WA- once more.

[Carolyn Q.]

John, What you are recalling below at ****** is perhaps that in Osage wa' is
accented when P3p with a dhe- inflectable initial verb, but not other verbs,
and wa valence reducer is not accented with the same dhe- verbs.

And as I said in an earlier email, wa P1p and wa P3p are not differentiated
by length in Osage, as far as I know.

Carolyn

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Koontz John E
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 12:48 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: WA- once more.


On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Rory M Larson wrote:
> So I understand that "us" (P12) in OP is normally pronounced waa-, with
> a long a, while "them" (P3) is pronounced wa- with a short a.

That would be a reasonable supicion, however, I'm not aware of any pattern
of accentuation that would suggest that P12 is waa- when there isn't
something between the two parts.  It's as if there are three variants:
wa- ~ wa...a- and a-wa-.  Certainly it would be worth listening for length
in P12 vs. other instances of "wa."

*****As I recall - can't do this one from memory - wa- Obj3p is accented in
some paradigms.*******

> In instrumentals or datives, P12 is we'a-[stem], with a short a, while
> P3 is we'-[stem].

So presumably weea- and wee-

> In causatives, P12 is
> [target]-awa-dhe, with both a's short, while P3 is [target]-wa-dhe,
> with short a.

We might substute some "variable" like CAUSATIVE for =dhe, since this also
occurs with =khidhe and presumably =kkidhe and =gidhe, too.

> Thus, P12 in OP apparently involves two historical morphemes, *wa and
> *a, which can be split by an intermediate morpheme, or reversed in
> order.  The *wa involved in P12 is likely, but not certainly, the same
> (historical) *wa as that used in P3.

This is correct.  One possible source for the extra -a- is locative a-.

> Is this all correct?  If so, is it the same across Dhegiha?

This is true across Dhegiha as far as I know.  I have not investigated the
matter in Quapaw or Kaw.  I believe things are the same in Osage, except
that the Osage (and other) datives are rather different from those in OP.

JEK