How far/how long?

[ROOD DAVID S]

I have only a couple of guesses, not definitive answers, for Bruce's
inquiry, but that may be a place to start.  I think tohaNyaN is both 'how
far' and 'how long'.  'How far is it from here to Rapid City" will require
some native speaker insight, I think, because the expression "north of X" uses
iwaziyataNhaN for 'north' -- Pierre kiN iwaziyataNhaN 'north of Pierre',
and I have trouble reconciling the meaning with the constituency there.  It
looks like it should mean 'from north of Pierre'.

For the 'how many days march is it' I expect an expression with the verb
caN 'to be a 24 hour period', e.g. topa can '(for) four days.'

I'll be watching for better-informed comments on these musings.

David

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
Campus Box 295
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001 bi1 at soas.ac.uk wrote:

> Does anyone know the Lakota equivalent of 'how far' in distance.  I
> presume tohanyan is something like that.  But I wonder how one
> would say 'how far is it to Rapid city from here?' and indeed would
> one say that or would one say 'how many days march is it?' or
> something.  I am surprised that in none of my texts is there any
> such sentence?  It is the sort of thing a foreigner in Lakota contry
> might ask and Lakota would not need to.  Any hints from other
> Siouan languages.
>
> Bruce
>
> On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> > I guess Rory's 'wadhawa' "something [you] count" is as good a noun as
> > any.  Kaw would be *wayawa.
>
> I wondered about we'dhawa (we'yawa?) 'with which you count', though
> perhaps that would be a closer equivalent to 'numeral'.  (This would
> definitely be at least an etymologically long e, too.)
>
> In consideration of Alan Hartley's comments, I'd guess you'd say 'let's
> count things', which would, in fact, require wadhawa.
>
> I suspect the Kaw forms without -wa are simply somewhat contracted.  A w
> is easily lost between vowels in many languages.  In that case the final a
> should probably sound rather long, and we all know how easy it is to miss
> long vowels ...
>
> And speaking of etymology, a verb root beginning in w- is a little
> unusual, isn't it?  For a Mississippi Valley Siouan language, that is.
>
> JEK
>
> Dr. Bruce Ingham
> Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
> SOAS
>