Osage 'eight'

[Rankin, Robert L]

I had never heard of /gruba/, but I'll check Quapaw when I get home.  Kaw doesn't have *loba 'all' unless in that '8' term, and I don't recall ever seeing it in OS, although Carolyn is the one who would know.
 
Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Rory M Larson
Sent: Wed 8/23/2006 11:13 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Osage 'eight'



>> Does Kaw reduce what in OP is gdh- to l-, as I believe happens with Osage?  Could that -loba be equated to OP gdhu'ba, 'all', 'the whole thing'?

> Yes, it does.  But 'all, whole' is /bloga/ in Kaw, so there's been some messing around with the initial cluster.

In Omaha, this and I believe a few other words seem to do some sound symbolic alternations between bdhVgV and gdhVbV.  So we have bdhu'ga too for 'all', as well as gdhu'ba.  I don't think we've figured out for sure quite what the difference is.  I guess the question would depend on how far back in the Omaha/Dhegihan language lineage a *bro'ka/*gro'pa alternation existed.

Rory