CHIWERE etymology

[Erik D Gooding]

Could there also be an element of "time" involved with these deictic
strings. In Dakotan these have notions of space and /or time. Does that
occur as well in Chiwere?

Erik



On Fri, 3 Mar 2000, Robert L. Rankin wrote:

>
> The deictic string in Jiwere/Jigiwere is similar in nature to that
> present in Omaha-Ponca "dhegiha", Kansa "yegaha", Osage "dhekaha", etc.
> These are apparently very common sorts of things in some Siouan
> languages.  Etymologically (morphologically?) each syllable here was/is
> a morpheme.  They are deictic particles of various kinds with individual
> meanings like 'this, that, yon; here, there, yonder; now, then, yore'
> etc. with additional semantic elements referring to distance from
> speaker/hearer, visibility and probably other characteristics.  The
> strings can get very long.  In my Quapaw sketch, some of them must be 6
> or 8 (or more) morphemes long and may combine freely with the positional
> articles.  In some instances the strings of particles get lexicalized
> and acquire some meaning greater that the sum of their semantic parts.
>
> As for Siouan 101, I don't think any of us understands these things,
> especially the lexicalized ones....  What we need is about 300 more
> linguists working the languages.
>
> Bob
>
> > > I guess it boils down to agreeing that j^egiwere would mean something like
> > > 'the ones here', and j^iwere seems to be a contraction of it.
> >
> > Now we're getting down to Siouan 101. That's what I need, though I do
> > very much appreciate any detailed analysis you can give.
> >
> > > You
> > > can just cite Dorsey in the knowledge that he's certainly correct.  I
> > > don't suppose there's even a point in comparing it to Dhegiha.
> >
> > On the contrary, I find the analogy very interesting, and the OED does
> > like to note etymological parallels.
>