Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 23:02:28 -0600 (MDT)
From: Koontz John E <koontz at spot.colorado.edu>
To: rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu
Subject: Re: Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system

On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
> Why don't I post my last letter to the list, and then you can
> post the one you last wrote?  Then I can post this one, and
> they will be up in sequence.  I wasn't sure before which way
> it would be better to go.

That sounds reasonable to me!

> I agree that there are two forms of egaN.  The one I was discussing is
> the subordinating conjunction with the accent (almost always) on the second
> syllable, egaN'.  This one is usually glossed "having", though in my second
> example it is glossed "because".  The other form is not a conjunction.
> Its accent pattern varies as you describe, though when it is not too
> much bound up with other words its accent is generally on the first
> syllable, e'gaN.  (Thanks for pointing out the varying accent pattern--
> I hadn't realized this and was about to protest that it never happened,
> but I've just found a couple of examples of it.)  This word means
> "like the preceding", or "like that", or "in that way".  I think you
> can use e'gaN by itself to mean "okay", "agreed", "as you say", or
> "that's what happened".  You can definitely use it alone in command

This is the origin of Italian and Peninsular 'yes' si, from Latin sic
'like that', by the way.  I don't know the story on Germanic
yes/yea(h)/jah or on French oui/oc.

> form as "E'gaN ga!", "Do that which has just been described!", or you
> can give a long-winded description of an action and terminate it with
> "e'gaN ga!" (or "egaN' ga!") to order someone to do the sort of thing
> you have elucidated.

I definitely missed egaN as 'yes' in my list.  The imperative is the
imperative of the 'be like that' verb I mentioned.  'Yes' is just one of
the long list of specialized lexical uses of that verb.

I'll look at the rest of this progressively.

JEK