Ablaut et al

[Rory M Larson]

>> It is there at least in the orthographic renditions that linguists have 
built for these languages, and quite possibly in the heads of their 
speakers as well.  But the dichotomy does not hold if we assume that 
proto-Siouan words could end in phonemic consonants characterized by an 
unmarked vocal release.  If such a release were reinterpreted as a 
phonemic vowel by later speakers or their linguists, the vowel chosen 
would most likely be -e, and next most likely -i or -a.  It would probably 
not be o, u, iN, aN or uN, because those sounds are marked, either by 
rounding or by nasalization.  The pattern we see in your table is mostly 
-e, some -i, and possibly one case of -a, which squares well with that 
expectation.

> What I'm saying is that this is precisely tantamount to reconstructing 
*-e, which is exactly what I do.  Trying to push -e back to a "consonant 
characterized by an unmarked vocal release" merely adds an unnecessary, 
and unjustified, step.  Why not use Occam's razor and reconstruct what is 
actually there? 

I don't think we're in disagreement at this point in terms of Occam's 
razor.  If our models are "precisely tantamount" to each other, then mine 
has no extra step.  We are both in agreement that there was a vocalic 
sound following the final consonant of CVC-E type verb roots, and that the 
phonetic quality of that vocalic sound was closer to [e] than to any of 
the other four Latin vowel sounds.  The question is whether the speakers 
at the time ablaut developed in Siouan recognized that sound as phonemic 
/e/, and hence as a separate contrastive sound constituent of the root, as 
you advocate, or whether that sound was simply a necessary artifact of 
ending a word on a consonant, and hence non-phonemic, as I am suggesting.


>> This model does not imply that "all 7 other vowels (i a o u iN, aN, uN) 
can occur unaccented word-finally", but that "the most common one, (e)" 
cannot. 

> Sure it does.  ALL verbs in what I reconstruct as CVCe and you 
reconstruct as CVC behave the same phonologically.  It is not the case 
that some of them "ablaut" while others don't.  So there's no reason to 
say that you can have both CVCe and CVC.  I think you're building an 
elaborate "pre-final E" phonology where there's no need. 

We're both building a pre-final E phonology here, and if mine is slightly 
more elaborate than yours it is justified by the fact that you are 
claiming certainty for your model by excluding alternatives, where I only 
need to show a reasonable alternative that you cannot exclude. 
Specifically, you are making the strong claim that a CVC model for verbs 
of your CVCe type is untenable because it would necessarily exclude 
primary CVCe roots while allowing all 7 other vowels in final position in 
CVCv forms.  I proposed the obvious possibility that both CVC and CVCe 
roots existed primarily, but collapsed together at an early stage because 
they were rather similar phonetically.  The CVC roots were much more 
common, and the CVCe roots were perhaps reanalyzed morphologically as CVC. 
 With this very reasonable adjustment to the CVC model, your argument 
against it as excluding primary final -e loses all force.


>> 2. It explains why -e is, I believe, not only the most common, but 
overwhelmingly the most common, ending we find, at least on active verb 
roots.  To the CVCe roots would be added all the presumably numerous CVC 
roots as well.

> But we don't need both CVCe and CVC roots, because there is no 
difference in behavior to motivate them.  I do take your point that -e is 
the most common -V by far.  However, SOME vowel has to predominate 
statistically.

If the final vowel of CVCv roots is phonemic, we should expect it to 
contrast frequently so as to distinguish words.  The argument about the 
final vowel above presumes that it does.  A couple of messages ago, I 
asked you to offer a few examples to help guide our argument.  You 
suggested instead that I consult the CSD PDF file and search on "PSI[ *", 
which moves me along one word at a time.  (Yes, in fact you did share it 
with me, back in 2006.  It's a wonderful resource.  Thank you very much!) 
I have been doing this for a while, and admittedly have not yet got far 
through the file.  I am looking for active verb roots of CVCv type where v 
is something other than -e.  I don't think I've found any yet.  That 
leaves -e predominating statistically at somewhere close to 100%.

Certainly there are many nouns, and five out of ten of the basic numbers 
in Omaha, that have unaccented final vowels with phonemic values that 
contrast with -e.  Many stative verbs have unaccented final -a, at least 
in attributive usage.  Among active verbs, I can think offhand of ttaNriN, 
'run', with accent on the first syllable, but this is surely a compound of 
ttaN 'ground' + riN 'move', i.e. CV+CV, not CVCv.  We also have bexiN, 
'sweep', with accent on the first syllable, but I suspect this is 
underlyingly ba-i-xiN, with three separate morphemes.

So my question is whether we even have any irreducible active verb roots 
in common Siouan of form CVCv where final unaccented v is other than -e? 
If so, can we roll a few out on the table?  If not, are we left with only 
CV, CvCV and CVC(e) patterns?  If the latter is the case, then the whole 
argument above about the final vowels possible for primary CVCv roots 
becomes moot.


> John Koontz and I discussed this quite a bit.  I think he believes that 
-e and -a have/had morphemic status that explains their prevalence.  I 
have tended to resist that analysis since I don't see the semantic 
relationship.

I'm open to that possibility too, and have generally speculated in John's 
direction in the past.  The defense of CVC that I'm currently throwing up 
is largely motivated by trying to make your 
suffixed-particle-with-initial-a model work more smoothly in my head.

Rory
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