a wish?

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2003, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I'd agree with Carolyn on this.  I did see, and briefly considered,
> the "attack" interpretation of KO(n)ONTHA, but the translation
> "Friend, you walk in very good health. He attacked me." seems a little
> schizophrenic for a chair dedicated to a Vice President (unless we go
> with Louis' suggestion that this last clause might be Curtis' Indian
> name).

I interpreted it as 'He threatened me' (but nevertheless) 'You should go
in health'.

> Both roots are inflected here, except in the 'we' form, where it
> appears only in front.  I don't know the non-I forms of the "would
> like" and "wish" expressions.  It's notable, though, that the last
> form, "I wish", uses /koN/ followed by the word /ebdhe'goN/, which is
> exactly the word for "I think" in modern OP.

I suspect that the kkoN is in all cases the first person.  There doesn't
seem to be any reason to slip from goN to kkoN in non-firsts.  Cognates of
this verb in MVS generally have *k, not *hk (i.e., in OP or Ks terms g,
not kk, or in Os terms k, not hk or kk, depending on how we write that
sound).

> If /goN'dha/ is understood as a single verb, "want", then the we-form
> should add the /oN-/ to the beginning of the verb to get /oNgoN'dha/.
> But if the strategy is to keep the *koN separate from the "we think",
> then the /oN-/ should attach to the root *(e)dha, "think", giving us
> /goN oNdha/ (OP) or /koN oNdha/ (Os.).

I'm afraid that this doesn't seem all that plausible to me, and that - the
morphology - is why I rejected the 'we wish' analysis.