Inceptive/Punctual Auxiliaries

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 12 Nov 1998 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote:
> John: I wrote a paper once on a strange Crow verb that marks the following
> clause as something unusual or unexpected.  You can often gloss it as
> something like 'to his/her surprise' or, 'and what do you know!'  Sounds
> similar to the 'suddenly' verb in OP.  Randy

Thanks, Randy, it does sound a bit similar, though that may be an artifact
of Dorsey chosing 'suddenly' as his gloss.  I think that might be an
accidental reflection of the way his interpreters explained the
significance of the forms.  In the instances I elicited myself (by
accident) the expression 'suddenly' never came up. For example, the
auxiliary was included automatically with a verb for 'push'.  I have the
impression quickness or rapid completion is the core idea, rather than
unexpectedness.  However, I will look into that angle, because suddenly is
the word used, and it does suggest unxpectedness in English.

As far as unexpectedness, however, there is a particle de in OP that is
attached to the end of a clause, mostly with an e-demonstrative preceding
it, and with additional conjunctions following it as appropriate, e.g., 

                         Without de       With de

unmarked clause               0               e=de
preceding event clause    e=gaN           e=de=gaN

Including this particle causes Dorsey to insert "but" into the translation
of the context, and I think this is therefore an "unexpectedly" particle.
Lately I've suspected this might be the analog of Dakotan c^ha, which
serves to mark indefinite relatives, and has an incidental meaning of
'unexpected'. However, I haven't done the work to clarify this. 

Like the suddenly auxiliary, this particle follows the clause.  There is a
form egidhe that precedes a clause like your Crow verb, but it means
something like the opposite of the Crow form.  Dorsey often translates it
'finally', but from context it means something like 'and then as you might
expect'.  I think this is essentially a verb, e-gi-dhe that + suus +
cause.  I think that the Crow form is nicely parallel with this, even if
the senses are opposed.  

JEK