Locative Postpositions

[ROOD DAVID S]

>
> To revert to the etymology of MANDAN, is it possible then that Dakotan
> mãtan 'Mandan' *might* represent Mandan mãta 'Missouri River' + -e'tu
> (reduced to -n/-l) meaning something like 'they (who) are at the
> Missouri'? Might the -n/-l also represent -ta, yielding something like
> 'at the Missouri'? Perhaps--recalling the folk explanation of MINITARI
> recounted by Jimm--Dakotans asked the Mandans who they were, and the
> latter responded that they were those that lived on the Missouri.

	I haven't followed all of the discussion about mtaN etc., so I may
say something dumb here, but from the point of view of Dakota syntax, a
word with a final locative ending like -l/-n would be given in answer to a
"where" question, not a "who" question.  Just what might happen in a
situtation where neither group speaks the other's language is of course
quite speculative; we don't know which pieces of a conversation might be
remembered and which ones not heard, and it's possible that a verb after
a locative would simply not be incorporated in the form that got repeated
and lexicalized.  Morphologically, if Mandan works like Dakota, then certainly
 mtan  could be used to mean 'at/on/near mta'.  Note that the final -n
here would be consonantal, not nasalization of the preceding vowel.

David