Dorsey transcriptions, etc.

[R. Rankin]

> > That's entirely possible, but we also know that Dorsey had a diacritic for short
> > vowels rather than long ones
>
> To clarify, the breve is his mark of shortness, only it has nothing to do with shortness, at least in Omaha-Ponca.

We simply won't know that unless and until someone (besides Frida Hahn)
is willing to
transcribe vowel quantity systematically in O-P field notes.  I keep
hearing that
"it's variable" or that "sometimes I hear it but in other contexts not",
or "it's just
so *hard*".  But we also have minimal pairs.  I do tend to agree that
Dorsey used his
diacritics to signal distinctions that we might not ordinarily expect
them to signal.
This includes his subscript "x" and his backwards apostrophe as well as
his breve and
occasional macron.  But we can't just "interpret" them wholesale without
hard
evidence.  And as the speaker pool shrinks, we don't seem to be
acquiring the
necessary data to explicate Dorsey fully over the long run.  I'd give
anything at this
point to have more Kansa or Quapaw speakers out there to clarify the
issues.

>
> > That's assuming the a- is indeed the pronominal.  By me it should still
> > be thaN or uninflected.
>
> It isn't thaN.  If it is, this would be a pair of unique mistakes for
> Dorsey.

It obviously isn't thaN, but is it the inanimate article "-the"
inflected for 1st person singular.  And if it is, is that a "mistake" on
Dorsey's part, a slip of the tongue, or something more systematic?


> > The -i- of ttaitte (or ttaithe, whichever) is not the plural -bi.
> Ah, true, it would be a unique use of -i as plural Quapaw, but in OP it is
> definitely the plural/proximate, whether this is reanalysis or separate
> development in OP, or whether it is an irregular development in Quapaw.

I understand that's the assumption, but it's still unclear to me from
the evidence.


> > > Fifth, and this is a more recently
> > > argument, it seems that 'shall surely' can easily be analyzed as 'shall
> > > from the evidence, shall evidently, shall seemingly'
>
> > But that presumes evidentiality, which we can't do until/unless it's
> > confirmed.
>
> If several things confirm the same line of reasoning, it seems reasonable
> to me.  We can't reject each of the arguments individually because the
> others alone don't quite convince us.  We have to decide if the whole set
> convinces us or not.

I agree with reservations.  The problem may just be that I didn't get a
chance to hear
John's talk at the Siouan Conference.  It may also involve our
interpretations of
Dorsey's transcriptions.  And it may well involve our relative
assumptions about the
old homophony vs. polysemy problem.  I tend to look upon phonologically
similar particles with different semantics and/or different functions as
homophones.  In Quapaw, for example, there are at least 4 particles with
the shape naN.  There is (1) -naN the 'sitting' positional particle, (2)
naN the 'imperfective' from *?uN, (3) naN a temporal conjunction 'as',
and (4) naN 'habitual aspect' as written by Dorsey (really [hnaN].
John's evidential naN may be in there too.  For me though, the semantics
MUST confirm our analyses.  If none of the available sources signals an
evidential meaning as distinguishing sentences with and without the
(the, dhaN, thaN, ge, etc.) various particles, then "evidential" is just
an empty label.  I agree that, if the set of things that fit into John's
evidential slot correspond exactly with our positionals, then they are
to be thought of as derived from positionals.  But that still doesn't
clarify their function.  Nor, in some cases, can we be certain we're not
dealing with one of the other, homophonous, post-verbal particles.  I
guess I need to read the paper.  There's obviously a lot of fascinating
data out there to be explained.

In checking out homophonous particles in the Omaha texts I ran across

s^aN maz^aN dhaN dhaN bdhugaxti 'indeed land indeed all over.'  Both
dhaN's are accented.  I assume one is the article.

BTW there's still another variant of the story I mentioned that had aN
as a 'perfect' in Dorsey 1890.  It is "Ictinike, the turkeys, turtle,
and elk".  I haven't examined it yet.

Bob

--
Robert L. Rankin, Visiting Professor
Research Center for Linguistic Typology
Institute for Advanced Study
La Trobe University
Bundoora, VIC 3083 Australia
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