Plural Marking (was Re: Ablaut ...)

[Rankin, Robert L]

>Winnebago not only uses /nee/ in addition to either first or second
person affixes to express emphasis or contrast, but with third person
forms, /ee/ is used for the same purpose.  Historians, is the latter
another example of the demonstrative *e, implicated in the development
of Siouan ablaut, and surviving in Winnebago as an independent word
without affixes?

/?ee/ seems to be the least marked of the demonstratives and it fits in the
same slots as /ree/, /s^ee/ and /ka/. It would *seem* to be the same
particle that compounds with stative pronominal prefixes to form the
contrastive pronoun set, /*wiN-?e/, /*yiN-?e/, etc., although the /e/ here
could possibly be one of the elusive 'be' verbs. In some languages /e-/
seems to have replaced the 3rd person /i-/ of the possessive prefix
paradigms. It also appears as an attached "preverb" in verbs like /ee-he/
'to say this/that'. I've never seen any convincing evidence that there is,
or ever was, an e/a "article" pair, but this is something John and I have
disagreed about early and often.

Bob