a phonetic mystery

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote:

Referring to the iN grade of ablaut in Lakota with ktA 'future/irrealis':

> I think John has come up with Omaha cognates for the -iN- as a
> separate morpheme.

My candidate is the -iN- that appears in the modal form =iN=the ~ e=iN=the
'perhaps', where the =the is one of the articles in an evidential
capacity.  It's just a little lost iN, one of two.

The other little lost iN, probably not relevant here, occurs after
maNs^tiNge 'rabbit' sometimes when it's in the sense 'the Rabbit'.  I've
seen a similar iN after gdhoN 'thunder' in the LaFlesche Osage Dictionary
and I wonder if this might not be some sort of honorific, akin to what
looks like a similar use of ga in Winnebago.  Whatever it is, it doesn't
seem very productive.

JEK