Lakota wa- 'variety object'

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, Carolyn Q. wrote:
> I think the use of *extra* wa in Osage adds the sense of 'around' as in
> 'ask around' and 'paint around on things' or some such and alludes to
> repeating the action.  So maybe 'asking and asking', or 'painting and
> painting'.  I don't have the example at hand but seem to remember 'to
> see things' (over a period of time on different occasions) being
> wawedhe, with two instances of wa: wa wa iidhe, with iidhe 'see'.  The
> gloss would be something like 'he's been seeing things'.  One wa is the
> valence reducer "things" and one is a sort of multiplier of instances of
> the verb, as I see it.

Interesting that again the verb (iidhe) is an i-locative.  And I assume
that 'ask around' would be a cognate of i-locative wawe'maNghe in OP.  I
take it that there's something special about the grammar of i- here, and
not merely its phonology.

JEK