[Possible SPAM] Re: Aho!

[Sky Campbell]

Yes, "naha" is an article going along the lines of "the", "that which", "the
one who", etc.

 

You've given me a lot to think about and a lot of terminology that I'll have
to wrap my head around since I'm not familiar with it.

 

My assistants and I spent over 3 hours today tracking down all the instances
of Merrill and Hamilton's use of this -ga/-ka and mapped them to a grid on a
large dry-erase board in an effort to try to find some kind of common
element among all of them.  Unfortunately we had no luck.  We tried to think
of everything we could think of when it came to those verbs.  Were they
transitive or intransitive?  Animate or inanimate objects?  Singular or
plural?  Was the object "known" to the speaker (meaning was the speaker
referring to something specific...sort of along the lines of the idea of
"that" I mentioned earlier)?  Of course we know that we aren't looking for
every possible criteria since there are many we don't know about (like some
of the ideas you mentioned).

 

I've mentioned several of our theories such as "that", "now", "in like
manner", etc.  But while we were plugging away I was perusing Dorsey's
vocabulary slips and found this:

 

k'a (masc) (adverb) - of action in past time, not continuing into the
present

 

And the example he gives is:

 

Swagaxe k'a - you did write then (but you do not write now)

 

So in this context, I wonder if perhaps it could be along the lines of (to
use an example from before) "Look at the snake" perhaps with the idea that
you were looking at the snake before but aren't now and I want you to do so
again.  This may not be correct though since Dorsey mentions "see also" and
has the endings "ke", "ki", etc. so this may represent the end of a
statement and not simply an adverb that can be used where needed.

 

Dorsey also has a rather enigmatic term "kare" (or perhaps "k'are") where he
mentions "It seems to imply that the thought or desire was not gratified"
but he doesn't just list this term with that explanation but rather just
uses it with examples such as:

 

Ji kare hįrawi - we thought that he would have come hither (but he did not
come)

 

I'm noting that this is after the verb that they want to attach this to
which matches the placement of the enigmatic -ga/-ka.  So along these lines,
perhaps it could be "Look at the snake" with the idea of I wanted you to
look at the snake but you didn't so I am requesting/commanding again since
you didn't do it before.

 

Yet another couple theories to add to this :).

 

Sky

 

From: Siouan Linguistics [mailto:SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] On Behalf Of John
Koontz
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 9:00 PM
To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: Aho!

 

I would guess this pair contrasts something analogous to Omaha-Ponca 'to
say' vs. 'to say to'.   The 'say' stems are highly irregular in Omaha-Ponca
like most Siouan, but underlyingly they are something like e=...he vs.
e=gi=...he.   So the first persons are ehe 'I said it' (from something like
Proto-Dhegiha *e=phe) vs. egiphe 'I said (it) to him'.  The third persons
are a=i 'they said' vs. ega=i 'they said to him'.   I've reconstructed the
plural from memory of the logic of the system.  What I remember is the
unpluralized from ege (e=g(i)...(h)e).   The gi element is the dative marker
of course and the weird thing about (OP) 'say' is that that comes *before*
the pronoun.   When gi is followed by the root (h)e it contracts with it.
I'm not sure the root is really -he in the third person.   The first and
second persons are clearly built on e=(gi)=...he, but the inclusive is
usually from another verb entirely, and the third person behaves like e by
itself in the simple stem and e=g(i)=...e in the dative.   The initial e= is
presumably an incorporated e 'the aforesaid'.   And, of course, this is the
quoting verb that follows a quotation.   There's a form with initial ga
'yonder' that is used preceding a quotation.   The third person is
essentially always seen as a=(nothing) or a=i or a=bi with the
plural-proximate marker following e and conditioning the a-grade of the
stem.  (So you almost never get a singular looking form, and if you did it
would be just e, and so hard to know from a demonstrative e.)   The
=(nothing) form of the plural-proximate  is current now when no other
particle follows.  Dorsey always has a=i or a=bi (the latter when the
quotation is itself quoted in some way).   

Anyway, making allowances, I hope, for my poor grasp of IO, I make these

e=wa-a naha 'the one who says something'
vs. e=wa-g(i)-a naha  'the one who says (something) to someone'

I hope I correctly remember naha as an article of some sort.  If not ...

When you add a dative to something then the object is the dative object and
the "direct object" sort of falls out of the agreement pattern.  Sometimes
it hangs around in the sentence as a noun (or quotation) without governing
anything in the verb.   What the relationalists called a chomeur.  

  _____  

 

I may have found a clue for “ka.”  Dorsey has the term:

 

e-wa-na-ha – the speaker; the one speaking

 

Then he has the term:

 

e wa-ka-na-ha – the one who is meant; the person addressed

 

I’m not sure how (or even if) this is related to the “ka” I am asking about
but I’m trying to look at it in different ways to see if it fits somehow.

 

Sky Campbell, B. A.

Language Director

Otoe-Missouria Tribe

580-723-4466 ext. 111

sky at omtribe.org

 

 

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