Lakota ki- 'to become by itself'

[Jan Ullrich]

I think it should be noted here that the meaning of the prefix ki- is
not "to become" but "to return to the original state". Notice kini 'to
come back to life', not 'to become alive'. The prefix is used with this
meaning throughout the text corpus. Most of the words with ki- given in
Buechel's dictionary originate in his translation of the Bible History
texts (for instance ki-sagye - 'to turn into a cane' is used in the
story about Moses) and are not attested by contemporary speakers. 

It is true that some younger speakers today use ki- with the meaning 'to
become', but its use is semantically restricted, occurs for instance in
kiwichas^a - 'to become a man'. Deloria (in her grammar) defines
kiwichas^a as 'to become a man again (like a human who in a tale had
appeared in animal shape)' and kiwiNyaN as 'to become a (respectable)
woman again'

In my experience and fieldword data, the prefix is not productive. So I
am a bit surprised by some of the words in Regina's list. If the words
come from eliciting rather than texts, I would recoment caution and
cross checking.

 

> ki-ska 'to turn white'

 

Deloria and a couple of my native informants give "to fade (to return to
an original white color)" See also Bushotter's sentence: . oowa uN owapi
tkha hechunpi chan echakchala kiska s'a - 'when they painted (those
things) with colors they often faded'

 

> ki-suta  'to get hard'

 

'to become hard again' as in mazasu s^loyiN na kisuta  'The bullets he
melted became hard again'

 

> ki-bleza  'to become conscious'

 

'to become clear-minded or conscious again, come to one's senses', this
is often used for 'to sober up'

 

> ki-was^tecaka ye!  'behave yourself!'

 

This is a dative. It means "Be nice to him/her." Very common phrase.

 

> ki-thamahecha  'to get skinny'

> ki-haNska  'to get tall'

> ki-ksapa  'he got smart'

> ki-luzahaN 'to get fast'

> ki-'okhate  'to become warm inside, like when turning up the heat'

 

These are all somewhat surprising to me.

 

Notice also, that for instance kini 'to come back to life' is an active
verb (1s wakini), but kibleza 'to conscious again' is treated as a
stative verb (1s: makibleze). This makes me wonder whether some of the
ki- words actually originate in dative, just as akisni - 'to recover
from smth, as a sickness (1s: amakisni)' or iyokiphi 'to be pleased
with' 1s: iyomakiphi). 

Regina, what does your data say on conjugating the verbs in your list?

 

Jan

 

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