New topic -- stative pronouns with reflexives?

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Thu Jan 15 19:07:18 UTC 2004


On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote:
> Theoretically the b and d of the reflexives could be derived from the active
> set, but then we would have to explain why there are two active pronouns in a
> reflexive.

I asked, because there are some cases of just this A-REFL-A-VERB pattern
in Winnebago, if I recall the examples from the Miner Field Lexicon
correctly, and both Dakotan and Winnebago have some cases of REFL-A-VERB,
too, as I recall.  The sense of the REFL element is not always reflexive,
but it matches *hki(k) in form and has some plausibly related sense like
reciprocal or 'in the middle' or 'be with'.

Because of this in MVS it looks like the source of the construction (with
formant -kki(k)-) is something like A-WITH A-verb, where WITH is *hkik(e).
Of course, I don't know if the Crow example is necessarily a case of this,
too.

There are some instances of this comitative in Dakotan, but the examples I
recall best are from Dhegiha where the comitative co-verb is *z^o=...kre.
So, in the Dhegiha comitative cases we have something syntactically
parallel, but with a different formant.

z^u'=a-gdhe  b-dha
     A1 with A1-go
'I went with him'

(Example constructed, but I believe it's essentially correct.)

Forms with this syntax would naturally have doubled agent marking, and
might remain A-WITH-A-VERB or develop along the lines A-WITH-VERB or
WITH-A-VERB.

A comitative origin is more consistent with the evolution of a reciprocal,
I think, than a reflexive, but the Dhegiha and Winnebago-Chiwere examples
with *hki(k)- are all reflexive/reciprocal, and the Dakotan case (*hki-
reciprocal and 'in the middle' and some *hkik(e) commitatives) is
non-reflexive, with another formant yielding the reflexive. So perhaps the
reflexive/reciprocals extend an original reciprocal.



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