Virtues-wolves-coyotes

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Linda A Cumberland wrote:
> s^uNks^iNca  	= coyote pup (cf. s^uNks^iNcana  'puppy')

> -s^iNca is surely a variant of c^iNca 'child' but nothing in the phonology
> that I have discovered accounts for c^ -> s^. kc^ is rare, occurring only
> in compounds and reduplications, i.e., across morpheme boundaries, and the
> c^ does not change to s^ in those instances.  ks^ is a very common
> syllable onset, of course, but the case in question crosses a morpheme
> boundary. The two examples here are the only ones I find like that.

For what it's worth, Omaha-Ponca 'little, small, young' is z^iNga',
cognate with c^hiNc^a.  (This is aspirated in the southerly dialects of
Dakotan, right?)  The proto-form is *yiNka.  OP z^iNga' can be truncated
to just z^iN in special diminutive forms like si'z^iN 'little offspring'
from nisi' z^iNga' or saN'z^iN 'little brother' from saNga' z^iNga', and
so on.  For some reason 'old woman' is wa'?uz^iNga, literally 'little
woman', cf. English 'little old woman'.  I think this pattern occurs in
other Siouan languages as well, and maybe areally.

Interestingly, however, there are two words with s^iN'ga in what seems to
be the same diminutive sense.  One is s^iN'gaz^iNga '(younger) children',
cf. s^e'mi(N)z^iNga 'girl child' (a 'maid(en)' in old English usage) and
nu'z^iNga 'boy child' (a 'youth' in old English usage).  The other is
ni'kkas^iNga, nia's^iNga 'person(s)'.  I associate this possibly with the
diminutive only from knowing that the Osage refer to themselves in at
least ritual literature as 'the little ones', though I do not recall the
Osage form associated with this gloss.  Nikka refers to 'people' and
occurs in compounds, like these and nikkagahi 'chief'.  Nia's^iNga is an
puzzling variant of ni'kkas^iNga that I think I've mentioned before.

I believe there's another diminutive root *ksik(a) that we noticed
recently in some animal names.

JEK