Locative Postpositions

[Koontz John E]

On Sat, 30 Oct 1999, Robert L. Rankin wrote:
> The demonstrative seems to have an underlying glottal stop that shows up
> in various contexts.

It's hard to say whether it's an underlying glottal stop or an epenthetic
one.  Whatever it is (and I haven't heard the relevant examples myself),
it caused Dorsey to write two e's in a row.  Dorsey's not terribly
reliable on glottal stops.

> In Omaha, does this latter verb really mean 'use'.  Given its meaning in
> other Dhegiha dialects, I'd have expected it to mean 'do'.  I thought it
> was only Dakotan that had screwed up the semantics/morphology of *?u~

OP seems to gloss aN both ways in both main and auxiliary contexts.  It
looks like 'to do' is usual, but not universal in auxiliary instances with
=xti and =(s^ ~ h ~ 0)naN.  Of course, the choice is arbitrary there, but
'to do' does make more sense.

ppia'z^i=s^tes^te=waN s^aN maN'=tta=miNkhe
bad even if           yet  I will use it

naNbu'dhixdha ga'=dhaN z^aN       dhagdhe=tte
ring          that     you use it you will go home

ga'maN 'I do that'

edadaN aNaN=tte a 'What will we do?'

There's also a verb a'...aN 'to do' used with cause or means.

ea'thaN a'maN 'how (will) I do ...'
a'thaN a'z^aN 'why do you do it'

I suppose this might be the interrogative version of eaN 'how?' which
seems to be the general demonstrative version, though also used to make
questions.