Obviative/Proximate and the Omaha verb system

[Rankin, Robert L]

>> Unfortunately, there are no post-verbal [u"] morphemes in Kaw or Osage
that I can think of. Quapaw merges u and i like OP.

>And no post-verbal [bu"] or [i] morphemes either, I suppose.

A couple of things: (1) while it's true that there are no post-verbal bu"
affixes or enclitics, it is possible that u">i in all five languages in
post-verbal morphology. Osage and Kaw both variably unround u" under accent
and pre-verbally, but as far as I know there are NO u"'s in suffixes or
enclitics. Carolyn Quintero can/should correct me on this if I'm wrong about
Osage.  (2) We probably shouldn't give up on -i too easily; the phonology of
V1V2 sequences is messy, and I wouldn't want to dismiss the possibility of a
sneaky little -i- being there sometimes....  I'm not sure I believe that
either of these possibilities is going to produce more morphemes, but we'd
better all look....

>> That's not to say that there isn't more than one *(a)pi in all of Siouan.

>Any thoughts on where the *(a) is coming in, or why it
usually disappears?  Until now, I had always thought the
pluralizing particle in Siouan was just plain *pi.

The -a- is tied in with the entire Mississippi Valley Siouan "Ablaut"
problem. I have a paper on the topic. Historically at least, the -a- is part
of the following morpheme, not the verb stem.  It replaces preceding -e
(which some consider epenthetic anyway).

>If -bi and -i are taken as semantically equivalent alternates
derived from the standard Siouan pluralizing particle *pi,
then I think it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory
phonological or other explanation for their distribution in
OP that is not arbitrarily cut to fit the individual cases.
We do not seem to have any cases of -wi, as Dorsey would
surely have given us had there been an actual phonological
gradient between the forms.  The two forms are discrete,
and their distribution is fairly regular.

True, but the situation may be more complicated still. In Dakotan there are
two allomorphs of 'plural' (at least), -pi and -u. And they occur in
well-defined environments with no intermediate forms that I know of. I
suspect most Dakotanists would want to derive the -u from a vocalized [p],
certainly a possibility syllable-finally. But outside of MVS in the rest of
Siouan there seems to be no trace of -(a)pi, and in OVS the morpheme is -tu.
Go figure.

I'm trying to remember if Osage has the -i variant. Carolyn can tell us.
This is enough monkey wrenches for one day.  :-)

Bob