Blackfoot Wh-words enquiry

[Heike Bödeker]

Dear Bruce,

> The Lakota words are called T-words because they begin
> with t-

Like onsets (be it by identical roots, by sound symbolism or just 
profane analogy) of demonstratives and interrogatives are attested in 
many lgs. resp. lg. families, e.g. in Indo-European we have 
interrogatives/indefinites/relatives in *kW-, distals in *s-/*t-, 
proximals in *i-/*e-, in Dravidian distals in *a-, contingents in *u-
, proximals in *i- and interrogatives in *yaa-/*ee-, etc. etc.

> Could you tell me the Blackfoot equivalents?

Sure. Actually, they're more fully treated in the standard grammars 
by Frantz (1991: 134-138), Taylor (1969: 164, 213ff) and Uhlenbeck 
(1938: 104-108). They're involving two interrogative roots, t- (ts- 
resulting from a following *i, which is perfectly regular) and s- 
(pace Taylor), as well as a demonstrative called into this special 
service, and manner preverbs. Obviously, there's considerable 
dialectal and historical variation involved, but, alas, the full 
picture is not attested.

> taku    'what, something"

tsá (non-human animate or inanimate) "what?" [tsá niit- "what manner? 
how?", tsá aanist- "id."; tsá anistsii- "be what time? be when?"]

áahsa (inaminate) "what?"

> tokhel  'how, somehow'

s.a.

> tona    'how many, some'

s.a. [tsá niitsi- "be what number? be how many?"]

> tokha   'what happened, something happened'

s.a.

> tuktel  'where, somewhere'

tsimá "where?", or distal ann- with non-affirmative verbal inflection 
(e.g. annáatsiksi kóko'siksi? "where are your kids?")

> tokhiya 'where to, somewhere'

s.a. (e.g. tsimá kitáakitapóóhpa? "where will you go?")

> tohan/l 'when, sometime'

s.a.

> tuwe/a  'who, someone'

tahkáa, takáá (obviative: tsikáa) "who?"

> tukte   'which'

tská "why? which?"

tsiyá "which?"

(i)máak- (Piikani (i)máo'k-) "why?"

All the best,

Heike