gypsum or "mica"

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 9 Aug 2002, Patricia Albers wrote:
> ... In this regard, I have been trying to track down the term icage,
> which Walker (1983, pp. 220-221, 222-223, 227-228) gives to describe
> 'white fruits' growing under the earth, suggesting the crystalline
> formations in caves. ... The Cheyenne sometimes refer to gypsum as
> "frost."  Could icage come from the word caga (Riggs 1968, p. 84;
> Buechel 1970, p. 113).

It may help to realize that c^ha'gha 'ice' (compounding form is c^hax) has
an initial aspirated c^ (usually written just c in Buechel) as opposed to
the unaspirated c^ of -c^aghe in ic^a'ghe, usually written with c-overdot
in Buechel.

Note:  Actually ptck with no marking would be in principle ambiguous in
Buechel.  A ptck with an opening apostrophe (or half circle) adjacent
upper right would be unambiguously aspirated, and a ptck with an overdot
would be unambiguously unaspirated.  It's a two-way contrast encoded in
three series of symbols, representing Buechel's attempt to improve upon
the Riggs system which uses only a single ambiguous series.  However,
hearing aspiration with c^ is harder (and I believe c^ never receives the
velarized aspiration characteristic of Teton Lakota), so c essentially
never receives the aspiration mark.  Usually, however, an undotted c is
c^h.

Note:  Also, gh is not aspirated.  It's just a fumbling attempt to
represent gamma (voiced velar fricative).  Buechel uses g-overdot or, in
the English index, just g.  We can't do that easily on this list because
too many Siouan languages have g as a voiced stop.  I guess it depends
what type of confusion you like.  The list is somewhat dominated by
comparativists trying to use a single scheme across all the languages.
But you will find lots of examples of use of popular orthographies that
fit ASCII better, too!

Returning to the subject, icage written just like that (assuming no
diacritics are missing) could be either ic^ha'ghe or ic^a'ghe.  Only a
native speaker familiar with Walker's usage could say which.  If the first
form exists, but is specialized usage, not widely known, it's possible a
native speaker might assume the latter incorrectly.  If the first form
exists, it's possible it has something to do with c^ha'gha 'ice'.

Note:  However, 'frost' is given in Ingham and Buechel (for Teton) as
xeyuN'ka.  The Santee form is xewaN'ka or wo{']tasaka in Williamson, while
Riggs gives xewaN'ke and says Teton has xeyuN'ke.  That's as much
difference among the sources as I've noticed in some time.  The yuNk- ~
waN'k- alternation reflects dialect variants of the 'sitting' positional
auxiliary.

Although the Riggs vs. Buechel and the others' testimony on the final
vowel reminds us that there are contexts in which final a alternates with
final e, there are no attested -e variants with the c^hax- root that I
know of, and xe-SIT-e vs. xe-SIT-a variation is the only suggestion that
such a variation is possible in something like this context.  (Of course,
OP nughe, Osage naNghe, IO nuxe ~ noNxe 'ice' show that there is an
e-final version of this somewhat irregular stem set in Mississippi Valley
Siouan general.)  In Dakotan specifically, usually you find final a ~ e in
connection with non-possessed vs. possessed, e.g.  s^uN'ka vs. thas^uN'ke
'his particular horse' (said to be an obsolete form).  Supporting this,
many body part terms take final -e', but have a compounding stem that is
consonant final.  There are some other a ~ e alternation contexts but I
don't feel I understand the details.  To some extent e makes sense as
marker of 'specificity'.

To summarize, ic^haghe having something to do with c^ha'gha 'ice' is not
impossible, but probably would require more support.  There's also the
issue of explaining the i- in this case.  The best I could come up with is
an irregularly denasalized iN- , the compounding form if 'stone', i.e.,
perhaps something like 'frozen stone'.

The possibility ic^a'gha from ka'gha (see below) makes more sense.

> Icage means "something to make with" (Riggs (Riggs 1968, p.171;
> Buechel 1970, p. 199).  Another and probably related word, icago,
> refers to a mark or line that is drawn or sketched on something
> (Buechel, p. 199),and Buechel also gives wakicaga as a name for a
> sacred ceremony (Buechel 1970, p. 835).

Here it's ic^a'ghe from ka'gha 'to make', as David Rood points out.  The
shift of k to c^ or kh to c^h after i is essentually regular.  This form
is essentially a nominalization of ic^agha 'to make something with
soething'.  (This is one of those a ~ e contexts I'm not sure of.)  If you
look in the surrounding articles, you can see that ic^a'gha has other less
transparent meanings:  'to spring up (as grass, a child, etc.); to
become'. Also 'to skim off', perhaps only compounded with ic^hu', i.e.,
ic^a'ghe ic^hu'.  It also participates in some constructions meaning
'together', e.g., ic^a'gheya 'together'.  I don't think any of these are
relevant, though the specific example of 'to become' given was iN'yaN
ic^agha 'to become a stone'.

Note:  Ic^a'gha is a stative verb inflectionally - imac^agha - though
plainly it takes two arguments in syntactic terms, so this is one of the
somewhat overlooked Siouan experiencer verbs.

I think ic^a'gho 'to make a mark, draw a line, sketch' (or the thing so
produced, as a noun) is simply a different stem, probably the root is gho,
with prefixed ka 'by force' (which becomes c^a after i). It does occur to
me that the 'make marks' version of *kax that appears in Ioway-Otoe and
Winnebago might owe something of its semantics to interactions with a
Proto-Siouan version of this stem.  There's no "change to o" or "add o
suffix" morphological rule in Dakotan.  If one added ic^ax to a verb stem
o, one would get ic^axo, not ic^agho.

Waki'c^agha < wa - ki - kagha is 'to make something for someone; what is
made for someone', the detransitivized form waki'c^agha from the dative
ki'c^agha from ka'gha.

In checking into this form I notice that Buechel gives kic^a'gha (with
c-overdot, so explicit lack of aspiration) as 'to become ice again'. Is
this correct?