Strange use of Quapaw article/aux.

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 16 Jun 2000, ROOD DAVID S wrote:

> Just a tidbit about the Lakhota articles.  Yes, they too can function as
> clause-finals, but I've never studied them systematically in that role.
> The ordinarly definite article, ki, can be translated 'if' in clause final
> position, and generally marks a future or non-real clause.

This sounds an awful lot like Omaha-Ponca =kki 'if, when', although the
sound correspondence is wrong, i.e., OP kki should correspond to Da *khi,
and Dakota ki should correspond to OP *gi.  Perhaps OP has an underlying
cluster of some origin in =kki:  ??kki < -X-ki.

As an aside, there are a couple of OP words with final -gi of obscure
provenance, e.g., wakkaNda 'god, powerful spirit' vs. wakkaNdagi
'watermonster' and in some Dhegiha languages, if I recall, 'doctor,
magician'.  There's at least one other -gi word sort of like this, that I
forget.

> The other one which we gloss as 'the aforesaid', k7uN, marks either a
> past-before-the-past clause (English aux. "had" + past ppl) or a strong
> assertion of truth.

This reminds me of the development of 'been' as 'long since, already,
definitely' in AAVE.


> I know these aren't quite the same as what we usually refer to as
> evidentials, but they do constitute a use of the articles to indicate
> the degree of confidence the speaker has in the reality of the clause.
> There is little doubt in my mind that the article and the particle are
> the same morpheme, but I would need to muse a long time, I think, before
> coming up with either a semantic or a functional description that covers
> what seems to me as an English speaker to be "both" of those roles.

Well, an article and a conjunction like *when* or *if* both express
information status.  *The* in English tags something as a reference
previously made, or clear from the context, 'the man I mentioned' or 'the
bathroom', 'the steering wheel', etc.  And *if* definitely covers the
ground 'grant me that something might be true or might exist', while
*when* essentially refers to a definite event, pre-existing, or
unquestioned, if not previously mentioned.  'The man I mentioned' is more
like a *when* situation and 'the steering wheel' is more like an *if*
situation.

Exx.

If I can find time, I'll come visit.
The time/occasion being found, I'll come visit.

If there are footprints, they must have gone that way.
There being footprints/the footprints being (there), they must have gone
that way.

The first of these is a *the* situation, I think, while the second is a
*khe* situation.

The first of these is also a future situation (a 'shall surely'
situation?), whereas if it were past:


If he found the time, he visited you.
The time being found, he visited you.

=>


It seems that he found the (*the*) time.  (The evidence is the visit.)

Or from the footprint example.

It seems that there were some (*khe*) footprints.  (They could be seen.)

By extension (maybe):

It seems that they went that way (*khe*)  (The evidence is the implicit
line of footprints.)

----

I wonder if there's any parallel here to the Algonquian conjunct order?
My recollection is that these tend to occur in subordinated clauses, but
in some languages in some narratives most clauses are conjunct.  In some
languages the conjunct replaces the independent, in fact.