More regarding "wa"

R. Rankin rankin at ku.edu
Thu Dec 18 14:48:54 UTC 2003


These are both very nice examples of the fact that
the outcome of derivational morphological process
is not semantically predictable.  New words are
created by nominalizing verbs in just the way Rory
states.  Then those words take on a life of their
own and, in these cases, have specialized to very
particular meanings in just the way Tom Leonard
states.  Inflection, of course, is different and
should always have semantically predicatble
results.

Bob

> The use of "wa- as a nominalizer", as Rory
pointed out, makes some sense in
> certain aspects. For instance, Rory pointed out
'wa-z^ide = 'the one that is
> red'. Wa-z^ide is Ponca for "tomato".

> But 'wa-nidhe' ('the one that heals') while
making some sense in this
> regard, is also used almost as a proper name. In
prayer, people address
> Jesus as "Wa-nidhe".



More information about the Siouan mailing list