Historical questions

[Koontz John E]

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Jimm GoodTracks wrote:
> In this sampling of names above (there are more), the only non-Ioway/
> Otoe rendering is in the word "xaN'she" (big; great).  NOTE:  Ioway:
> xaN'nye ~ xaNn~e;  Otoe:  xaN'je. I have rendered the word as given by
> Dorsey, i.e., xaN'she; however, I have since wondered if it is correct.
> Some of Dorsey's IOM narrative transcriptions use the letter "s" to
> denote theta sound, as in:  thi (foot) would be written as "si".  Then
> he proceeds to write the phoneme "s" as "sh" and does not seem to note
> instances of the phoneme "sh".  He also neglects other features, such as
> glottal stops, etc.  My question now is if the the word for Missouria
> "big; great" is indeed:  xaN'she (OR) xaN'se?

I suspect that if Dorsey wrote s and s^ where we expect theta and s, it's
because the speakers he dealt with still used something he considered to
be s and s^.  Since modern theta and s come from earlier s and s^,
respectively, might we not expect some variations like this in the past?
Of course, I see in the 'sand' term (see below) that at least some of
these s^ forms are where we expect historical s (or z).

>    We tha a                                          Missourie
> Hospatallity

This is the wethea ~ withia form mentioned.  Behind a name glossed
"Hospitality" (Amen on L&C's spelling, Jimm) I'd expect some meaning like
'he spares them', i.e., 'he spares a visiting foreigner's life by feeding
him, making him a sponsored guest immune to mistreatment'.  The attested
form for this in IO is uda=hi (a causative).  I don't see how that would
work.  One possible OP version of this, however, is dha?e=dhe (a
causative) 'to pity'.  The noun is wadha?e=dhe 'pity'.  I wonder if
perhaps the translator - and I know some of them were Omahas - didn't
substitute the Omaha form of the word for the original.  Or maybe the
Missouria speaker was speaking in Omaha anyway?  This is a uniquely
Omaha-Ponca form, as the Osage is dhak?e=dhe and the underlying k? or x?
would also survive in IOM.  In fact, if "a a" is V?V, this form has to be
Omaha-Ponca, which is the main Siouan language with a really obtrusive
intervocalic glottal stop (from *k? and *x?)  As Jimm observes, ia is not
a very likely final sequence in Siouan languages.

>    Au-ho-ning ga                                   M

Presumably ahuniNge 'he lacks a wing'?

>   Au-ho-ne-ga                                      Miss.

Idem!

> I am not familiar with the above term.  Pawnee in IOM is:  PaNYi;  Arickara/
> Aricakaree is:  PaNyi Busa  ~  Butha  (Sand Pawnee:  I haven't a clue for
> the term).

OP normally has ppa(a)dhiN ppi(i)za 'sand Caddoan' for the Arikara.  Any
ppa(a)dhiN (u)maNhaN in this context would be descriptive, though I seem
to recall somebody somewhere suggesting a particular connection of the
Skiri and the Arikara.

We recently commented on the near homophony of bi(i)'ze 'dry' and
ppi(i)'za 'sand'.  In both words the i is from *u.  IOM has budhe ~ busa
(older, because s for dh, and a-ablaut) 'dry' and busa ~ butha (Dorsey
pusha) 'sand'.  Based on the Dhegiha forms I'd expect budhe (earlier buze)
and *phudhe (earlier phuz^e).  Since we have b in most of the IOM 'sand'
forms, I suspect interference from 'dry'.  IOM source spelling may have
bdj^g and/or ptc^k for the unaspirated stops, but it only has ptc^k
(and/or ph th c^h kh) for the aspirates, not bdj^g.  Here I mean
"contemporary aspirates."  Confusingly, the "historical" aspirates of
Proto-Siouan (*ph, *th, *kh) become b d ~ j^ and g in IOM.  'Sand' has
*hp, no *ph.

JEK