"J.M.J. Chinook Dictionary, Catechism, Prayers & Hymns"

[David Robertson]

LaXayEm, Jim, qhata mayka?

[uk Jim ya-munk-c!Em:]
> 1)  In my workshop notes I have noted that "kopa" has two meanings, one is as
> the prepositon that we're familiar with and two it means "over there."  I
> actually have a slightly different pronunciation for each.  The preposition is
> "khapa" and the "over there" is "khaba:."  "kopa kaX"/"khaba: qha" would be
> "over there where."   I've seen the "over there" usage in Jacob's and Zenk's
> work

By the way, that's a creolish thing, the innovation of one word from
another, differentiated by stress (per conversations with Tony
Johnson and Henry Kammler).  The other example besides /kha'pa/ "at" vs.
/khapa'/ "over there", is /hayu'/ "much, many" vs. /ha'yu/ "-ing"
(progressive aspect, essentially, and I leave it to someone else to
explain this tantalizing, confusing morsel).

Just to try being clearer, I want to restate my original point.  What I
think I may be seeing in the "JMJ...Dictionary" is a relative, namely
<kopa kaX> /khapa qha/ "(the place) where)" vs. the whatchamacallit, the
interrogative adverb <kax> /qha/ "where?"
 >
> 2) In both Jacob's (e.g., "The Origin of Death") and the Shaw line of
> dictionaries, "mahsh kopa illahee" has a special connotation in that it means
> "to bury" somebody as in they are dead.  The phrase "mahsh illahee" might have
> been used to avoid confusion, but I've also noticed that sometimes spoken
> Chinook seems to clip things as if they are understood (kopa nayka kwolan) so
> I don't know....  If Demers was using it on purpose to avoid saying "to bury",
> he might have been using the pattern as a general rule for "mahsh" things and
> substituting the word "chuk" as in fall/throw down in water (instead of land).
>
Yes, I allow myself to suspect just remotely that this prepositionless
variant might be a sign, or at least a result, of creolization.  In my
vast ignorance there's much more illahee to be mashed, however, to fill
the void!

> 3.  In a recent conversation I've had with Tony, he relayed to me that "na"
> was/is often used at GR as not really making a sentence a question, but to
> confirm that the speaker had understood the previous sentence.  It was sort of
> a "roger" at the end of a sentence.  The "wigna/wik na" is an offshoot of this
> usage. I've noticed that when "na" is used to turn a sentence into a question
> in the various books that it seems to appear right before the verb, like
> "mayka na klatawa kopa mahkok house?";"Are you going to the store?"  An idea
> (probably without any basis :-)) is that it might have dropped out of the GR
> Wawa because it conflicted with the embedded pronoun "na";first person.

...And you and Jeff say you're not linguists!  Excellent thinking, and I
don't doubt the possibility.  kanawi-Laksta mesayka munk-kw!Elan-na yaka?
Are the rest of you listening to him?  Additional relevant conditions are
that the question-marker /na/ seems to have been used in various ways at
various times and places -- sometimes starting the sentence, sometimes
coming instead directly after the word being questioned, and so on -- and
that the short-form pronouns /na-/, /ma-/, etc. may or may not have been
present in Chinook Jargon per se until after a certain point in time.
(Written records of the language having these forms before the 20th
century just aren't known to me.)


> The points you've brought up are kind of interesting because they point out
> (in my opinion) that Wawa seems to have been very stable from at least the
> 1830s, when Demer's had been learning it, until the present day.  These shades
> of meaning are not things that different people would have "come up" with in
> an attempt to use a set of words to communicate but must have been learned and
> used not only in terms of idiom but also very subtle and specific "grammar
> patterns" (remember, I'm not a linguist).
...Sounds rather like talk of creolization...

>
> Now here's something for you........
>
> I was reading a book by Leanne Hinton, "Flutes of Fire -Essays on California
> Indian Languages."  This is a good book.  She discusses the history and
> present state of Native American languages in California which I think many
> people in this forum would find very interesting.  There's alot about the
> various efforts people are making to keep the languages alive. In the book she
> talks a little bit about Wintu nouns.  Wintu nouns are not required to state
> whether the object is plural or singular, rather they state whether something
> is generic or particular.  Particular meaning that the object has some
> importance to the speaker so it stands out from the general class. The
> particular can translate a "a thing," "the thing," "that thing," etc. as long
> as the speaker wants to refer to a particular thing. Speakers will often use
> this tool as a way of stressing their relationship to things - sometimes using
> the generic when you'd think they'd use the specific to distance themselves
> from the object.
Ahh...mehrsi.  You're taking me back to wonderful afternoons spent in
Professor Harvey Pitkin's classes at Columbia University.  As a UCal
Berkeley student, he had spent time studying Wintu with several elders.
(He wound up writing "the book" on the language.)  Pitkin would tell long,
animated anecdotes to us about this kind of stuff, "evidentiality" to use
the label for one aspect of it.  It really blew our minds.  Not that I
understand evidentality for beans; seems too difficult.  :-)

> This kind of reminds me how nouns are treated in Wawa with
> the use of "ukuk."
And "uk"!  And if this isn't utterly out of place, may I say it reminds me
of the greater frequency of "that" and "this" in the English spoken by
many North American Indian people.  Honestly, I'm impressed with the
similarity of such usage (by Spokanes, for example) to the frequent use
(in Spokane, let's say) of words that roughly mean "this" and "that".  But
maybe it's just the way these folks talk.  :-)

It seems that nouns in Wawa are generic unless they are
> preceded or followed by "ukuk" and that the lack of a plural state is not
> really a "simplification" of the English plural/singular system but could be
> based on this other grammar/pattern as often inferred.  Sometimes the standard
> "that"/"those" translation of "ukuk" sounds a bit off / hokey to me (that's
> scientific :-)  )so that's why I have been thinking about this.
Jim, I can tell you that in a research paper I'm attempting to write about
ChInUk Wawa, I've chosen to refer to 'ukuk' only as a DEMONSTRATIVE.  I
don't specify anything more, such as "proximal/distal", "singular/plural",
and what not.


I'd don't know
> much about the other Native American languages in the NW, but is this pattern
> found in Old Chinook or any of the other languages?  I'd be interested in
> getting yours and other peoples thoughts.
>
See above...


> I've also noticed another thing in Demer's book that kind of relates to the
> first part above.  He has the word "ton" which means "to put away."  Is this
> the same word as the present GR Wawa "'tuwan/t!u?wEn" which means not only to
> "put away/up" but also "to have/possess."  I've noticed that the other place
> that uses this word is Kamloops.  Puget Sound - Coastal BC - Alaska Wawa
> doesn't have this word.  I've also noticed a similar trend with "dret/d'let"
> in GR and Kamloops, but primarily "delate" in Puget Sound - Coastal BC -
> Alaska.  There's a conclusion I'd like to jump to - but I won't.  Anyhow,
> interested in your thoughts on this.

...I believe it was Sally Thomason who mentioned the history of /t!u7wEn/
this year on CHINOOK, so maybe you'll find that in the archives.  (?)  I
too am fascinated by the use of <drit> for "delate" in Kamloops Wawa...


Cheers,
Dave

>
> hlaXayEm, Jim
>
>
>
> David Robertson wrote:
>
> > LaXayEm,
> >
> > khapa Modeste Demers pi F.M. Blanchet Laska bUk (Montreal, 1871), nayka
> > nanIch ukuk Ikta:
> >
> > 1)  <kopa kaX> (our /khapa qha/) appears to be used as the relative
> > counterpart of the conjunction <kaX> (qha) "where".  See page 53.
> >
> > 2)  <tlatoa helehi> "to fall down":  not *tlatoa kopa helehi (/LatEwa
> > khapa IlI7i/) which would be a more literal rendition, i.e. "fall (go) to
> > earth".  Compare in the handouts from Tony Johnson at the 1998 ChInUk
> > Lu7lu:  Eula Petite's story "tLatLak" (Grasshopper) has the verb form
> > <mosh tsuk>, /mash cEqw/, "to throw into the water", also lacking a
> > preposition.  I might suppose the preposition is optional, and it's marked
> > so in Mrs. Petite's story.  But the *lack* of /khapa/ looks as though it
> > impart a meaning to the verb phrase making it distinct from the version
> > *having* that preposition.  Thus <tlatoa helehi> means "to fall down"
> > while *<tlatoa kopa helehi> might mean "go on/by land".  Your reactions?
> >
> > 3)  This book contains the only examples I can recall of the interrogative
> > enclitic particle, here written <na> after a comma, being used in a sense
> > different from "yes/no" questions.  Specifically, it's used with
> > WH-questions, meaning "who/what/where/how/when" and so on.  Examples:
> >
> >         (p.47)  Ikta, na...?
> >         (51)    Pus kansiX lele, na...?
> >         (52)    Ikta [NOUN], na...?  (i.e. ikta as adjective)
> >         (52)    Tlaksta, na...?  (also pp.54, 64)
> >         (52)    Kata, na...?  (also p.56)
> >
> > Compare these with, respectively:
> >
> >         (48)    Ikta...?
> >         (48)    KansiX ai"u...?
> >         (54)    Kopa tlaksta [NOUN]...?
> >         (47)    Tlaksta...?
> >         (49)    Kata...?
> >
> > ...and with examples of <na> marking yes/no questions scattered throughout
> > the book.
> >
> > In other words, <na> is used in both ways:  The usage better known to me
> > from the CJ literature is as a yes/no marker, but also *optionally* it's
> > used as an adjunct to WH-questions in Demers and Blancet.  Very
> > interesting.  Since this book is very frequently considered the finest
> > document of its kind, it is likely that this use of <na> is not an error
> > or innovation on the part of the priests who wrote it, wigna?  Does it
> > reflect e.g. Old Chinook influence?
> >
> > Best,
> > Dave
> >
> >  *VISIT the archives of the CHINOOK jargon and the SALISHAN &
> > neighboring*
> >                     <=== languages lists, on the Web! ===>
> >            http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/salishan.html
> >            http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/chinook.html
>
>
>