Native American verbs vs. nouns

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 16 Dec 2002 rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu wrote:
>   ShoN'ge ska u'joN abdhiN' wakhe'ga zhoN't?e khe xta'adhe khe
>     gini' koNbdhe'goN.
>   I hope the beautiful white horse that I have which is sick and lying
>     sound asleep, which I love, will recover.
>
> To translate these sentences into English, we have to consider
> each final verb of the sequence to be equivalent to our finite
> verb, which forces the rest of the sentence into subordination
> to the overt predication, with all other attributions covert,
> and requires us to completely rearrange the English word order.
> Even with the rearrangement, the English becomes downright impossible
> toward the end.  Meanwhile, the Omaha flows on unperturbed, and
> could probably continue lengthening in this manner indefinitely.
> It has no finite verb with consequent predication to vex it, all
> attributions are equal and cumulative, and the demand, which is
> statement by default whenever we hit the period, applies to the
> whole picture that the foregoing words have painted.

I know what you mean about the embedding thing.  It was and sometimes
still is difficult for me, too.  It didn't lead me to any new theories,
but it is a bit disconcerting the way embedding and heads work.  English
extracts the heads into the context and adjoins the remainder of the
embedded clause, which may acquire a trace like a relative pronoun, while
Omaha leaves the head in place and appends the context, roughly speaking.
The reference to the head in the context clause is precisely the embedded
clause, with the focussed element determined by the context, though, if
there's a determiner it may give a hint as to the identity of the head.

As far as I can see the Omaha verbs are still perfectly finite.  In fact,
I'd argue that there are essentially no non-finite verbs in Siouan
languages.  This is entirely consistent with the way nouns and adjectival
(noun-modifying) forms are derived from verbs by means of un-marked
nominalization of inflected forms.  It is possible for a subordination
marker to develop, but it will be based on an obligatory determiner and/or
a postposition or a comparable subordinating verb.  It is possible to
raise an argument into the context clause, but the only real ways to do
this are with possession or a transitivizing or dative construction.
There aren't any case forms of independent pronominals.