calumet de paix

[Koontz John E]

It occurred to me that I failed to give my opinion on several of the
points reported.

On Thu, 4 Mar 2004, Koontz John E wrote:
> The editors (Carter, Jones and Rankin) suggest that the final nasal where
> present is due to fusing with *uN 'to do, make', and point to the -one at
> the end of the Tutelo form (oN + ???).

This is an interesting suggestion, but in that case I'd expect IO *tothuN
and Wi *dooc^uN, whereas -aN is what is attested.  Usually in MVS V=V
sequences V2 wins out, rather than a merger occurring.  I've run into the
same problem trying to account for the final aN in the widely attested
form s^ahaN 'Dakota speaker' in terms of the also widely attested s^ahi
'Cree, Cheyenne'.  It appeals, but doesn't quite work right.

> They then observe that the Hidatsa form maceeriiri 'warpath, war party'
> is a transparent compound of matse 'man' (not 'male') and dide 'walk'.

This is likely to be a helpful comparison, given that the initial seems to
be *pro, which could be 'male'.  It would be helpful to know how widely
this formula is used elsewhere in the region.  Of course, it's possible
that the trope refers to 'person (= victim) going' rather than 'male (=
like a male) going', and I think that is why the editors note carefully
that mace(e) is 'man (person?)' rather than 'male'.

> They suggest that the aspiration in IO-Wi may be due to an analogy with
> *htaNh- 'to run'.

This sort of thing certainly happens, but it's always hard to feel really
confident about diagnosing it in languages so little understood lexically.

> They note Choctaw tanampi 'be hostile, fight, beat war', though, of
> course, the resemblance here pretty vague.  (I might be responsible for
> noting the similarity.)

Although one might explain the loss of -pi by assuming it was taken as a
plural, tana(N)- isn't a particularly good match for the *prota(N),
*RotaN, *Ro(o)htaN forms observed in Siouan and I would be inclined to
withdraw the comparison.  It's true that the irregularity of the set makes
one wonder about loans, but with loans you expect a pretty exact fit as to
form, within the bounds of reanalysis and phonology.