Siouan Long Vowls

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> Koontz writes:
> > But if all long vowels were also accented, whether or not we
> > could discern that they came about from morphological sequences, > we
> would have to omit length from the picture, which is the
> > Dakotan situation.  So unless length is in some degree
> > independent of accent, we are overdifferentiating to write it,
> > however nicely we can predict the location of accent by assuming
> > it.
>
> I disagree. It is only if *ALL* accented vowels were long, and length
> occurred *nowhere* else, that we would be entitled to equate the two.

I said what I said poorly.  What Bob is saying is what I was trying to
say.  If accented <=> long, then being able to place all accents on the
second mora wouldn't justify writing length in the prototonic cases.  In
this case secondary length due to accentedness would have obscured
morpheme-sequence-based and/or morpheme-identity-based length. One would
have to assume that all lengthening situations occurred within the first
two syllables, which, up to a point, is not inconsistent with the
situation we face.  (Note:  Of course Bob is also saying that this doesn't
happen, i.e., it is not the case that accented <=> long.)

What I mean by morpheme-sequence-based is cases where two identical vowels
occur across a morpheme boundary, or one vowel assimilates the other in
such a context, creating a VV sequence that is accented even though it
occurs in the first syllable.  Cases like Omaha-Ponca a 'A1' + gase 'cut'
=> a + ase => aa'se 'I cut'.

By morpheme-identity-based length I mean cases like the accented
a-locative in Omaha-Ponca:  aa + gdhiN => aa'gdhiN 'to sit down/on'.
Another potential case might be gaagh- 'make', which yields gaa'ghe when
it occurs with its (obligatory) theme vowel.  From a Dakotanist point of
view this would be a case of morpheme-identity-based accent, and kagh + a
=> ka'gha.

When I ask for examples, what I guess I'm asking for is help with ear
training.  I don't require minimal pairs, of course, since we all know how
difficult these are to provide in Siouan languages.  We're just grateful
for the ones we find.  What I'm looking for is examples of

any CVV'CV vs. any CV'CV

or

any CV'CVV vs. any CV'CV

etc., or even cases where one might expect this without any certainty. I
can deal with a work still in progress answer.