akhe

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> I ran across a number of the forms you list below when I was in Melbourne
> researching positionals. I'll have to check, but in some instances it looked
> like akhe was simply a verb.

As Dorsey almost always glosses it as a verb, it's easy to see it as one.
Furthermore articles generally pattern as verbs in several ways in
Omaha-Ponca: morphologically (for obviative animates) and syntactically
(post demonstrative, clause final).  And they serve as or bind pretty
closely with (as here) existential predicates.

> >Here I'm using Dorsey's glosses.
>
> 90:63.11
> Is^ti'niNkhe akh=e akha,    a'=bi=ama
> I.           is    the one  said they they say
>
> >Here the akhe isn't final.  The repeated akha is a pattern that does
> occur with 'there is' sentences.
>
> I agree both these are akha, but I certainly wouldn't segment it this way.
> To me, this is [[[ishtiniNkhe akha] [e akha]] abiama] the /e/ brackets with
> the second akha.

Well, as I indicated, the segmenting into words is Dorsey's.  I do agree
that syntactically
the e is outside [Is^ti'niNkhe(=)akha], serving as the "clefting"
predicate
(and so marking the NP as focussed).  The second akha is an imperfective
auxiliary on e.  The whole is embedded under a'=bi=ama.

However, the e is clearly strongly enclitic to the final element of
Is^ti'niNkhe akha, and, I'd add, from exposure to spoken Omaha and to
Dorsey's manuscript comments on his orthographic "aka'" being promounced
"ak" that the first akha, like all Omaha articles, I think, is an enclitic
of the preceding noun.

Left to my own devices, I'd have written:

Is^ti'niNkhe=akh=e akha a'=bi=ama

I didn't because I knew the segmenting would be an issue.  I'd analyse
this as:

[[[[Is^ti'niNkhe=akh]=e] akha] a'=bi]=ama

> >90:143.14
> wiga'xdhaN ga'=akh=e             a'=bi=ama
> my wife    that one lying is she said he, they say
>
> >This is definitely a masculine speaker.
>
> I'm not saying that ALL the sequences of /akhe/ are female speakers. To me
> this is simply mis-segmented. the /khe/ is your 'lying' article or AUX. /ga/
> is the part that means 'that one'.  You figure out what the extra -a- is
> between ga and khe, but where are you going to get 'lying' from if not from
> khe?

There's no trace of gaa in Omaha except in cases like this.  I'm certain
Dorsey has simply misunderstood the form.

> >90:311.4
> wadhaxu'xughe naN'ba t?e  akh=e         a'dha  u
> racoon        two    dead the two (lie) indeed halloo
>
> >Here Dorsey seems to be considering that akhe might be 'the two', but I
> doubt this is correct per se, though he is no doubt noticing that there
> are two racoons, but the article form is what he considers singular.
>
> Again, this is not akh+e but rather a+khe. Khe is where you get your 'lying'
> semantics from. Where else?  Khe is both singular and plural for lying
> (unless a-khe is somehow plural). this is just a perverse segmentation to
> me.
>
> You have several other instances of /khe/ 'the lying' that you've broken up
> into /akh/ (which you think is what? Akha?) and /-e/, which you seem to feel

The breaking up into words, as I emphasized in the original posting is
strictly Dorsey's.  The akh is just akha=e as pronounced.  It is never
akhae.  The strong parallel with ame < ama=e, as well as the majority of
Dorsey's glosses of =e (his e, I insert the =) shows that we're not
dealing with khe preceded by a mysterious extra a.

> is demonstrative 7e.  But the translation refers to horizontal (lying,
> reclining) beings or objects. Semantics plays a role in these puzzles too!
> Why not start off by segmenting the obvious (!) /khe/ and they try to
> analyze the remainder.

I did.  I came back to akh=e.  Dorsey has various comments here and there
in his materials on akhe and ame showing that they puzzled him.  He,
however, never looked at akhe as (some a) khe.  As much anything, I think
that ame was his beacon.  As =e is (I think) only now being understood,
it's not surprising he had some problems with these two.  He had problems
with all kinds of things, especially in the post-verbal and/or clause
final strings, though in general he was impressively insightful.