Tutelo 1st dual/plural forms.

Rankin, Robert L rankin at ku.edu
Thu Dec 22 21:01:52 UTC 2005


Thanks for the additional info.  Isn't it the case though that there is perhaps no phonological distinction between [o] and [u]?  And certainly not between [oN] and [uN].  Several field workers did record [do] and [noN].  The reason I ask is because Frank Siebert showed himself to be a questionable phonetician in his 1941 Quapaw notes from Oklahoma, and I have to assume he may have had problems when he got away from Algonquian distinctions.  Of course Speck wasn't up even to Siebert's level unfortunately.  McDavid was a professional phonetician though, although I can't say anything about his informants.
 
Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of BARudes at aol.com
Sent: Wed 12/21/2005 6:34 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Tutelo 1st dual/plural forms.


Just as a clarification, the Catawba first person plural forms Bob is referring to are nu ~ du:- (not noN- ~ do-). More specifically, nu is an object proclitic on verbs (e.g. nu ká:nire: 'he/she sees us' [ká:nire: 'he/she sees it'); du:- is a pronominal stem used to form first person plural independent pronouns (e.g. dú:ta? 'we (subject)', dú:ka? 'us (object)', du: 'we (emphatic)'. The inflectional markers for first person plural subjects on verbs and possession on nouns are unrelated to nu: ~du:-: ha- with verbs that take prefixes and with inalienably possessed nouns and -?a:- with verbs that take suffixes and with alienably possessed nouns.  Internal reconstruction within Catawba would suggest that nu and du:- come from earlier nu and nu:-.

Blair 



More information about the Siouan mailing list