Order of verb affixes

Rankin, Robert L rankin at ku.edu
Fri Nov 12 17:35:14 UTC 2004


I notice in John's recap of the Comparative Dict. entry, that we
recorded uuhaN in IO.  I wonder if this isn't a reflex of the *wo-
prefix Ardis was discussing.  It would come out [u-] or possibly [uu] in
Omaha, of course and would ultimately be from *wa+o-.  Would there be a
phonological difference between reflexes of *o- and *wo- in Omaha?
Other than probably initial syllable accent, that is?  'Pepper' is a
noun and it seems to me ought to have had the initial *wa-.

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of Rory M Larson
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 9:54 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Order of verb affixes






John wrote:
> It looks like there is at least a good chance that the o-initial is
> part of the stem, but it also seems that all of the MV languages treat

> it as a locative.

Thanks for looking this up, John, and thanks to Bob and Ardis for their
comments.

So to summarize, it appears that the proto MVS verb *ohaN,
'to cook', may be a unitary lexical item in which the initial
*o- is part of the root rather than the locative prefix *o-.
In OP and many or all of the present MVS languages, however, the initial
*o- has been (re)analyzed as the locative prefix
*o- such that affixed pronouns in OP are generally inserted between the
*o- (u-) and the -haN, so that OP uhaN' conjugates in the same way as
any other (locative prefix) u- verb.

This brings us back to my original question about IO.  If
the IO word for 'pepper' is formed of the same elements as
the word in OP, except that it places the affixed reciprocal pronoun in
front of the uhaN rather than between the u- and the -haN as in OP, then
does that mean that IO normally places the affixed pronouns in front of
the *o- in other (locative prefix) *o- verbs?  If not, isn't that
evidence that IO preserves an older grammatical pattern in which *ohaN
is still recognized as a unitary root?

Rory



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