Interrogative Indefinites in Siouan

[Bruce Ingham]

Dear Shannon
I'm sure takuni could occur without sni to mean nothing.  There is a
 verb yatakuni 'to belittle', but normallly it is with sni.  The form
takunl is pronounced takun.  In any case I think takunl with a
sequence -nl- is unpronounceable.  Posssibly it was written that
way so that people did not pronounce it as though it ended in a
nasalized -u- like un 'to be, live'.  It is interesting that a language
only so recently submitted to writing already has 'spelling
conventions' ie unusual spellings of words.

Bruce

Date sent:      	Thu, 19 Oct 2000 12:10:24 -0700
Send reply to:  	siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
From:           	Shannon West <shanwest at uvic.ca>
To:             	siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Subject:        	Re: Interrogative Indefinites in Siouan

At 07:37 AM 2000-10-19, you wrote:
>I'll jump in on a side note, have you gotten takuni as 'nothing' without
>the negative sni. Doesn't takun/takunl vary between southern Lakota and
>Northern Lakota as well?

It seems to me that I have.  I'd have to look for some examples
though.  Gives me an idea.  :)

Shannon

Department of Linguistics
University of Victoria
Box 3045
Victoria, B.C.
V8W 3P4

shanwest at uvic.ca

Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS