Omaha athe'

[Kathleen Shea]

I'm somewhat slow in responding to some of the recent postings, but I
thought I'd at least try to copy and paste some of what I e-mailed to Bob
Rankin concerning the athe' issue in Ponca, which I reproduce below
(somewhat edited):

I finally did get an /athe/ form from Uncle Parrish, but not where I
expected it.  I gave him the three sentences you suggested, even letting him
read the printout of your message, and here's what I got (with accents after
the vowel, or after the first vowel letter of a double "long" vowel) for "I
must have forgotten to feed the cat;" "I must have been walking in my
sleep;" and "I must have drunk up all the milk last night (but I don't
remember it)":

ppu'si dhiNkhe i'bdhis^i'the agi'sidha maNz^i(N)  (actually, "I forgot to
feed the cat.")

z^aNda'dhiNge maNbdhiN ebdhegaN  "Maybe I was walking in my sleep."
maNze'ni the bdhuga bdha'sni ebdhe'gaN haN'edi  " Maybe I drank all that
milk up last night."

I tried to elicit some 1st person inclusive forms and got these:

maNze'ni the bdhuga aNdha'sni u'dhiNwiNtti the'tta pidu'ba dhiNwiN dhe'wadhe
"We must have drunk all the milk; let's go to the store and buy some more."

maNze'nithe bdhuga aNdha(N)'sni aN'gathaN  "We drank all this milk up."

However, later Uncle Parrish was telling me about young men who claim to be
imparting wisdom by saying "Nia's^iga is^?a'ge gathe'gidhaN awa'naN?aN" ("I
heard some old folks say this"), in other words, according to hearsay, or
"Gathega is^?age iNwiNdhai" ("This is the way that old man told me").  If an
elderly man was listening, he'd remark, "Eb(e) uwi'dhabi'athe?"  ("I wonder
who told him?").  The implication was that the young men should name their
sources in order to speak with authority.  This last Ponca sentence has an
instance of the /athe/ everyone's been talking about.  It seems here to be
accompanied by a meaning of wonder or speculation.

Another example with /athe/:

e'b(e) ugi'ppidhabi'athe  "I wonder who filled it (i.e., my car with gas)."
(PW says here that "who" can refer to one or more persons.)

However, Uncle Parrish also came up with the following question and answer,
which doesn't contain /athe/, showing the difficulting of eliciting
sentences containing /athe/, at least on first pass:

e'b(e)ugi'ppidhe skene'gaNwa  "Who do you think filled it up?"

dhiz^iN'iNdhe ama ugi'ppidhai  "Your older brother filled it up."

Kathy Shea

P.s.  I'm wondering, considering the difficulty we have getting the
inclusive, second, and third person forms, if there's a remote possibility
that the /a/ of /athe/ could be the sentence-final question particle of an
embedded sentence since the sentences ending in /athe/ in the above examples
have to do with wondering, or asking oneself if something's true.

    ----- Original Message -----
From: <rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 7:56 PM
Subject: Re: Omaha athe'


>
> Well, after all that build-up three weeks ago, I have
> to report bad news on /athe'/.  We had both speakers
> in class together recently, and I tried to expand on
> the expression / AzhaN' athe' /, which Emmaline had
> volunteered the previous session.  Alberta promptly
> stopped me to correct my grammar: the expression was
> / AzhaN' the /; there was no a- there.  I looked
> pleadingly at Emmaline; she smiled and deferred to
> Alberta.  I tried the you, we and s/he forms; Alberta
> was emphatic that it was simply /the/ in each case.
> Both ladies took great amusement at the way I rolled
> my eyes.
>
> Emmaline's parents were uncommonly fluent speakers
> of Omaha, but Alberta Canby is about a generation
> older and has often shown herself to be very clear
> and reliable in her explanation of the language.
> It's possible that I prejudiced Emmaline in the
> first instance by having quoted the expressions in
> Dorsey that Bob was interested in confirming.  In
> any case, I'm afraid the trail has run out at this
> end.
>
> I should note too that Alberta's use of /the/ here
> is precisely in accord semantically with what John
> has been saying all along, though I'm still having
> trouble seeing it that way in Dorsey.  I'll want
> to pursue this particle further.
>
> Rory
>
>
>
>
>                     rlarson at unlnotes01.un
>                     l.edu                       To:
siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>                     Sent by:                    cc:
>                     owner-siouan at lists.co       Subject:     Re: Attn:
Dhegiholics.
>                     lorado.edu
>
>
>                     01/14/2002 06:33 PM
>                     Please respond to
>                     siouan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Bob,
>
> I submitted your sentences to Emmaline Sanchez, one of our two Omaha
> speakers, in class today.  She had no trouble at all accepting the
> two sentences from Dorsey as valid:
>
>      Na!  Agdha'the athe'!
>      Well!  I must have eaten it (my own)!
>
>      Agdha'sni kki azhaN' athe'!
>      When I swallowed it, I must have been asleep!
>
> When I tried to conjugate it, though, I got into trouble.  Something
> like
>
>      Dhagdha'the dhathe'!
>
> sounded redundant, as the last word also means 'eat'.  In fact, at
> one point in there it seemed she was telling me that athe' itself
> could also mean 'eat', which it probably does if they elide the
> initial dh-.  (I ruefully recall a moment last semester when I was
> all ready to rush onto the list with news of the discovery of a
> brand new article, iNkhe'.)
>
> I think I got acceptance when I tried athe' with 2nd and 3rd person
> forms, but I'm not quite sure, as we were possibly at the point of
> confusion by then.  I'll try running these by them again later.
>
> In the first person, at least, I think we're clear that this form
> is valid and still used in Omaha.  Emmaline explained the word athe'
> as meaning you must have done something, and even offered an example
> of her own.  If someone tells you they were trying to get a hold of
> you at ten o'clock the previous morning, you can tell them:
>
>      AzhaN' athe'.
>      I must have been sleeping.
>
> > WHAT I'D LIKE TO FIND OUT IS WHETHER THIS IS REALLY A CONJUGATED
> > "EVIDENTIAL ARTICLE" OR SOME OTHER, UNIDENTIFIED, PARTICLE.
>
> At present, the evidence here seems to be that athe' is an
> independent particle that does not conjugate.  We'll need to do a
> little more work to be sure of this, however.
>
> Rory
>
>
>
>