e and he.

[Robert L. Rankin]

> What these three function have in common is the semantic denominator
> of "pointing at", in some sense, and from that, I'd say, it's just a
> short way semantically to a demonstrative function. In other words,
> John's "neutral demonstrative" e' and David's "verbal" e' might be one
> and the same, at least if we go back far enough in language history.

> Tada!

I don't think so.  I think they are historically different.  They just
look alike in Dakotan because they've become homophones and thereby
subject to a lot of confusion. Because of their short (sometimes
identical) phonological forms, we must be very careful in analyzing them
in order to determine which we're dealing with.  In this case though,
Dhegiha preserves the evidence (my previous post) that 'to be' had an
initial /h/ that has apparently been lost in Dakotan for whatever reason.
Is there evidence for the *h anywhere in Dakotan?  The place to look would
be frozen compounds.  How many morphemes is echa historically?  If it's
related to ekta, then could -ha be ablauted *he.

Bob