DPs and Demonstratives

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> Well, dem-det before the noun is absolutely impossible in Lakota, which
> is the only one of these languages I know even a little about.  But
> then, the order we have is always det-dem anyway.  The evolution of the
> Dhegiha articles must be quite different from that of the Lakhota ones.

Belatedly chiming in, I think this is definitely the case, and it is
certainly consistent with Bob's work deriving most of the Dhegiha articles
from the positional verbs:  noun det dem => noun det dem positional (= NP
+ V) => noun dem=positional.  Perhaps it would make sense in a purely
diachronic context to consider the Dhegiha articles as something like an
obligatory accompaniment of a now missing noun-final definite article in
the Dakota fashion.  They are conditioned by (concordial in definiteness)
with this deleted element, and concordial in position/shape with the noun.

If this is true, then Dhegiha N dem=det would be expected to match Dakotan
N=det dem approximately in functionality, and Dhegiha dem N=det to match
Dakotan dem N=det.  I think this is consistant with what you and Rory have
both said, i.e., I think you are both treating the posposed dem forms as
resumptive and/or appositive.

I always thought of the OP N dem=det forms as less marked, but I think we
established contrary to my expectations (and without actual statistics)
that dem N and dem N=det are actually more common in the texts.  I believe
it is possible for dem=det N to occur, or even things like dem=det N=det
and N=det dem=det, especially in modern usage.  I have never seen the
article (det) before the noun without a preceding dem (or pro, perhaps, in
the case of e=) to depend upon.  Like the Dakota definite articles the
Dhegiha definite articles are obligatorily enclitic, and the
demonstratives are not.  I don't know about pauses and prolongations, but
I am pretty sure that the demonstrative is always a new high pitch.  I
think dem N has both components accented, too.  I'm not sure about
anything like downstepping or other possible indications of phrase
structure and whether there is any difference in the two cases.  I
completely agree with Rory that the definite article is swallowed up by or
accentually dependent upon the preceding element.  It is never a new high.

I'm not sure if indefinite articles are enclitic to the preceding element
or not.  They never follow a demonstrative, as far as I know.  Dhegiha
lacks the elaborate partitive realis coding of indefinites in Dakotan.
It does distinguish waN (singular) vs. duba ~ j^uba (plural, plural
diminutive).  I'm not sure if duba is partitive as well as plural.
There is a sort of "topicalizer" =de that seems to have some properties in
common with Dakotan =c^ha, but I'm not sure if it still exists.

I'm waiting for clarification and probably some corrections from Ardis and
Catherine!