waiN

[R. Rankin]

> > There are two distinct roots under discussion here.
> > Proto-Siouan *?iN   'to wear' (&homophone 'think')
and
> > Proto-Siouan *k?iN 'to pack on the back, carry'
> > In Omaha, these two should come out /iN/ and /?iN/.

> That clarifies things a lot.  I was
> obviously confusing these two, which must be
pronounced
> identically in Omaha in the third person.

Maybe.  That's my question.  Morphophonologically they
are distinct -- i.e., they conjugate very differently.
Phonemically, it would be interesting to run some tests
in the 3rd person in different contexts and find out
for sure.

> The meanings also seem close enough to be variants of
a
> single verb concept.  Just out of curiosity, suppose
we
> had an original Proto-Siouan verb *?iN, meaning to
bear
> on the back.

> . . . adding some sort of /ki-/ particle in front to
get
> *ki?iN' or some such, meaning literally 'carry one's
own',
> . . . the /i/ in /ki-/ is eventually schwa-ed and
> elided, leaving *k?iN, to pack something on the back,
> vs. *?iN, meaning to wear on the back, as two
separate
> verb roots.  Does this hypothesis sound at all
> plausible?

We do know that the vowel of pronominal prefixes and
certain other prefixes like ki- is lost in much of
Siouan.  So, phonologically, it is plausible.  But I
don't think there is any real evidence for it here.
Some of the languages that don't seem to lose the
requisite prefix vowel would have to retain evidence to
convince me.  Otherwise it's a bit like trying to
derive Romance vulpe 'fox' from vol- 'to fly' plus pes
'foot' because foxes are swift of foot. Something that
was tried by Roman grammarians.  :-)

Bob