Oglala (was Re: Locative Postpositions)

[Alan H. Hartley]

Koontz John E wrote 29 Oct 99:

> In the case of Oglala we do have a possible alternative explanation, but
> I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.  For one thing, there's the
> switch from g (Dakotan) to b (Omaha).  There are cases where Dakotan has
> substituted gl (*kr) or bl (*pr) for forms that other languages suggest to
> be *pr or *kr, or at least generated alternative forms.  'Bug' is one such
> set, for example, and you can find others, especially among the stative
> verbs.
>
> Bdhadha is said to mean 'spreading out' (becoming a wide and shallow,
> i.e., a braided stream?) in reference to this stream name in Omaha-Ponca.

Riggs gives kada (kala) and redup. form kadada (kalala) for 'spill,
scatter, pour out, sow' (referring to such as grain but not liquids,
which is unfortunate when we're talking about rivers), with prefixes a-
'on, upon' and o- 'in, into'. As cognate with Oglala (s.v.) he gives
o-hdada (v. pos. of okada) 'scatter one's own' (Yankton okdada). Can
these be cognate with OP u-bdhadha? Can the latter refer to liquids?

Alan