Strange use of Quapaw article/aux.

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, R. Rankin wrote:
> di-átte-z^íka íyowí-ttaN akdániN kdí

?  di-a'tte-z^iNka e'yowe'-ttaN akda'niN kde'

> your-father-little V1-wound-?-as V1-SUUS-bring VERT-come
> your stepfather   as X shot him, (they) are taking him back to his own
> home
> Since your stepfather has been shot, (they) are taking him home
>
> -khe, ppákkaNkka tta-thaN.

? -khe, ppa'kkaNkka tta-thaN

> LYING.CONTIN.AUX, nose-crooked LOC-from
> nose-crooked                        from
> from Crooked-Nose’s (a trading post).

I make this the equivalent of OP

"Dhi-a'de-z^iNga" kkiu'=egaN
 your stepfather  wounded having been

agdha'dhiN    gdhe'=              khe
having theirs they are going home it seems

Ppa'kkaNkka= tta=thaN
Crooked-Nose from

I'm not sure of idhadi z^iNga as 'stepfather', and I've substituted kkiu'
'wounded' for what looks like a-(g)i-u(e?).  OP does have iu 'wounded
with' and giu 'wounded for one'.

Coming to the point, I'd argue that this is a khe 'evidential' (in the
sense of 'evidently'), and that it agrees in gender with the evidence,
i.e., the body of the wounded or killed man.  As Dorsey conceived of the ~
khe ~ dhaN ~ ge (in order of increasing rarity) as past in such
sentence-final contexts, that may explain the gloss.

Here's an equivalent OP example from Dorsey:


E=di  ahi=bi=ama=kki,              t?e=dha=bi=khe=ama.
There they arrived, they say when, he lay killed, they say.
jod 1890:178.5

This isn't a continuative, for example, because it co=occurs with bi.  It
also co-occurs with the quotative.  The whole is something like:

'They say that when they arrived evidently he was dead.'

I'm not sure about the second quotative within the when clause.  I think
it's just extra, or otherwise it's 'They say that when they say that ...'

Incidentally, the =ttaN 'when' is cognate with OP =daN CONTINGENT or maybe
=daN DURING.  I think =taN occurs as 'when' in Osage, too.

I was at first a bit puzzled as to how to explain the agreement pattern of
the evidentials, but I'm now operating on the theory (which seems to work)
that they agree with the evidence underlying (no pun) the conclusion.
Sometimes that's a constituent of the sentence (object, subject, or
something else).  Sometimes it's merely implicit.