OP /the/ vs. /dhaN/ (Re: Dakota: verbs with 'hill' involved)

[Rory M Larson]

>> OP /the/ is actually pretty complicated in its usage.  It can refer to a
>> standing inanimate thing, like a post or a house, but it is perhaps most
>> commonly used to refer to ordered sets of things, like (an armload of)
>> rocks, or both members of a set of paired body parts.  Thus, one leg
>> would be /khe/, "elongate", but both legs would be /the/, "the set". One
>> eye would be /dhaN/, "globular", but both eyes would be /the/.  A single
>> hand, however, is still /the/, I suppose because all the fingers
>> composing it are regarded as a set.

> Or maybe hands are just upright things?

Well, hands can come in various positions, and I suppose if
the speaker wanted to emphasize a hand laid out flat they could
use /khe/, or a fist might be /dhaN/.  I'll try to check with
the speakers on that.  But the expected default for a hand in
general without specifying anything about its position seems
to be /the/.

I don't think that the distinction of /the/ as 'vertical'
and /khe/ as 'horizontal' really holds as such.  I'm pretty
sure I've seen more than one instance in Dorsey referring to
a rope or swing hanging down from a tree, i.e. vertical, and
the positional used for it was /khe/, not /the/.  I think /khe/
basically means 'elongate', or perhaps 'superficial'.  For a
vertical thing to be /the/, I believe it has to be actually
standing upright, not hanging.

I don't know how it works in other Dhegihan languages, but in
OP I think the essence of /the/ is 'ordered, founded thing',
something set up like a post or house, something that
obviously exists in defiance of entropy; or something that is
right there, just so, at a specific spot; or a well-defined
set of things that are tied together somehow.  The latter
usage nicely contrasts with /ge/, meaning 'scattered things'
not linked together belonging to an unbounded set.


>> I think that /the/ also refers to very precisely located points, vs.
>> /dhaN/, which implies a general area if referring to a location.

> This materializes in the temporal use of /the/ and /dhaN/, e.g., in
'when'
> uses.

Yes.  My impression has been that /the/ was used for an
instant of time, while /dhaN/ referred to a period.  I never
found enough examples to be quite sure about this though.

Rory