Ablaut et al
Rory M Larson
rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu
Thu Sep 1 22:52:18 UTC 2011
Bob,
With no irons in this particular fire, I'd like to play the Devil's
advocate here. I don't really see that the choice between
> a) Proto-Siouan did have a final vowel, namely -e, and it was lost in
Winnebago and replaced by -A in Dakota, OR:
and
> b) Proto-Siouan had consonant-final, CVC, stems, and all of the other
Siouan languages innovated a final -e in these stems INDEPENDENTLY.
is as stark your argument makes it to be.
Looking at the data you present, I would be inclined to read these stems
as phonemically CVC in proto-Siouan, but as operating within a
phonological system that required a small, meaningless, schwa-like
vocalization after a final consonant to clarify that final sound. I
understand that in Korean, final stops have no release. In English, we
have a slight release, but we don't classify the release as a separate
vowel. Perhaps proto-Siouan had more of a release, which operated for any
final consonant. In daughter languages, this release might be
reinterpreted as a separate syllable or not. If it was interpreted as
syllabic, the vowel would be something rather unmarked: most likely -e,
possibly -i or -a, and definitely not rounded. If not, it would stay
consonant final, as in Winnebago or Mandan.
From what work I have done with Omaha, I think these final -e sounds
receive much less stress than previous vowels in the stem, and the
speakers sometimes seem a little ambivalent about whether they should be
pronounced -a or -e. When I try to get them to choose one, I can usually
make them agree that it's -e, but perhaps I'm the one imposing something
on the language that isn't actually there. Maybe even in modern languages
like Omaha, these final -e sounds are only somewhat more pronounced
consonant releases than we English speakers are used to.
Rory
"Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at KU.EDU>
Sent by: Siouan Linguistics <SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
09/01/2011 03:22 PM
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Re: Ablaut et al
Bruce, Paul, et al.
I believe the question whether or not Proto-Siouan had consonant-final
stems is answered by looking at those same stems in the rest of the Siouan
languages. In each instance, virtually all of the other Siouan languages
(besides Dakotan and Winnebago) have a stem-final -e, that is, where
Dakota has ablauting -A, Winnebago has zero and Pat and various other
Dakotanists posit CVC stems. To me, this means that EITHER:
a) Proto-Siouan did have a final vowel, namely -e, and it was lost in
Winnebago and replaced by -A in Dakota, OR:
b) Proto-Siouan had consonant-final, CVC, stems, and all of the other
Siouan languages innovated a final -e in these stems INDEPENDENTLY.
Given the pretty much unanimously agreed upon subgrouping of the Siouan
language family, it seems to me that (b) is very unlikely. I included
lots of evidence for this in that paper I sent to several of you/us. For
example (I hope formatting holds here):
make marks ripe shallow
PS *ká:xe *aRú:te *xé:pe
CR -ka:xi ó:ši xé:pi
HI -ka:xe ó:te xé:pi
MA -kaáx
LA káγA lútA xépA
CH gá:γe dú:je xé:we
WI gá:x tú:č γé:p
OP gá:γe ní:de xébe
KS gá:γe ǰü:ǰe
OS ká:γe cü:ce xé:pe
QU ká:γe títte
BI atutí xépi
OF atúti
You can see that these 3 verbs that "ablaut" in Dakota all show evidence
of a stem-final -e (or a reflex of -e in CR and HI). I personally don't
see any way around reconstructing the *-e, given the subgrouping and
generalized distribution of virtually identical vowels. I might add that
final short -e is vulnerable even today and tends to devoice in languages
like Omaha following certain voiceless consonants, as in: /mikhe/ 'I am
the one who', which is often pronounced [mikhE] with a whispered e. (I
think John Koontz mentioned this to me; correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway,
the prevalence of an underlying final -e is evident in all these stems.
Now, whether there was a period during which Dakotan dialects lost final
-e and actually had CVC stems, I don't know. It may be possible, but
whether or not this happened, Dakotan generalized an [-a] in these stems,
and the impetus for this analogical change seems to have been suffixes
that had a suffix-initial a-, such as -ape/-api 'plural', -as^ 'negative'
and others. As far as I can tell, Dakotan is the only language in the
family that generalized the vowel /-a/ to this degree. So, while "ablaut"
is very real in Dakotan, it is, for the most part, phonologically
conditioned in the rest of Siouan.
There are isolated examples that muddy the waters like "ablauting" nouns,
e.g., s^uNka 'dog' in Dakota, but this sort of thing is true of all
analogical change. Then there a few cases like ablauting nasal vowels, aN
~ iN, etc. where analogy REALLY went to town. These don't exist outside
of Dakota as far as I know.
Anyhow, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. :-) If this
presentation is confusing, to anyone, I can send a copy of the original
paper, as I already have to several.
Sorry, I can't contribute anything intelligent at all to the Semitic part
of the discussion.
Bob
________________________________________
From: Siouan Linguistics [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] on behalf of Rankin,
Robert L [rankin at KU.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 12:42 PM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: Ablaut et al
Bruce,
This is indeed an interesting topic. There is a close correlation between
Shaw's (and Carter's, etc.) Dakotan "consonant-final stems" and stems
where the other Siouan languages have long vowels. The rule seems to have
been: If the 1st syllable is long, it is accented; if it is short, accent
the 2nd syllable. Or, it could be phrased in terms of morae. This begs
the question whether or not Dakota had final vowels in the initial accent
words. I'm off this afternoon on a short trip up to Omaha and Council
Bluffs and will return to this issue when I get back.
Best,
Bob
________________________________________
From: Siouan Linguistics [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] on behalf of shokooh
Ingham [shokoohbanou at YAHOO.CO.UK]
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 7:23 AM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Ablaut et al
--- On Mon, 29/8/11, rankin at KU.EDU <rankin at KU.EDU> wrote:
Bob,
This is in reply to your earlier message , where you sent your article on
Mississipi Valley Siouan "Ablaut". Thanks very much for that. I found
it very interesting and noticed that you mentioned Shaw's work on Dakota
phonology, which I read many years ago, there being a copy of it in the
SOAS library. One thing which interested me in Shaw was her explanation
of the exceptional initial stress in certain disyllabic stems, káǧa 'to
make' being one I think. She posits an earlier monosyllabic, final
consonantal form for these stems such as kaǧ- . I have never seen this
discussed much and wondered what other Siouanists thought about it. It
seems like a very neat analysis and parallels the argument of Greenberg
about Semitic lexical stems which are now disyllabic in the majority such
as katab 'to write'. He suggests that Semitic stems were originally
monosyllabic (in fact bisonsonantal) and that the second syllable (or the
third consonant depending on
how you look at it) is a later addition allowing for lexical expansion,
an initial qat- 'cut' giving later qata', qataf, qatam, qasar and others
all realtable to the idea of 'cutting'. The other advantage is that it
makes Semitic stems look more like Indo-European ones, which is
attractive.
Without wishing to appear to be talking Nostratic, I do like the idea of
original monosyllabic stems, but of course it does get into difficult
ground as to how far back you think you can go. I wonder whether it holds
up in other Siouan languages.
Bruce
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