OP the-Gender Nouns

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Mon May 17 02:53:11 UTC 2004


I repeated the 200 page experiment for the-nouns.  I may not have caught
all of the examples in this span as it is sometimes hard to distinguish
'when' and 'evidential' uses quickly and I was trying to avoid these.  I
also omitted some nominalizations, more or less complex, and things like
'the first' and 'the second', etc.

The body part list, excluding more or less clear plural uses, includes
'hand', 'mouth', and, of course, 'ear'.

As far as manufactured objects or tools, we have mostly parts of things,
e.g., 'arrow heads' and 'head of bow', although in some cases the
reference is clearly plural, and perhaps we have =the as plural of =khe.
Note that in the usual progression we think of =khe as a plural relative
to =the.  Perhaps in this category we have he'be 'piece'.

Many things listed seem to be plural or collected, but this is clearly not
the only kind of =the example.

Quite a number of thins that also appear as =khe nouns appear as =the
nouns, not necessarily with a clear plural sense, e.g., 'cord' and
'water'.

Time periods, e.g., seasons, seem to be =the nouns.

Certain physical features of the landscape are =the, e.g., 'spring' and
'cliff'.

The main cases where vertical vs. horizontal seem to come into play are
with 'lodge' and 'tree'.

dhe'ghegakku 'drum'
dhe'ze 'tongues'
ha'z^iNga 'cord'
he'be 'piece'
hi'gaN 'myth'
hu' 'voice'
i' 'mouth'
i'e 'speech, words'
iN'?e 'stone(s?)'
ma'dhe 'winter'
maN' 'arrows'
maNa' 'cliff'
maNde'ppa 'head of bow'
maN'hiNsi 'arrow heads'
maNnaN's^ude 'dust from treading the ground'
maN'sa 'arrow shafts'
mas^aN 'feathers (a collected bunch)'
maxu'de 'ashes'
naNbe' 'hand'
nihaN'ga 'spring (of water)'
niN' 'water'
ni'tta 'ear'
nu'ge 'summer'
ppa 'heads (a set of several from a decapitated monster)'
ppai' 'points'
ppa'ze 'evenings'
ppe'de 'fire'
s^kaN' 'deed'
sigdhe' 'trail (footprints?)'
sihi' 'feet'
ttanu'kka 'fresh meat'
tti' 'lodge'
tti'z^ebe, ttiz^e'be 'door'
u?u'de 'hole'
u'haN 'cooking'
umaN'(?)e 'provisions'
umiN'z^e 'couch, bed'
u's?u 'slices'
u's^kaN 'deed(s?)'
uxpe' 'bowl'
wa?aN' 'song'
wa?iN' 'pack'
wa'dhaha 'clothing'
wadhatha=i 'what they ate (a piece)'
was^iN' 'fat'
xdhabe' 'tree'
z^aN' 'tree'
z^aNxdhu'?a 'hollow tree'


John E. Koontz
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz



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