"bow"

[Koontz John E]

On Sat, 12 Nov 2005, David Costa wrote:
> The words for 'bow' got dragged into this as well, in that the Shawnee word
> for 'bow' is /hilenahkwi/, which is literally 'ordinary wood'. And of
> course, the Shawnee word for 'gun' is /mtekwa/ (pl. /mtekwaapali/), which
> derives from the old 'bow' word.

Does the plural mtekwaapali involve the *-aapy- final?  If so, does the
singular mtekwa not?

Also, in regard to an earlier comment:

> The other main term for the concept can be reconstructed variously as PA
> */a?ca:pyi/ (usually 'bowstring') or */a?ta:pya/ 'bow' (the form found
> in Eastern).

I take it that 'bowstring' is the inanimate gender form of the stem
*a?caapy- while 'bow' is the animate form?

Am I remembering correctly that animate *me?tekw-a is (sometimes?) 'bow',
while inanimate *me?tekw-i is 'stick'?

It is, of course, the me?tekw- stem that I was suggesting might be from a
hypothetical PS *maNaNt(e)=ko 'his bow', thus explaining the
Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan alternation of forms like *maNaNte and
*maNaNt(-)ku- for 'bow'.  Alternatively, perhaps some of the MV Siouan
dialects simply deleted Algonquian -ku on the false assumption that it was
=ko.  However, some of the dialects where this happens (Dhegiha) lack
synchronic traces of =ko 'his/hers'.  Dakotan does have it.