Consideration of Rory Larson's egaN Exceptions

[Koontz John E]

I promised Rory I'd try to address his proposed cases of =bi appearing and
not appearing before egaN depending on whether the occurrence was seen or
not seen, and hence dubitative or non-dubitative.

I think these were the examples.  Please point out any I've missed, Rory.

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Rory:  Finding compound third-person dialogue statements is difficult, but
I found two of them in the story, "How the Rabbit Killed a Giant", pages
22 - 25.  The first is on page 23, line 10-11.  When the giant demands to
know which of them had had the audacity to cut up the deer they had shot,
the two frightened men admit that the Rabbit made them do it:

     She' akha' MashtshiN'ge-iN' akha' pa'de wa'gazhi egaN'
     aNpa'dai ha -- "That one, the Rabbit, bade us cut it up, so
     that's why we cut it up".

Here the accusation arises from personal experience, and the men
do not precede egaN' with -bi.

The second is on page 23, line 17-18.  As the giant proceeds to maul
him, the Rabbit declares the difference between himself and the
craven men:

     Dhe'ama naN'dhiphai' egaN' a'dhikhi'dha-bazhi'-hnaN'-i;
     wi' naN'wipha ma'zhi egaN' a'wikhi'bdha ta' miNkhe. --
     "These ones fear you, so they don't attack you;
     I fear you not, so I will attack you".

Here again we have no -bi in front of egaN' in either of the two places
it appears.  The first one has -i, which can be construed as the plural
particle.  The second has only the first person negator ma'zhi, but
can't be counted in this test since its subject is not third person.

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These are cases in which there is no bi before egaN.  Note that I claim
that =bi should occur if egaN is 'having' and that =i should occur if egaN
is 'as'.  But I claim this only in cases where the preceding verb is a
third person singular proximate or a plural.  Note also that Rory has
reglossed 'having' as 'so' in the first case.

This said, my explanations are:

The first example is 'having', and should have =bi if it is proximate, but
it is evidently (consistent with the context) obviative and has neither =i
nor =bi.

The second example has two intances of egaN which were glossed 'because'
in the original, cf. 'as', fairly reglossed as 'so', As we are dealing
with the 'as', and the first case is a third person plural it predictably
has =i, while the second case is a first person singular and so lacks both
=i and =bi.

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Rory: In these two cases of dialogue, egaN' takes no preceding -bi.  I
count six other cases of egaN' in narrative statements of the same story,
each of which does take a preceding -bi (or -b alone, tacked to the final
vowel of the preceding word).  These are at lines 2, 4, 7, 15, 17 and 20,
all on page 23.

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These examples are all third person singular proximate or third person
plural 'having' examples with =bi (mostly recorded in this text as =b).
These is one case of e'=gaN=i 'it is [=these things are] so' later in the
line in line 4, and this is sentence initial (following a vocative), so
it's irrelevant whether =i or =bi appends to a the last verb of the
embedded clause preceding it.

I hope this helps.

JEK