iron/ metal [and other loans and calques]

[Rankin, Robert L]

> As far as Hocank is concerned, the form ' maNaNs' refers to metal,
mainly iron,  and my informants have told me that the word for copper is
'maNaNs shuuc' or red metal.  I'm not sure this helps the discussion,
but I thought I'd share.

It does help.  And it might be worthwhile to point out that, generally
speaking, when a word in a language gets a new meaning, the newer
meaning often "takes over" the word completely, while the old meaning is
conveyed by using the word with a modifier.  Copper vs. iron would fit
this very well.

This principle doesn't always work, but it very often does.  Thus, to
take another example, Common Siouan $uNke 'dog, canid' in the older
languages is often replaced by its newer meaning, 'horse', leaving 'dog'
as $uNke + a modifier, as in Dhegiha *$oNke-oyudaN > $oNgiidaN, etc.
Also, 'gun' has overtaken 'bow' in some languages, leaving 'bow' as the
gun term plus a modifier.

Bob