Sleeps and Winters

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Bruce Ingham wrote:
> That's very interesting about  chaN.  I'd always thought it had something to
> do with chaN(a)s^na 'as many times as, when, whenever'.  Is the
> chaN in chaN (a) s^na also from the 'sleep' word.

I looked further, but all that I could find were references in Buechel, p.
115, to c[h]aN ~ c[^h]aN'na ~ c[^h]a'na "They follow tohaNl, etc., and the
dependent part of the sentence.  When the word referring to the indefinite
time [sic], "whenever," it has the coordinate meaning "then"."

I think this has been mangled somehow and is supposed to mean that if
tohaNl has indefinite reference then c^haN has the coordinate sense, i.e.,
"whenever ..., then ..."

And, same page, c[^h]a'na, "when, at such time as.  But the word always
starts the sentence, which may begin [sic] with tuwa, tohaN, tuktel, etc.,
or any word.  The "na" of cana may be left ot, or hehaNl added."

I have no idea what Buechel is saying here.  There is an example, which
doesn't elucidate matters much for me:

Na  haNhepi, c^ha[N]na  hehaNl     inaz^iN yapi
And at night when[ever] there/then they raised him up

The gloss here is my own.  I suppose this is a biblical reference.

For s^na, p. 466, I found "again and again, continually ... c[^h]aN s^na
yaNka Always there, here, now"

This reminds me of the habitual use of Dhegiha s^na (modern OP na), and
seems to refer to the actual cosntruction Bruce is mentioning.

Knowing Bruce, I'm pretty sure he's considered all these examples already,
and, I'd have to say I'm hoping he can elucidate them, as they get into
areas of grammar where I have no knowledge of the Omaha-Ponca equivalents,
if any (???), and Buechel's discussion seems particularly defective.

I think this probably doesn't have to do with c^haN cf. OP z^aN 'sleep',
but it seems interesting none the less.

-------

OK, I think I see why I never noticed this in Omaha-Ponca before.  I think
this is an example from Dorsey:

1890:469.4-5

1 ... 'TE*-MA T''E*WA'/AI* HNAN*DI.
2 ... / THE BUFFALOES / WERE KILLED / WHENEVER. /

1 +'TE'/E*ZE 'PASI* '/A$N MAN*DE'2 KE'2 UBA*XA$N 'KI'2, MAN*DE'2-'KA$N*
 I*'HI$N-HNA$N*I.  ...
2 +BUFFALO-TONGUE / TIP / THE (OB.) / BOW / THE / PUSHED INTO / WHEN, /
 BOW-STRING / THEY USED TO CARRY BY MEANS OF. ....

I make this:

Tte'=     ma          t?e'=wadha=      i=     hnaN=    di
buffaloes the (group) they killed them PLURAL HABITUAL at

ttedhe'ze       ppasi'=dhaN maN'de=khe uba'ghaN=                kki
buffalo tongue  tip    the  bow    the they pushed it into them when/if

maN'dekkaN i'?iN=                 hnaN=    i
bowstring  they carried them with HABITUAL PLURAL

I tend to read this as Dorsey glosses it, with a double 'when':

When(ever) they killed the buffalo, when they thrust the tip of the bow
into the tongues, they would carry them with the bowstring.

[I think this must mean that the unstrung bow is used as an awl to pierce
the tongues and thread the bowstring through?]

Anyway, it could also be glossed:

When(ever) they killed the buffalo, then they thrust the tip of the bow
into the tongues, (and) they would carry them with the bowstring.

It's interesting that this involves the s^na HABITUAL morpheme, in its
somewhat more developed form hnaN.  It eventually becomes naN.  The first
"when' is a locative postposition, while the second, the 'then' is =kki,
which acts to form when and conditional clauses.  I'm rally not used to
thinking of it as 'then'!

I think I'll leave it at that for now!

JEK