Stem 'to come' (was Re: Archaic A1 p- in Dakotan)

Robert L. Rankin rankin at lark.cc.ukans.edu
Tue Apr 6 16:48:24 UTC 1999


> There are a couple of little things that make me wonder if the stem for
> 'to come' (or 'to be en route hither') might not be PS *u (or *?u)
> instead of *hu.  Dakota inflects it as bu, lu, (y)u in that hi=yu
> compound. All MV languages have a vertitive form in *k, not *kh, cf., OP
> gi, Da ku, Wi guu.  Of course Wi guu could be from *khuu or *kuu, but
> then it wouldn't inflect as a *k-stem, which it does.

> - OP seems to have i, not hi. ... the first and second persons phi and
> s^i certainly have hi, but the stem is just i.

Well this is just what Blair has found in Catawba.  It looks like the root
was something like *?u: (maybe from earlier u:?) and the h- found its way
into the conjugation by analogy with 'arrive coming'.  nevertheless, the
h- is part of the verb in most Siouan languages, so any alternations here
are very old.  that's what makes them so interesting.

Bob



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