"phute'okicu" (etymological enquiry)

Tue Jan 22 20:24:04 UTC 2008

Dear Regina, Many thanks for this response. My apologies for perhaps  
"muddying up" the issue somewhat!
Obviously my post was no model of clarity : My intention was to make  
it clear that Buechel-Manhart (2002, p.175) , echoing Riggs (1890, p. 
285), actually HAD asserted pretty authoritatively, that Consonant 2  
in kic(h)u was NOT ejectivized, despite (what both lexicographers  
register as) the verb's derivation from k'u.

In my edition, B-M says :

"kic(h)u : [fr. k'u to give to] ....Note : by analogy the word should  
be kic'u, but it is not."

Also, your suggested etymology of phute'okicu from kic(h)u makes  
sense to me : elephants do do just that with their food & other  
stuff, seeming indeed to be feeding themselves, I have noticed (or  
used to, in the distant era when itinerant circusses in rural  
Australia actually had elephants. As a small boy, I used to watch  
them feed in a paddock, not far from our house.)

Might it in fact be then that, just as B-M. say [p.278], the verbal  
part of the compound DOES derive from wokicu, perhaps a Possessive- 
Dative form of wok'u 'to give food to', meaning in this instance  
'give (one's own) food to' -- which may have lost its ejective c' for  
the same 'reason' as kic(h)u?
Trouble is, B-M. fails to list such a form : a fact which, one  
supposes, may not be totally conclusive? Nevertheless, wokicu IS  
mentioned in the entry for phuthokic(h)u.
And yet, I have an idea that I have come across other such derived  
forms in the course of reading texts (in BH [1924], I think, but may  
be mistaken), which (unlike ikicu) do/did evidently exist, but were  
omitted from the dictionary.

My understanding of B-M.'s term "gutteralization" was that it  
referred to the fricative articulation, or velar release, of the  
Lakhota aspirated stops kh-, ph-, & th- preceding the vowels a, aN,  
uN, o, (& sometimes e), as indicated in the Txakini, & Ullrich  
orthographies. Not correct?
My exasperation with B-M. was at their very confusing annotation of  
BOTH the unaspirated stops AND these aspirated 'gutteralized' ones  
with a (to my eyes) identical superscript dot
(See  : B-M Dict. "Guide to Pronunciation", p. xiv.) But perhaps I've  
misunderstood something?

Kind regards,

Clive.

P.S. May I thank you also for your seminal contributions to Lakhota  
studies. I find your papers on the Lakhota Article, on Split  
Intransitivity in Lakhota & Osage; on 'etaN' & 'etaNhaN'; on the  
Postpositions; on 'el' VS 'ekta'; as well as on the Coding of  
(Siouan) oblique case relations most illuminating. I am so looking  
forward to the publication of your Reference Grammar!

On 22/01/2008, at 9:51 PM, REGINA PUSTET wrote:

> Incidentally, I have collected some data on kicu 'to give back to'  
> because this verb gave me trouble when dealing with Lakota  
> benefactives/possessives. The file still looks chaotic and I'm not  
> even trying to present you with a clear picture of the  
> morphological properties of kicu, but I think I can say this much:
> phutokicu 'elephant' might easily be derived from kicu 'to give  
> back', a possible interpretation being 'to give back to the upper  
> lip'. Elephants use their trunks to grab stuff and place it in  
> their mouths (under their upper lips?) by bending back the trunk.  
> So they pretty much 'give back' or return the upper lip to their  
> mouths. Well, maybe that still sounds a bit weird. How about 'to  
> give things (wo-) back to the upper lip'? Or: 'to give/move things  
> back WITH the upper lip' (the trunk is an extension of the upper lip)?
> Examples for kicu:
> ogle ki       kicu
> shirt DEF give back
> 'he returned the shirt to her'
>
> he     kicu           we!
> that   give back  imperative
> 'give it back to him!'
>
> In contrast to what Buechel says, kicu should not be written kic'u  
> because the c is absolutely not glottalized. I will still have to  
> figure out on the basis of my data if there is an etymological  
> connection between kicu and icu 'to take', or possibly even between  
> kicu and k'u 'to give', and whether a benefactive or possessive ki-  
> should be posited as morphological component of kicu. I have  
> transcribed the c in kicu as an unaspirated stop.
> Some of the flyspecks in Buechel's transcription are negligible and  
> confusing because they simulate phonetic distinctions which aren't  
> there. There are three types of stops in Lakota: unaspirated,  
> aspirated, and glottalized. Buechel adds a fourth category, which  
> represents a special type of aspiration, but which I have never  
> been able to single out acoustically. According to Buechel's  
> definition, this must be a "gutturalized aspiration", and the exact  
> phonetic value of this category still is a mystery to me.
> icu 'to take' has an irregular benefactive/possessive form ikikcu.  
> The expected form ikicu does not exist.
>
> Regina
>
>
> Clive Bloomfield <cbloom at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> I've been little puzzled about the Buechel-Manhart etymology  
> supplied for phute'okicu or phuto'kicu [=elephant] :
> (Quote) Page 278 : "from pute'= upper lip + wokicu=what one  
> RESTORES." (unquote, my emphasis). Why 'restores'? 'Restores' what?
> Moreover, one notes that while 'wok'u' [with specialized meanings :  
> i) give food to; ii) lend] does occur in the dictionary, the said  
> form 'wokicu' is nowhere given.
>
> If I am correctly interpreting B-Md.'s rather bamboozling system of  
> tiny superscript dots & microscopic inverted "flyspecks"  for  
> annotation of the unaspirated/aspirated/"gutturalized"/ejective  
> consonantal contrast, as employed in their phonological  
> transcriptions for each dictionary headword (2002 edition), this  
> word is "phute'okichu", hence, apparently, that etymology from  
> kichu 'restore/give back'
> (or is that just 'kicu'? - & I'm using a large magnifying glass!
> In my edition of B-Md., the -c- is printed with NO dot, so accdg.  
> to the Guide to Pron. p.xiv, it sounds as intitial ch- is Engl.  
> 'chair' : aspirated, no?).
>
> B&D. supply [p.89, Sect 104, 1.] : kichu' =to give back one's own'.
>
> On the other hand, at the entry for kichu (kicu?) 'restore' , B- 
> Md., (echoing Riggs' Dakota dict., s.v.), make a point of saying  
> that this verb, by rights, ought to be kic'u, (as a derivative,  
> obviously of k'u, with B&D's ki- 'back again' prefix), but ISN'T,  
> and loses the ejectivity of C2. Perhaps then it is kicu, after all??
>
> Initially, I supposed that some confusion had arisen, perhaps due  
> to Fr. Manhart (possibly?) being rather 'hoist in the petard' of  
> this somewhat quirky orthographical system, and that perhaps the  
> verbal part of the compound might be simply a Dative-Possessive  
> form of icu 'take/take up', with added locative prefix 'o-'  
> 'inside', hence etymology : 'he picks (it) up inside his upper-lip  
> (trunk)'-->'elephant'.
> But then one observes that icu has an (apparently reduplicated/ 
> syncopated?) possessive form 'ikikcu' 'take back what one has given/ 
> take back one's own' (B-Md. s.v.), and there also  exists a form  
> 'iikcu' 'take or obtain what one expects', but apparently no  
> 'ikicu'! Wouldn't the form corresponding to my etymological  
> speculation here, have been (phute)-oIKIcu?
>
> Anyway, while people are setting me straight on that, here's  
> another speculative idea to account for the etymology of  
> 'phute'okichu' :
>
> There is a verb ochu' meaning "to become damp in/to have drops of  
> water inside".
> The Dative/Possessive form might be "okíchu" : "it has [drops of]  
> water inside (FOR him)"--->"his ....has [drops of] water inside".
>
> Could the etymology of  phutéokichu be "his trunk (lit. upper lip)  
> has [drops of] water inside" or "he has water inside his trunk",  
> possibly originating when some Lakota person first saw a circus  
> elephant giving itself a "shower"?
>
> I know: it's a bit 'cute', and prob. transgresses good old William  
> of Occam's ever-useful maxim, but I plead the mitigation of those  
> infuriating dots swimming before my eyes!
> Il ne s'agit qu' un crime passionel, monsieur le juge! ;)
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Clive.
>
>
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