Mississippi Valley Siouan 'bow' Terms

[Koontz John E]

Here are the Mississippi Valley forms.  The Dakotan ones are from Buechel,
and Riggs/Williamson.  The Dhegiha forms are from Dorsey/Swetland, Rankin,
and LaFlesche.  The IO and Winnebago are from Good Tracks and Miner.
Back constructions and analysis are mine except for the suggestion that
Dakotan itazipA is from *mitazipA by renalysis, which is from Rankin (and
Carter?).  The development of the medial cluste rin IO is along general
liens suggested by Rankin.

Teton ita'zipa 'bow', mita'zipa 'my ~'; thitazipe 'his (alienable) bow'
Santee (W) ita'zipe 'bow'; (R) ita'zipa 'bow', mit(h)i'nazipe 'my ~' (t >
n in all persons)

Presumably the present third person is derived by false analogy from an
original form *mitazipA, reanalyzed as a first person possessed form.
Note that the stem does (or did) undergo ablaut, and the e-grade is the
possessed grade, cf. s^uNka ~ thas^uNke.

The t>n shift could be interpreted at suggesting the stem *(m)i(N)t=azipA.
The only gloss for (a)zipA I know is zipe=la 'thin, fine', given in
Buechel.

Omaha-Ponca maN'de 'bow' (cf. also maN'de hi 'spear' < 'bow' + 'stem',
i.e., 'bowstave')
Osage miN'ce 'bow'
Kaw miN'j^e 'bow'
Quapaw maN'tte 'bow'

Note the difference in the root vowel between OP/Quapaw and Osage/Kaw.
The gemination of t is normal in Quapaw for *t in this context.

Ioway-Otoe ma(N)hdu < Pre-IO *maNtku > *maNktu > maNhdu
(cf. also mahdu<th>rudada a game spear with a u-point)

Winnebago maNaNc^gu' < Pre-Wi *maNaN'tku

The forms are supposed all to come from the Algonquian form reconstructed
as *me?tekwaapyi or perhaps only from *me?tekw-a 'wood (animate)' (that
was the form in Aubin, I believe).  In essence, *me?te... alone (with the
final syllable(s) omitted) accounts for the *mi(N)te ~ and *ma(N)te like
forms, while *me?tekw... (with the internal e syncopated) accounts for the
Chiwere and Winnebago *maN(aN)tku version.  Given the variation in
completeness of the form adopted, and the variation in the initial vowel
(aN ~ iN), it's assumed that the borrowing occurred at several different
places, based on different Algonquian souce forms.  The initial m of the
Algonquian forms causes the root vowel to be taken as nasal.

It's not clear why the vowel after kw is omitted, though, if it is the
animate marker it may be handled as a noun-forming affix comparable to the
ablauting/deleting final a ~ e of some Siouan nominal root sets.  (I've
suggested elsewhere that the Siouan suffix may be essentially
demonstrative in origin, based on Greenberg's theory of the origin of
nominalizing and gender marking affixes.)

Loss of the animate suffix is perhaps actually typical of Algonquian loan
in Siouan contexts, cf. MI s^iihs^iikwia 'black rattlesnake' > OP s^e'kki
'rattlesnake'.

JEK