Omaha-Ponca 'to say' (RE: Dhegiha prehistory, cont.)

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> >I've been meaning to comment in regard to this that my recollection is
> that the ph first person is found in Ponca only with eg(i)=..e 'to say
> to', not e=..e 'to say', e.g., egiphe 'I said to him', but ehe 'I said'.
>
> Kathy confirms this in a note she sent me last week.  She has also uncovered
> a few instances of /athe/ 'must have' that Mr. Williams was willing to
> confirm/produce for her.

That's really great on the athe!  I'm curious about second persons, etc.,
of course.

I've sometimes argued that OP *ph > h (sporadic) might be influence from
the similar change in the first persons of 'say' in Winnebago and
Ioway-Otoe, but, of course, in itself this could be coincidence.  It also
needn't imply anything about proto-Mississippi Valley, since the Omaha and
Ponca were closely associated with the Otoes from at least the early 1700s
to the middle 1800s, and perhaps before that in some analyses of the Blood
Run site.

As far as I can recollect at the moment, the only examples of *ph to h in
Omaha-Ponca are *e=p-he 'I say' and *o-..phe 'to pass along'.  It doesn't
occur in, for example, aNphaN 'elk' or p-hi 'I arrive there'.  OK, it also
occurs in *z^o=..phe 'to wade' and *z^a=..phe 'to stab'.  Maybe also in a
root having to do with pounding in a mortar.