Question re: Dhegiha and other Siouan quotatives

Fri Feb 28 23:27:24 UTC 2014

Compiling a list of these is on my "to do" list.  I've seen them before but never knew what to call them.  I know of examples like "bring" which roughly translates to "have - come" so I decided to see if I could find it.  While looking in Dorsey's material, I found a serial verb composed of three verbs and each of them conjugated.  Here it is as Dorsey documented it:

a-nyi-hi-re - to have gone out of sight with any thing; to have taken any thing away

Here are the three verbs:

anyi - have

hi - arrive there

re - go

His conjugation for the 2nd person singular came out as (respelled in our system):

asdį rahi sre

asdį - you have

rahi - you arrive there

sre - you go

He has a load of these that would need to be gone over to see if all of them are conjugated this way but this is interesting nonetheless.  I haven't come across a succession of three verbs like this before until now.  A quick scan shows more "three verb" serial verbs.

"Command raising" verbs was mentioned.  What exactly are those?  I'm also curious how (if any) valence-reducing affixes come into play here.

Sky

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of David Kaufman
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 12:32 PM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: Question re: Dhegiha and other Siouan quotatives

Sky, thanks for this!  I think I'm going to go through and compile a list of attested Kaw serial verbs and how they're conjugated.  Bryan seems to think that there could be a sub-category of serial verbs where the first verb is not conjugated though the second one is.  Not sure how far I can get with this, but I may try and present this, at least the Kaw case, as a paper at the SCLC in May.

Dave

David Kaufman

Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate, University of Kansas

Director, Kaw Nation Language Program

On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 12:18 PM, Campbell, Sky <sky at omtribe.org> wrote:

Dave,

Not sure if you are still into this but I found this today.  William Hamilton and Samuel Irvin have on page 33 of their Elementary Book of the Ioway Language:

ha-u-ha-mvn-yæ – I always do so

This would be:

Ha’ų hamanyi

ha’ų – I do

hamanyi – I walk/I always

Here you have both conjugated in the first person using the prefix “ha-“.  There are other examples out there but I need to find them.

Hope this helps.

Sky Campbell, B. A.

Language Director

Otoe-Missouria Tribe

580-723-4466 ext. 111 <tel:580-723-4466%20ext.%20111> 

sky at omtribe.org

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of David Kaufman

Sent: Friday, February 21, 2014 12:54 PM

To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu

Subject: Re: Question re: Dhegiha and other Siouan quotatives

Thanks Rory and Justin for the feedback.

On another note, I've also been wondering about how serial verbs are handled in Siouan in general.  In the Kaw data, when two verbs come together, the second verb always conjugates for person while the first looks like it can either conjugate to match the second verb or it can stay in the third person (neutral) form.  I seem to recall that in Biloxi, serial verbs *always* match, first and second verbs having the same person conjugation.  What do other Siouan languages do in regards to this?  Are there any hard and fast rules about this?

Thanks again!

Dave

David Kaufman

Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate, University of Kansas

Director, Kaw Nation Language Program

On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 5:15 PM, Rory Larson <rlarson1 at unl.edu> wrote:

Thanks for the analysis, Justin.  That makes much better sense than what I had suggested.  Very interesting that the Kaw (a)be particle, which should be either cognate or closely related to the Omaha (a)bi particle, can ablaut.  I wasn’t aware of that; it’s good to know.

Best,

Rory

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of Mcbride, Justin
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 3:00 PM
To: SIOUAN at LISTSERV.UNL.EDU
Subject: Re: Question re: Dhegiha and other Siouan quotatives

For what it's worth, I believe that what appears to be a second token of aba in the example, aba-daN is actually a different type altogether. In this case, I think it's a case of the verb e(e), 'to say', plus the -(a)be completive aspect marker plus the conjunction -(a)daN, 'and' [e(e)-(a)be-(a)daN > aba-daN]. If so, then, that one really is just 's/he said and,' and the first one is actually the subject marker. But that's not to say that there aren't other examples of the quotative use of subject markers in Ks, even within the same text. Here's an example of quotative akHa:

iccikkitaNga akha oo aNs^i waali miNkHe akHa.

The Old Man said, "Oh, I'm getting fat."

This case is much clearer to my way of thinking because there are two verbal auxiliaries marking the same state (in this case, at rest) back-to-back, one of which refers to 1st person (miNkHe, part of the quotation), and one 3rd person (akHa, marks quotation). It's curious to note that in the audio for this, the speaker laughs after miNkHe and then almost catches her breath before saying akHa, which would indicate to me that she felt it was essential for concluding the sentence. It's interesting to me in that it seems that the entire quoted clause is acting almost like a verb following the canonical pattern (subject) SUBJ (verb) AUX, where SUBJ and AUX match shape in the continuative aspect, as in s^idoz^iNga akHa ghaage akHa, 'the boy is crying.' 

-jtm

On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 1:50 PM, Rory Larson <rlarson1 at unl.edu> wrote:

Hi Dave,

In Omaha and Ponca, the corresponding article is amá, where you have abá.  As with Kaw, it tends to imply ‘moving/absent’.  But we also have another particle, apparently pronounced the same way, coming at the end of the sentence, that implies that the foregoing is hearsay rather than solid fact.  It can stand by itself, or it can be coupled with the ‘allegedly’ particle bi to make the common ending for 3rd person hearsay action, biama.

I notice the accent changes to the first syllable in the second case of your example.  I wonder if that could be underlyingly a-aba in that case?  The first would be the ablauted version of ‘he said it’, followed by either the Old Man’s article abá or a ‘hearsay’ particle as in OP.  One problem with that would be that the ‘hearsay’ amá in OP shouldn’t cause a preceding verb to ablaut.

My $0.02.

Best,

Rory

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of David Kaufman
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 1:30 PM
To: SIOUAN at LISTSERV.UNL.EDU
Subject: Question re: Dhegiha and other Siouan quotatives

Hi all,

I have a question re: a curious structure in Kaw, and whether anything like it occurs in other Dhegihan or even non-Dhegihan Siouan languages.  The structure involves the articles akhá and abá, used for subjects in Kaw and usually translated 'the', the first being roughly for 'standing/sitting' and the other for 'moving/absent'.  However, in Kaw, these subject articles also somehow seem to have become used as quotatives, or 's/he said.'  Here is an example sentence with gloss:

Icíkitanga  abá, “Anyáxtaga-édan,” ába-dan,  nanstábe.

Old.Man   said   bite.me-then          said-then   kicked.him

The Old Man said, “Then bite me,” and he kicked him.

So abá, which is normally used for 'moving' subjects and is usually translated 'the', is now being used for 's/he said.'  

Any thoughts on this, esp. from other Dhegihan perspectives, or other Siouan languages that might have some similar usage?

Thanks!

David Kaufman

Linguistic Anthropology PhD candidate, University of Kansas

Director, Kaw Nation Language Program

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