Number & Counting Comparisons in Dhegiha

[Justin McBride]

> Actually, that word exists in Kaw, but it means 'counting stick' and it is
> an artifact in the possession of one of the clans.

Exactly, I initially took 'yawa' to be the root, and assumed a form
something like 'weyawa' might be the word I was looking for, where 'we-' is
really 'wa-' nominalizer + '-i-' instrumental.  I searched the dictionary
for something like this and actually found it.  Unfortunately it seemed to
be a reserved word for a cultural item--not exactly something that I'd want
to use in a classroom setting.  I wondered briefly about switching the
instrumental to '-ya-' 'by mouth' to tweak the meaning, and maybe adding a
helper or two, such as 'iye' 'speech' or something to that effect.  I came
up with the curious phrase 'iye wayayawa.'  Is it just me?  ...This seems
kinda silly.   I'm wondering if it is even possible to use instrumental 'ya'
to refer to speech.  Does it generally invoke the sense of physical mouth
mechanics, such as blowing or chewing?  I'm thinking the speech-mouth
connection may be somewhat romanticized or just out-of-place.


> >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 ...
>
> Probably.  But the 2nd person form with the -bl- is simply a mistake
someone
> somewhere along the line made.  they've formed the 2nd person on the basis
> of the irregular 1st person!

On a somewhat related note, I think you've (Dr. Rankin, that is) shown me
some interesting Kansa examples of redundancy in 1st & 2nd  persons in which
two different sets of prefixes are used at the same time.  (I can't think of
any of these examples off hand).  For instance, in the above example, you
posited 'yahnawa' as an analogous possibility.  Do such constructions more
often involve combinations of A-Active Regular Conjugation and (Y-) R-Stem
Conjugation?  Does this ever occur with any of the less productive
conjugations?  Just curious, here...  not particularly helpful in this
situation.

>
> >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.
>
> Yes, that would be strange.  I wonder of the ya- here is the instrumental
or
> maybe just the 1st syllable of the root?  So far I have found Osage and
> Omaha-Ponca cognates.
>

This makes my original construction all the more ridiculous!  Oddly, I
recognized the fact that 'ya' is an instrumental, but never considered it
would be anything other than part of the verb root in this case.  Are the
instrumental prefixes pretty consistent between dialects?  Specifically, is
the 'by mouth' prefix found in all of them in roughly the same form?


jm