Omaha/Dakota k?uN cognates.

[R. Rankin]

I think John has discovered the Omaha cognate for Dakotan k?uN 'the
past'.  It is (e)gaN.  The match is nearly perfect.  Dhegiha dialects
lost a lot (not all!) of the organic glottal stop reflexes.  *uN > aN in
Omaha and Ponca.  The Kansa cognate for Omaha egaN is (denasalized) ego,
suggesting that the original nasal vowel in this particle was indeed
*uN.  The e- on the front is most likely the demonstrative and seems to
be removable anyway.  And best of all, the semantics match (as David
pointed out).  A lot of the arguments we have on the list have to do
with (lack of) semantic confirmation, but in this case it looks really
good.

I'll reply to the other stuff later; I have errands to run here at the
moment.

Bob
--
Robert L. Rankin, Visiting Professor
Research Center for Linguistic Typology
Institute for Advanced Study
La Trobe University
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