other book of ANY sort was ever produced in Kansa (or in Quapaw for that matter), but maybe Bob Rankin has superior info on this. I've never run across a copy of the little book in Kaw. wish I had. I didn't find any trace of it in the archives of the KS State Historical Society library in Topeka. If 300 copies were originally produced, there must be one SOMEwhere. Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rankin at ku.edu Tue Apr 8 16:01:06 2003 From: rankin at ku.edu (Rankin, Robert L) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 11:01:06 -0500 Subject: Dhegiha Hymnals and Bible Portions Message-ID: > I have a question for the Dhegihanists out there. I recently received a request from a hospital chaplain in Chicago for information on hymnals or Bibles (and/or Bible portions) in the Kaw language. I told him that to the best of my knowledge no such texts existed for Kaw. But later it really got me to wondering about James Owen Dorsey. If Dorsey acheived enough fluency in Ponca to conduct church services, isn't it at least plausible that he devised some sort of hymn book and perhaps even translated Bible portions? Unfortunately, I don't know nearly enough about the man or his work outside of Kaw to answer this question. Did he ever do anything like this? And even if he didn't, does anyone know if *any* documents like this exist for OP, OS, or QU (and perhaps KS, in case I overlooked something)? JOD's work with all the Dhegiha-speaking groups except Omaha-Ponca was exclusively linguistic as far as I know. He did his preaching during the early part of his career in Nebraska. After he joined the Bureau, he did data collection on all the other Dhegiha dialects, Biloxi and Tutelo and edited Riggs's materials, but I don't think he actually spent a lot of time in the Indian Territory during this period. He made a few trips and interviewed tribal elders when they came to Washington, but unless he conducted purely occasional services, he didn't produce religious materials in the languages he studied after the early 1880's. Most of my knowledge of Dorsey (apart from his field notes, etc.) come from his obituaries and the book by Hinsley with the lurid (but I hope/think humorously intended) title "Savages and Scientists", published by the Smithsonian Institution press. It also contains a photo of Dorsey. Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From voorhis at westman.wave.ca Tue Apr 8 17:26:42 2003 From: voorhis at westman.wave.ca (voorhis at westman.wave.ca) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 12:26:42 -0500 Subject: Dorsey Message-ID: Koontz John E wrote: > I thought Dorsey was from the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. J. O. Dorsey was born in Baltimore MD. Dorsey is a prominent MD family. George Bushotter settled in Hedgesville WV, about 30 miles from Harpers Ferry. Paul From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Tue Apr 8 23:30:43 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 17:30:43 -0600 Subject: Shoebox and Unicode Message-ID: I just heard from Peter Constable at SIL that an impending version of MS Word for Windows (I don't know which specific version) is supposed to include direct support for the Unicode principle of being able to composed characters from sequences of base characters and diacritic characters. He also indicates that SIL expects "soon" to release a version of Shoebox with Unicode support, though he didn't actually specify that it would handle composed diacritics. And, for what it's worth, my understanding is that Red Hat Linux 8 supports Unicode in some sense, though I mainly know about that in terms of the problems it causes for applications that don't yet support Unicode, e.g., Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf file viewer). JEK From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Apr 9 00:29:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 18:29:01 -0600 Subject: Francis LaFlesche and Osage Plural Marking, etc. Message-ID: This is a comment for Regina Pustet, actually, whose new IJAL article comments on the puzzling difference between the Osage plural in LaFlesche 1932 and in subsequent work. The Osage plural (or augment) marker is =pi, usually fused with the male or female declarative as =p=a (=pa) or =p=e (=pe). This is attested from the late 1800s on, at least. The plural morpheme appears in the LaFlesche 1932 Osage dictionary in an entirely Omaha-Ponca form as =i (and maybe sometimes =bi, which occurs in Omaha-Ponca in certain circumscribed contexts). This is not Osage usage. It is one of several pervasive "Omahaisms" in LaFlesche's presentation of Osage here. I do not know the explanation of these, other than the obvious possibility that LaFlesche had a sort of an Osage-in/Omaha-out approach to remembering Osage. In his defense, the dictionary was published posthumously, so he may not have gotten to do all the editing he'd have liked to do, and, also, I believe things are essentially correct in his Osage texts, which contradicts the "Omaha-out" suggestion. The plurals are also right in Dorsey's Osage text. (Unfortunately, the texts in question are ritual texts, and so somewhat limited in variety as to vocabulary and morphology, which means they haven't attracted the attention that the Omaha texts have.) There are a number of other Omahaisms in LaFlesche 1932, including use of an orthography based largely on Omaha-Ponca phonetics. So bdg are used for ptk, for example. He did distinguish c (ts) (as ds), and he did mark ph/kh as psh and ksh (most of the time) before i and e. He somewhat less consistently represents ph/th ~ ch/kh as p/t ~ ts/k (without underdot) in other contexts. (In fact, ph and kh are px and kx where not psh and ksh, somewhat recalling the situation in Teton.) The underdot is used with tense stops (or preaspirates) pp/tt ~ cc/kk and ejectives. Ejectives are conceptualized as a tense stop plus an exploded (preglottalized) vowel. LaFlesche had difficulty distinguishing Osage u ([u-umlaut]) from Osage i, though he often writes iu or ui for u (and sometimes i). He also writes i for u. The two vowels merge in Osage. Not hearing u properly, he often writes o as u, following the phonetics of *o in Omaha-Ponca. LaFlesche records s : z as c-cedilla, which represents theta : edh as explained in the pronunciation key. I guess the key really only mentions theta, but there was certainly an edh variant, too. Only not in Osage. The pronuniciation key was lifted from his Omaha work and seems to reflect the pronunciation of the dialect of Omaha spoken in the WiNjage village where LaFlesche was raised. Most Omaha-Ponca speakers and all Osage speakers have s : z. The edh here almost certainly contrasts with the other, better known "edh" that Omaha-Ponca has for r or l. That may be really something like a retroflex l, though opinions differ. Anyway, it is l-like in many places, as the Osage version is rather r-like. Anyway, the r or l that comes out "edh" is not a voiced interdental, though it is acoustically similar to American English voiced th in various contexts. As far as I know, no Osage speakers have an actual theta or edh for LaFlesche's c-cedillas. They have s or z and always have, as far as the records show. Of course, there were a lot of Osage speakers at one point, so who knows. It doesn't seem likel, however, that LaFlesche actually encountered anyone with that usage. For some reason LaFlesche chose to merge s and z (or theta and edh) in his c-cedilla scheme. He also merges x and gh (gamma) as x. He does distinguish esh and zhee as sh : zh. The functional load of voicing in fricatives is low in Dhegiha (though everyone distinguishes, for example, si 'foot' vs. zi 'yellow'). The same low functional load combined with a few contrasts occurs in the rest of Mississippi Valley Siouan. But since zh comes from both *z and *y, there are more cases where merging sh and zh would get you in trouble. Or maybe it just feels distributionally wrong to combine them. Initial *y and hence initial zh is much more common than initial voiced fricatives. One other Omahaism of note is that LaFlesche inflects th-stems (the second edh) as bth-/(sh)n-/th-, mostly, whereas Osage actually does something like br-/sht- ~ sc-/dh-. Given his orthographic predilections, this might have been written bth-/sht- ~ sts-/th-, and, in fact, sometimes it is. Otherwise, he sometimes writes p < *W in instrumentals and elsewhere as m, the Omaha-Ponca version, e.g., Osage po comes out mu (or pu). LaFlesche may also have an Omaha-Ponca tendency in his definitions of words, but it is hard to be sure, because a lot of what bothers modern Osage speakers about his definitions is not really Omaha influence, but the influence of old fashioned educated English or old fashioned Western regional English, and specifically the English used in Native American contact situations. One final note: LaFlesche often annotates a form as "Om[aha] same" which is very helpful to students of Omaha-Ponca. A certain amount of caution has to be used with this, however. For example, t.se 'buffalo' is, of course, t.e (tte) in Omaha, even though t.se is marked as "Om. same." John E. Koontz http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz From heike.boedeker at netcologne.de Wed Apr 9 05:20:17 2003 From: heike.boedeker at netcologne.de (Heike =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=F6deker?=) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 07:20:17 +0200 Subject: Shoebox and Unicode In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 17:30 08.04.03 -0600, Koontz John E wrote: >I just heard from Peter Constable at SIL that an impending version of MS >Word for Windows (I don't know which specific version) is supposed to >include direct support for the Unicode principle of being able to composed >characters from sequences of base characters and diacritic characters. What does he mean by "direct support" actually? Unicode is supported since Word 97, which is including the "Combining Diacritical Marks" range. >And, for what it's worth, my understanding is that Red Hat Linux 8 >supports Unicode in some sense, though I mainly know about that in terms >of the problems it causes for applications that don't yet support Unicode, >e.g., Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf file viewer). A word processor with implementations for various OSs incl. UNICes would be OpenOffice.org. Best, Heike From Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Wed Apr 9 11:12:11 2003 From: Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Pustet) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 13:12:11 +0200 Subject: Francis La Flesche and Osage Plural Marking, etc. Message-ID: Pustet schrieb: ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Kommentar: ---------- Hi John Thank you for your explicit comment - this is interesting. As for this strange "Osage" plural marker i, I didn't pursue the issue any further in the paper because I was busy enough with the person markers, and fortunately, the number suffixes didn't turn out to be that important for what I had in mind when writing the paper, i.e. investigating active-stative marking in Lakota and Osage contrastively. >The Osage plural (or augment) marker is =pi, usually fused with the >male or female declarative as =p=a (=pa) or =p=e (=pe). This is attested >from the late 1800s on, at least. The plural morpheme appears in the >LaFlesche 1932 Osage dictionary in an entirely Omaha-Ponca form as =i (and >maybe sometimes =bi, which occurs in Omaha-Ponca in certain circumscribed >contexts). This is not Osage usage. It is one of several pervasive >"Omahaisms" in LaFlesche's presentation of Osage here. >I do not know the explanation of these, other than the obvious >possibility that LaFlesche had a sort of an Osage-in/Omaha-out approach to >remembering Osage. In his defense, the dictionary was published >posthumously, so he may not have gotten to do all the editing he'd have >liked to do, and,also, I believe things are essentially correct in his Osage >texts, which contradicts the "Omaha-out" suggestion. The plurals are also >right in Dorsey's Osage text. (Unfortunately, the texts in question are >ritual texts, and so somewhat limited in variety as to vocabulary and >morphology, which means they haven't attracted the attention that the >Omaha texts have.) I don't know what kind of Omaha-Osage contact situation LaFlesche was in, if any, but could borrowing be an option in explaining his strange "Osage" plurals? >There are a number of other Omahaisms in LaFlesche 1932, including use >of an orthography based largely on Omaha-Ponca phonetics. Plus, the transcription is full of inconsistencies. As for the possible influence of Omaha-Ponca phonetics on LaFlesche's transcription, what you say suggests that he tried to work his way through Osage phonetics on the basis of an Omaha-Ponca template. I could imagine that linguists who have different native language backgrounds, when working on the same language, might come up with slightly different transcriptions. My own typological work with speakers of languages from (almost) all continents shows me, again and again, that in practice, a sound that occurs in two different languages, and is transcribed by the same IPA symbol, is not likely to have the very same acoustic/articulatory properties in the two languages. Best, Regina ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Diese Nachricht wurde ueber den WWW-Server des LRZ verschickt. http://www.lrz-muenchen.de Rechnername des Absenders: stnb-d932e6e7.pool.mediaways.net IP Adresse des Absenders: 217.50.230.231 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Wed Apr 9 17:32:50 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 11:32:50 -0600 Subject: Francis La Flesche and Osage Plural Marking, etc. In-Reply-To: <200304091112.h39BCBc03960@nx113.slb.lrz-muenchen.de> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Pustet wrote: > Thank you for your explicit comment - this is interesting. As for this > strange "Osage" plural marker i, I didn't pursue the issue any further > in the paper because I was busy enough with the person markers, and > fortunately, the number suffixes didn't turn out to be that important > for what I had in mind when writing the paper, i.e. investigating > active-stative marking in Lakota and Osage contrastively. Right, I don't think any of the Omahaisms in LaFlesche would influence the result of this study. > I don't know what kind of Omaha-Osage contact situation LaFlesche was > in, if any, but could borrowing be an option in explaining his strange > "Osage" plurals? Joseph LaFlesche and his children, including Francis, were enrolled members of the Omaha Tribe. Joseph's brother (half-brother, I think) also named Francis, lived with the Ponca and I assume he was enrolled there, too, though I've read less about him. The paternal grandfather, Joseph's father, also named Joseph LaFlesche (or LaFleche) was a French trader, and his sons, including Francis's father Joseph, followed in his footsteps. I wonder if the senior Joseph LaFlesche might also have been metis. Not a lot is known about him, and Omaha and Ponca tradition tends to assess ethnic identity based on the father's ancestry. He is explicitly identified as French, but a great many people fell into categories regarded as whitemen (French) by the Omaha and related groups, but Indian by American authorities. I assume they would have been metis/mestizo in French/Spanish categorizations. I've not encountered anything on Joseph LaFlesche, Sr., that wasn't basically a footnote to the history of his sons. Francis was a native speaker of Omaha and fluent in English as a result of schooling. His father is reputed to have spoken Omaha, Otoe, Pawnee, and French, and to have learned a little English late in life. Francis LaFlesche was an acquainted with Dorsey and did some consulting on Omaha for him, but became associated with the ethnographer Alice Fletcher, who adopted him. They coauthored The Omaha Tribe, published by the BAE. He was an employee of the BIA, and later the BAE. As a BAE ethnographer he worked primarily on Osage, collecting a long series of ritual recitations and publishing them. The Osage Dictionary comes out of that and includes some earlier work from other sources. He is reputed to have been working on an Omaha dictionary in his latter years, but I assume this is the result of some contemporary confusion with the Osage dictionary, which, in the event, seems to be somewhere in between! It's generally considered (since it has been recognized) that the Omaha in Francis LaFlesche's Osage is due to influence from his native language. After all Omaha and Osage are very closely related, perhaps as close as some of the more distinct dialects of Dakotan. It's puzzling, though, that the texts he recorded seem less influenced in this way. In those, however, he had cultural reasons for reproducing the material exactly. In some cases at least he had to memorize the material, as the speakers would not permit recordings or transcription on the spot. These materials had to be memorized and reproduced exactly to be ritually effective. The case of the orthography and its implied phonetics may be a bit different. It was originally developed for use in The Omaha Tribe. There are traces of two stages in its development in that book. In some places the tense stops are spelled bp, dt, gk, in others just p, t, k (identical to the aspirates). The NAA has one piece of manuscript material for The Omaha Tribe that I was able to locate, the list of river names. In this list tense ptk are underdotted. But the dots disappear in the publication. I assume somebody - probably not Francis himself - decided to leave them out. I tend to suspect Fletcher overruled LaFlesche on the dots, but perhaps it was someone on the staff of the Government Printing Office or BAE. There are a few samples of Fletcher's transcriptions here and there, though mostly not in The Omaha Tribe. She writes th for s, for example, confirming that s was [theta] in the WiNjage village. In some cases she (and Francis) use the Hamilton transcription, which has ae for e, e for i, and so on. > Plus, the transcription is full of inconsistencies. As for the > possible influence of Omaha-Ponca phonetics on LaFlesche's > transcription, what you say suggests that he tried to work his way > through Osage phonetics on the basis of an Omaha-Ponca template. Yes. The same was true of the morphology as well, though this not evident in the texts, as far as I can tell. The Christian missionary quotations at the end of LaFlesche 1932 are also pretty much right. LaFlesche (or his postumous editor, whoever that may have been?) lifted them from another source. Carolyn Quintero has a full copy of that in her files. Incidentally, the verb miNkshe niNkshe thiNkshe is the animate 'sitting' positional. It is typically used as a definite article (with animate obviative sitting NPs), and as an auxiliary in various verbal constructions (continuous and future). It has a mixed ?/r inflectional pattern rather like the comparable form in Dakotan. The Omaha version has aspirated k as [kh], of course, rather than [ksh]. (And for those who don't know the LaFlesche system, the th here is edh, not aspirate t.) From Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Wed Apr 9 18:21:58 2003 From: Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Pustet) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 20:21:58 +0200 Subject: Osage plural Message-ID: Pustet schrieb: ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Kommentar: ---------- OK -- LaFlesche's strong Omaha background should explain a lot about his Osage transcription. But what I was wondering is whether the two languages were in a contact situation that made borrowing, i.e. complete adoption, of Omaha/Ponca plural -i into Osage possible. But actually, the more I think about it the less likely I find it that borrowing took place, or that LaFlesche just sort of confused the plural marker in Omaha/Ponca with the plural marker in Osage. There is an alternative explanation: if the original state of affairs is a plural marker -pi in Osage, it is conceivable that it was shortened to -i in the course of time. Such reductive processes are normal, especially with high-frequency items, as Bybee and others tell us, and plural markers are in this category. The Lakota plural marker, which happens to be -pi as well, is a case in point: in today's spoken Lakota, the full form -pi is not that frequent. Realizations of the plural marker run the gamut from -pi, -p, -b, -m, -mp to vowels or semivowels like -w, -u, -o, etc. That Osage -pi is still -pi in LaFlesche's and Dorsey's ceremonial texts would fit the overall picture because ceremonial language tends to be more conservative than everyday language, in which structural reduction happens first. Best, Regina ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Diese Nachricht wurde ueber den WWW-Server des LRZ verschickt. http://www.lrz-muenchen.de Rechnername des Absenders: stnb-d932e714.pool.mediaways.net IP Adresse des Absenders: 217.50.231.20 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Apr 10 14:43:13 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:43:13 -0600 Subject: Osage plural In-Reply-To: <200304091821.h39ILwG12421@nx113.slb.lrz-muenchen.de> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Pustet wrote: > OK -- LaFlesche's strong Omaha background should explain a lot about > his Osage transcription. But what I was wondering is whether the two > languages were in a contact situation that made borrowing, i.e. > complete adoption, of Omaha/Ponca plural -i into Osage possible. No, not really. The Omaha-Ponca-Ioway-Otoe area was separated from the Kaw-Osage area in the historical period by the Pawnee area. The impression conveyed by the Dorsey texts is that the Omaha were primarily in contact with the Otoe and Ponca and Pawnee, while the Ponca were primarily in contact with the Dakota and Omaha. In addition, the only attested instance of this plural pattern (and the other anomalous Omahaisms) is in LaFlesche's dictionary (but not his texts) in the early 1900s. The regular Osage pattern is found in earlier materials (limited, but extant), in the LaFlesche texts, and in more recent work with Osage. > But actually, the more I think about it the less likely I find it that > borrowing took place, or that LaFlesche just sort of confused the > plural marker in Omaha/Ponca with the plural marker in Osage. There is > an alternative explanation: if the original state of affairs is a > plural marker -pi in Osage, it is conceivable that it was shortened to > -i in the course of time. But Bristow and Quintero find pi ~ pa ~ pe today, and LaFlesche uses these, not i, in his texts. It is true that *pi has become i in Omaha-Ponca. In fact, in the speech of the two Omahas I worked with it had been reduced to nil except when certain other morphemes followed it. So adha=i 'he went' (in the 1890s) was adha, but adha=i=the remains adha=i=the, or wadhatha=i=ga=hau remains wadhatha=i=ga=hau. Actually, in the 1890s it was generally wadhatha=i=ga=ha. Use of =u in male speech has increased since then. I have the impression that Poncas may retain =i in final position, and I have heard annecdotally of recent Omaha speakers who did. Note that *pi remains bi in Omaha in (a) names, (b) in songs (at least in the 1890s), and (c) in certain morphological contexts, e.g., before =ama the quotative (so-called - it's more of a marker of reporting used for things that can't be personally vouched for), or in the negative plural =b=az^i. Rory Larson has pointed out that is generally associated with indirect/unvouched for contexts, even when nothing follows it, and that =i alternates with =bi in some morphological contexts to mark that distinction. Anyway, there's no doubt that both the true Osage plural/proximate and the Omaha plural/proximate are cognate with the Dakotan plural. They simply have different modern patterns of allomorphy, and LaFlesche's Osage Dictionary, for unknown reasons, but undoubtedly reflecting the Omaha ethnicity of its compiler, has the Omaha pattern. This does not seem to reflect anything about actual Osage usage at any point. > Such reductive processes are normal, especially with high-frequency > items, as Bybee and others tell us, and plural markers are in this > category. The Lakota plural marker, which happens to be -pi as well, > is a case in point: in today's spoken Lakota, the full form -pi is not > that frequent. Realizations of the plural marker run the gamut from > -pi, -p, -b, -m, -mp to vowels or semivowels like -w, -u, -o, etc. I've often wondered if just this sort of reduction probably explained the pattern of plurals in Crow-Hidatsa, where, in fact, vowels like this are the main plural marker in Crow. It could even explain =tu in Southeastern, e.g., Biloxi, if the -r- here is epenthetic between the stem and the plural "vowel." I assume the various reductions are parallel rather than old. It also looks to me like the present inflected future auxiliary of Crow and Hidatsa, which looks quite different from the situation in Dakotan, is linked to it by the habit in Dhegiha of combining =tta (reflex of *=ktE) with the standing and other positionals, =tta=miNkhe 'I will', tta=dhiNkhe 'you will', =tta=akha 'he will'. In short, the auxiliary pattern in CH could be a highly reduced variant of an analog of the Dhegiha construction. So =tta=miNkhe, etc., reduced to =wi, etc. In Omaha =tta=dhiNkhe can certainly reduce in fast speech to =tta=iNkh. > That Osage -pi is still -pi in LaFlesche's and Dorsey's ceremonial > texts would fit the overall picture because ceremonial language tends > to be more conservative than everyday language, in which structural > reduction happens first. Best, Regina The problem is that the informal daily speech of the last generations of Osage speakers has =pi ~ =p=e (essentially no male speakers recorded!), not =bi ~ =i. It is a bit distressing to have the major lexical resource for Osage contaminated (or maybe hybridized would be a better term) in this way, and even more so not to know exactly why, but we have what we have. I can attest that Omaha speakers who looked at LaFlesche were generally pleased with it. Still, a good deal about it is not Omaha-Ponca. It's not what I would have come up with myself as a generic, cross-dialect representation of Dhegiha, but maybe LaFlesche was groping toward something like that. Probably for such a purpose one would want to write =pi, even though Osage generally has =p=e, and Omaha-Ponca generally have =i. You'd probably want to write ptk or maybe ptck, instead of bdg. How you'd represent *W and *R, which come out mn in OP and ptc in Osage, I don't know. Maybe b and d? You'd want to write all five vowels, even if OP reduces i and u to i, and has something more like u for o. You'd definitely have to write aspiration, but maybe with h rather than the Osage x ~ s^ alternation. The second persons of *r-stems in *s^-R-, which come out s^n > n in OP and s^t > s^t ~ sc in Osage would be a problem. I guess they would have to be s^d, but the modern reflexes are rather different. From Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de Thu Apr 10 18:42:33 2003 From: Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Pustet) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:42:33 +0200 Subject: Osage plural Message-ID: Pustet schrieb: ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Kommentar: ---------- Well, in that case, it looks like the "Omaha contamination hypothesis" is the only one we're left with. I brought up borrowing and reduction as possible explanations because I just couldn't believe that LaFlesche was that sloppy. ====== > OK -- LaFlesche's strong Omaha background should explain a lot about > his Osage transcription. But what I was wondering is whether the two > languages were in a contact situation that made borrowing, i.e. > complete adoption, of Omaha/Ponca plural -i into Osage possible. No, not really. The Omaha-Ponca-Ioway-Otoe area was separated from the Kaw-Osage area in the historical period by the Pawnee area. The impression conveyed by the Dorsey texts is that the Omaha were primarily in contact with the Otoe and Ponca and Pawnee, while the Ponca were primarily in contact with the Dakota and Omaha. In addition, the only attested instance of this plural pattern (and the other anomalous Omahaisms) is in LaFlesche's dictionary (but not his texts) in the early 1900s. The regular Osage pattern is found in earlier materials (limited, but extant), in the LaFlesche texts, and in more recent work with Osage. > But actually, the more I think about it the less likely I find it that > borrowing took place, or that LaFlesche just sort of confused the > plural marker in Omaha/Ponca with the plural marker in Osage. There is > an alternative explanation: if the original state of affairs is a > plural marker -pi in Osage, it is conceivable that it was shortened to > -i in the course of time. But Bristow and Quintero find pi ~ pa ~ pe today, and LaFlesche uses these, not i, in his texts. It is true that *pi has become i in Omaha-Ponca. In fact, in the speech of the two Omahas I worked with it had been reduced to nil except when certain other morphemes followed it. So adha=i 'he went' (in the 1890s) was adha, but adha=i=the remains adha=i=the, or wadhatha=i=ga=hau remains wadhatha=i=ga=hau. Actually, in the 1890s it was generally wadhatha=i=ga=ha. Use of =u in male speech has increased since then. I have the impression that Poncas may retain =i in final position, and I have heard annecdotally of recent Omaha speakers who did. Note that *pi remains bi in Omaha in (a) names, (b) in songs (at least in the 1890s), and (c) in certain morphological contexts, e.g., before =ama the quotative (so-called - it's more of a marker of reporting used for things that can't be personally vouched for), or in the negative plural =b=az^i. Rory Larson has pointed out that is generally associated with indirect/unvouched for contexts, even when nothing follows it, and that =i alternates with =bi in some morphological contexts to mark that distinction. Anyway, there's no doubt that both the true Osage plural/proximate and the Omaha plural/proximate are cognate with the Dakotan plural. They simply have different modern patterns of allomorphy, and LaFlesche's Osage Dictionary, for unknown reasons, but undoubtedly reflecting the Omaha ethnicity of its compiler, has the Omaha pattern. This does not seem to reflect anything about actual Osage usage at any point. > Such reductive processes are normal, especially with high-frequency > items, as Bybee and others tell us, and plural markers are in this > category. The Lakota plural marker, which happens to be -pi as well, > is a case in point: in today's spoken Lakota, the full form -pi is not > that frequent. Realizations of the plural marker run the gamut from > -pi, -p, -b, -m, -mp to vowels or semivowels like -w, -u, -o, etc. I've often wondered if just this sort of reduction probably explained the pattern of plurals in Crow-Hidatsa, where, in fact, vowels like this are the main plural marker in Crow. It could even explain =tu in Southeastern, e.g., Biloxi, if the -r- here is epenthetic between the stem and the plural "vowel." I assume the various reductions are parallel rather than old. It also looks to me like the present inflected future auxiliary of Crow and Hidatsa, which looks quite different from the situation in Dakotan, is linked to it by the habit in Dhegiha of combining =tta (reflex of *=ktE) with the standing and other positionals, =tta=miNkhe 'I will', tta=dhiNkhe 'you will', =tta=akha 'he will'. In short, the auxiliary pattern in CH could be a highly reduced variant of an analog of the Dhegiha construction. So =tta=miNkhe, etc., reduced to =wi, etc. In Omaha =tta=dhiNkhe can certainly reduce in fast speech to =tta=iNkh. > That Osage -pi is still -pi in LaFlesche's and Dorsey's ceremonial > texts would fit the overall picture because ceremonial language tends > to be more conservative than everyday language, in which structural > reduction happens first. Best, Regina The problem is that the informal daily speech of the last generations of Osage speakers has =pi ~ =p=e (essentially no male speakers recorded!), not =bi ~ =i. It is a bit distressing to have the major lexical resource for Osage contaminated (or maybe hybridized would be a better term) in this way, and even more so not to know exactly why, but we have what we have. I can attest that Omaha speakers who looked at LaFlesche were generally pleased with it. Still, a good deal about it is not Omaha-Ponca. It's not what I would have come up with myself as a generic, cross-dialect representation of Dhegiha, but maybe LaFlesche was groping toward something like that. Probably for such a purpose one would want to write =pi, even though Osage generally has =p=e, and Omaha-Ponca generally have =i. You'd probably want to write ptk or maybe ptck, instead of bdg. How you'd represent *W and *R, which come out mn in OP and ptc in Osage, I don't know. Maybe b and d? You'd want to write all five vowels, even if OP reduces i and u to i, and has something more like u for o. You'd definitely have to write aspiration, but maybe with h rather than the Osage x ~ s^ alternation. The second persons of *r-stems in *s^-R-, which come out s^n > n in OP and s^t > s^t ~ sc in Osage would be a problem. I guess they would have to be s^d, but the modern reflexes are rather different. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Diese Nachricht wurde ueber den WWW-Server des LRZ verschickt. http://www.lrz-muenchen.de Rechnername des Absenders: stnb-d932e6c6.pool.mediaways.net IP Adresse des Absenders: 217.50.230.198 From John.Koontz at colorado.edu Thu Apr 10 20:23:01 2003 From: John.Koontz at colorado.edu (Koontz John E) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 14:23:01 -0600 Subject: Osage plural In-Reply-To: <200304101842.h3AIgXJ17433@nx112.slb.lrz-muenchen.de> Message-ID: On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Pustet wrote: > Well, in that case, it looks like the "Omaha contamination hypothesis" > is the only one we're left with. I brought up borrowing and reduction > as possible explanations because I just couldn't believe that > LaFlesche was that sloppy. I've been meaning to note that I've realized in rereading some of my comments that expressions like Osage-in/Omaha-out and contamination have potentially offensive readings that I didn't intend. In particular, I didn't intend any analogy to garbage-in/garbage-out, and I meant contamination only in the sense of adding a non-native element relative to Osage, not in a sense of adding something inherently unworthy or dangerous (like a poison) or of adding something with less merit. I'd also like to address the issue of whether LaFlesche's Omahaisms (which could as well be Poncaisms or Omaha-Poncaisms, except that he was specifically an Omaha) should be regarded as sloppy or deficient. They are certainly contrary to the scientific principle of representing what is observed accurately. And, since they make it harder for a subsequent non-Omaha-Ponca or non-Osage speaking linguist later on to figure out what was actually observed, such an individual would naturally regret them, as I do. However, I don't feel that Francis LaFlesche approached this task as a detached scientific observer, but rather as a culturally-internal literary exercise. So, he probably wasn't simply being careless or unconcerned. On the other hand, he didn't say what he was doing, perhaps because he did die before the project was completed, and so we are left to wonder what precisely he did have in mind. I don't think he willfully misrepresented matters, because he doesn't seem like the sort of personality to do that wantonly, and no suitable motive appears for doing it otherwise. I don't think he was, for example, caught in mid-revision from an Osage-oriented text to an Omaha-Ponca-oriented text, because the mechanics of modifying a dictionary manuscript at the time would militate against first correcting one affix or enclitic system and then another. I don't think he was really trying to produce a generic Dhegiha dictionary, suitable for use by all the Dhegiha groups, because the changes made don't seem consistent with that goal, and I haven't noticed any other tendencies in that direction, apart from the observation in the The Omaha Tribe that the five tribes are cognate, meaning, I take it, that they have very obviously related languages and many parallel social institutions. I'm left with something like what Regina originally suggested - that the texts are morphologically correct because LaFlesche felt a strong duty to reproduce them exactly in all details, while the dictionary reverts in some respects to Omaha-Ponca norms because the results are are approximately and satisfactorily correct and good enough for the context - a context to which he presumably felt a considerable obligation as well. In that case I suppose I would be claiming, in essence, that the "pronunciation" differences between the two plural systems, which seem real and significant to us, meant less to LaFlesche observationally than such matters as using ts instead of t before e and i. I'm not sure I quite believe that, but so far it's the best I'be been able to manage. It might be possible to make some deductions from a consideration of LaFlesche's manuscript (or slip file), perhaps by comparison with Dorsey's Osage slip file, which, as far as I know, is the only manuscript on the subject. I believe the NAA has the manuscript for the Osage Dictionary, or at least the slip file, which I suspect would have been the bulk of the manuscript for such a work, and the source from which it would have been typeset. It occurs to me to wonder if the Government Printing Office has an archive of notes on its publications for the BAE separate from the BAE/NAA materials. From ahartley at d.umn.edu Fri Apr 11 23:03:22 2003 From: ahartley at d.umn.edu (Alan H. Hartley) Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:03:22 -0500 Subject: Nishnabotna again Message-ID: John Luttig in his Journal of a Fur-Trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri 1812-1813 (p. 41) refers to the Nishnabotna as the Ichinipokine River. I'm by no means sure it's the same word, but if it is, does it shed any light? (Luttig was a native speaker of German.) Alan From rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu Wed Apr 16 23:46:58 2003 From: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu (Rory M Larson) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 18:46:58 -0500 Subject: Osage plural Message-ID: (John wrote:) > Note that *pi remains bi in Omaha in (a) names, (b) in songs > (at least in the 1890s), and (c) in certain morphological > contexts, e.g., before =ama the quotative (so-called - it's > more of a marker of reporting used for things that can't be > personally vouched for), or in the negative plural =b=az^i. > Rory Larson has pointed out that is generally associated with > indirect/unvouched for contexts, even when nothing follows it, > and that =i alternates with =bi in some morphological contexts > to mark that distinction. I'd like to revise my position slightly from what I was arguing when first grappling with this. First, the dichotomy between =i and =bi is quite regular in the Dorsey texts. If the verb is followed by =i, the speaker is asserting it on his own account as the straight goods. If the verb is followed by =bi, it means that the speaker is absolving himself of responsibility for the implication of what he has just said. Thus, =bi is regularly used in reporting hearsay, or in describing a former hypothesis. In the latter role, it may cover supposition or expectation ("supposed to"). In third person declarative statements, neither =i nor =bi normally has anything to do with plurality. They do indicate that the concept is complete rather than progressive, and that it is independent of outside influence. In commands, and in statements and exhortations that use the potential particle /tte/, =i at least signals plurality. There are a few very rare, but illuminating cases, however, in which =i is replaced by =bi in these contexts. Usually, you command a group of people in the form: V=i ga! But if you are conveying someone else's command, you can cast it in the form: N V=bi ga!, where N is the name of the party whose command you are conveying! Similarly, [Concept] tta=i conveys the speaker's assertion that [Concept] is to take place, while [Concept] tta=bi says that [Concept] was supposed to take place, but perhaps didn't. In these cases, I don't know whether =bi would be used in the singular or not. I'm also not clear yet on the use of these particles in declarative you- and we- statements. Tragically, both particles seem to be moribund in modern Omaha. When we first discussed the =i vs. =bi issue, I offered defenses for three situations in which my distinction of =i, fact, vs. =bi, hearsay, seemed to run into trouble: a) The name of the giant killed by Rabbit: Ttaxti-gikhida=bi, glossed as He-For-Whom-They-Shoot-Deer Trouble: By this translation, the particle should be =i, not =bi. Defense: Names are conservative; this one dates to a time when the =i vs. =bi dichotomy had not yet been made. At that time, there was only *bi < MVS *pi, and it indicated plurality. Bound up in a name, the /b/ sound was retained, even as it was lost in comparable derivations from active speech. b) The song in "The Lament of the Fawn over its Mother": In the narrative portion of this story, =i is used in the dialogue over whether the beings were men or crows; yet in the song portion, =bi appears in the same positions that =i had just above. Trouble: If =i and =bi appear in the same place with the same meaning, then maybe they are merely speech variants of the same thing. Defense: Songs, like names, are conservative, because they are memorized. The narrative part, however, is not memorized, and hence reflects standard speech at the time the whole piece was recorded. c) Sentences with =i in the narrative: Normally, the narrative (non-dialogue) portion of the myths has the =bi form. Every now and then, however, the narrative shifts to the =i form for a sentence or two. Trouble: This is a counter-example to the rule of =bi for reporting hearsay. Defense: This shift is stylistic. It may occur for the same reason that we sometimes shift from past to present tense in telling a story: to make it seem more immediate to the listener. Also, the =i form is surely the most common one in daily speech, and requires less vocalization; shifting to it may just indicate a moment of laziness. Of these three "defenses", I think only the third is still necessary. In the "fawn" story (Dorsey p358), the fawn and its mother argue as follows: Fawn: NaNha', dhe'ama ni'ashiNga =i ha. Mother, these men (decl) (emph) Mother, these are men. Mother: AN'khazhi, ni'ashiNga =ba'zhi, kka'gha =i he. Not so, men not-(decl), crows (decl) (emph) No, they're not men, they're crows. The fawn proves correct; the mother is shot and butchered by the hunters. The fawn returns and sings the lament: NaNha', nia'shiNga' =bi ehe', kkagha' =bi eshe' dhaN'shti. Mother, men (hyp) I say, crows (hyp) you say (past). Mother, I said they were men, you said they were crows. In fact, the alternative use of =i and =bi here is exactly as it should be. In the first pair, the two are directly asserting their respective claims as to the identity of the beings, which requires =i. But in the song, the fawn is recalling these assertions as hypotheses that had been stated. As both the correct and the incorrect assertion are reviewed as former hypotheses, =bi is the appropriate particle. Thus, the "song defense" is not needed here. The "giant" story revolves around a giant for whom hunters shot deer, but dared not butcher for themselves, as the giant claimed all kills for himself. The story suggests a thread of outrage over this oppression. I think the inspiration for this story is almost certainly some ancient chief who imposed tribute upon the ancestors of the Omahas, and whose overthrow is here celebrated in a somewhat garbled way as one might expect after a few hundred years of retelling. The giant himself is outraged that Rabbit presumes to cut up a deer without the giant's permission. The name Ttaxti-gikhida=bi is glossed "He-for-whom-they-shoot-deer", but it might actually be better understood as "He-for-whom-deer-are-supposed-to-be-shot". That is, it could be the expectation that tribute is to be rendered to him, rather than the bland observation that people shoot deer for him, that is the true force of this name. In that case, =bi rather than =i would be grammatically appropriate. I've looked through the Omaha names listed in Fletcher and La Flesche. There seem to be about two dozen that use =bi and none that use =i. U'nizha=bi (Meaning uncertain) INshta'dha=bi INshta', eye; dha, cause, bi, he is. Appointed eyes. Refers to the appointed leader of the chase. This name belonged to one who was hereditary leader of the chase. I'nikasha=bi Refers to tribal pipes-- objects by which the tribe is identified as a people. Nia'dishtaga=bi Ni, water; adi, there; shta, from iNshta, eye; gabdha, to open. (See Legend of the Sacred Pole, p. 70), where the name appears without elision. Te'hutaN=bi Te, buffalo; hutaNbi, bellowing. (See ritual, p. 298.) DhispaN=bi To feel of. Refers to corn. (See ritual, p. 266.) WanaN'shekhidha=bi One who is made soldier. Gi'dhikaN=bi He to whom a place is yielded. DaN'a=bi (Meaning uncertain) Mi'naNda=bi The only sun. GiaN'ha=bi Gi, from him; aN'ha, to flee; bi, who is. One who is fled from. EzhnaN'gidha=bi EzhnaN', only; gidhabi, who is favored-- gi, possessive sign; dha, favored; bi, who is. The favored son(?) Wahu'dha=bi One of whom permission is asked. Appears in treaty of 1815. Sigdhe'naNpha=bi Sigdhe, footprints; naNphabi, to fear. One whose footprints, even, are feared. GdhedaN'naNpha=bi Hawk who is feared. Udha'ga=bi Refers to wolf. Uma'a=bi Cut into pieces and spread (scattered?). NaN?aN'=bi NaN?aN, to hear; bi, who is. One who is heard. I'iNga=bi I'iNga, rejected; bi, who is. Dha?e'gidha=bi Dha?e, from dha?edhe, liked or beloved; gi, passive; bi, who is. Refers to a calf that is caressed by its mother. I'kuha=bi I, is; kuhe, fear of the unknown; bi, who is. One who is feared. I'bahaN=bi I'bahaN, to know; bi, he is. He is known. Refers to a chief's son. A striking feature of most of these names is that the subject referred to is passivized. The person being named is known, feared, beloved, rejected, heard, deferred to, appointed to office, or has his eyes opened. Usually the subject's status depends upon the attitude or behavior of others toward him. In contrast, names in which the focus is the subject of an active or stative verb normally are not followed by either =i or =bi. Names like this are numerous, but a good example pair can be found in the names of the magnificent dogs in the story "WahaNdhishige and WakaNdagi", p. 109. In these cases, no entity class noun is specified for them, but only their action with respect to an object: MaN'ze =dhaxaN' Iron breaks-by-mouth Breaks-iron-with-his-teeth IN'?e =dhashi'zhe Stone shivers-by-mouth Shivers-stones-with-his-teeth In a 19th century Omaha statement, these verbs would have to be followed by =i or =bi, unless the implication was that someone else was responsible for their action. That would be a reasonable supposition for dogs, but this is regular for human names as well, and even so, the latter expression should probably come out as IN'?e=dhashi'zhe=e. So whereas a statement uses =i and =bi to signal that the concept is complete rather than progressive, and independent of outside influence, with =i indicating assertion and =bi indicating hypothesis, a name generally uses =bi to signal that the subject is in a passive state relative to the operation of others. It is likely that this =bi imparts a normative claim rather than a factual one. In the texts, there seems to be another use of =i as well. It is certainly most commonly used as described above for statements, but sometimes =i also seems to be used to indicate passivization, much in the way that =bi is used in building names, only with declarative rather than normative force. In statements, I think only =i is used this way. Occasionally this or some other important use of =i will show up in combination with one of the regular =i's or =bi's, as either =i=i or =i=bi. In any case, the =bi that shows up in a name may well indicate the plurality of passivization that occurs in Dakotan; but we cannot be sure that no other semantic implications are involved. A name ending in =bi might mean e.g. "He-who-is-to-be-feared" as easily as "He-who-is-feared". Therefore, I don't think the "name defense" is needed either, though it seems to be true that only =bi occurs in names. > Anyway, there's no doubt that both the true Osage > plural/proximate and the Omaha plural/proximate are > cognate with the Dakotan plural. They simply have > different modern patterns of allomorphy, and LaFlesche's > Osage Dictionary, for unknown reasons, but undoubtedly > reflecting the Omaha ethnicity of its compiler, has the > Omaha pattern. This does not seem to reflect anything > about actual Osage usage at any point. The "name defense" and the "song defense" both rested on the assumption that =i was a recent derivation from =bi. If these riders go away, then I'm not sure that that assumption itself is necessary either. John and Regina have both been arguing on the basis of this assumption, that =i is a reflex of MVS *pi, and that its existence in that form is a quirk unique to OP. Regina has suggested that Osage might have borrowed =i from OP, or that =i might simply be a speech variation of Osage =pi, to explain the =i forms that show up in the La Flesche dictionary of Osage. Against this, John points out the geographical separation of Osage from OP, and the fact that both modern Osage and a set of early ritual texts use =pi for pluralizing; he suspects that La Flesche's Omaha background may somehow have corrupted the dictionary. In OP, we are fortunate enough to have a very rich literature recorded from fully fluent speakers in the late 19th century, which provides a wide variety of grammatical usages. In that language, =i and =bi are radically distinct elements which contrast with each other, while simultaneously signalling several different semantic implications, not just plurality. Given how deeply and subtly embedded these particles are in 19th century OP, can we really be sure that related languages like Osage did not have a comparable contrastive pair? If they did, Osage presumably used the =pi particle most commonly, unlike OP where =i was more frequent. In the old ritual texts, =pi might by chance have been the one used in the grammar of the ritual, and replicated throughout because the grammar there was always the same. In modern times, =pi might indeed be used for plural, in a grammar largely restructured in a process similar to creolization over a hundred years of close exposure to English. In between, Francis La Flesche may have caught some genuine Osage =i forms. His Omaha background may have made it especially likely that he would. Thinking as an Omaha, he might have been trying to elicit =i forms: "Could you say: 'MiNdse kHe oNgdhuza=i' ?" he might have asked, trying to fill out his paradigm, and his elderly informants would nod indulgently and reply, "Yes, you could say that!", though the Osage meaning might have been odd and notably different from what he thought he was getting at. I've looked at the short collection of Osage sayings at the end of the dictionary, which I understand are supposed to be basically correct, and not from La Flesche. There is one case in which =i appears, in the tta=i tHe form which is common in Omaha, and which in the context indicates a very certain future. There are also two or three cases in which =bi is used for what is singular in the translation. Both =azhi and =bazhi are used for the negative plural. If this material is valid, it seems unlikely to me that Osage =pi was simply a pluralizer at the time it was collected. It is certainly true, though, that =bi (=pi) occurs in many places where we would find =i in 19th century Omaha. To me, it seems entirely probable that OP =bi and =i have been distinct particles for a long time, most likely back to proto-Dhegiha and possibly back to MVS. I agree that OP =bi and Osage =pi descend from MVS *pi. But I would like to ask John and other comparativists what evidence causes us to be sure that OP =i derives from the same particle. Rory From dvklinguist at hotmail.com Tue Apr 22 19:57:44 2003 From: dvklinguist at hotmail.com (David Kaufman) Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 12:57:44 -0700 Subject: Siouan conference Message-ID: Hi all, I wanted to get more info on the Siouan conference this year, which I believe is being held in Michigan (?) in August (?). Wanted to verify this info and find out more about it. I'm very interested in attending and would like to meet all of you involved in Siouan linguistics. As you may remember, I'm the one particularly interested in Ho-Chunk. Thanks, Dave Kaufman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: