Bruce Ingham's "Nominal and Verbal Status..."

[regina pustet]

> > ... One thing that I did not mention in the article which I think is
> > very important is that one can use uN or hecha after these 'plain
> > stems' which I think give different meanings though difficult to
> > translate: wauNspekhiya hemacha would I suppose mean 'I am a teacher,
> > I am someone who teaches as a permanent characteristic' while
> > wauNspekhiya wauN would mean something like 'I am/was engaged in
> > teaching' (at a particular time).
>
>This sounds a bit like the Spanish ser vs. estar opposition,

Exactly. ser vs. estar implies a difference in permanence vs. transience,
but to my knowledge, compatibility with both copulas, in Spanish, is
largely, if not exclusively, limited to (semantic) adjectives only, and is
not observed with nouns. Lakhota wauNspekhiya in the above example is a
(semantic) noun, but I have a couple of nice examples from my fieldwork in
which presence vs. absence of hecha with adjectives implies precisely the
difference in permanence vs. transience John notes for Spanish ser vs.
estar:

hus^te			'(temporarily) lame'
hus^te hecha		'permanently lame'

ies^ni			'speechless, unable to speak for a while'
ies^ni hecha		'permanently mute'

ps^uNps^uN		'stiff, e.g. from cold or while sleeping, but not
			from arthritis'
ps^uNps^uN hecha	'stiff from arthritis'

h^miN			'to look misshapen, e.g. because a shoe does not fit
			and causes a strange way of walking'
h^miN hecha		'permanently misshapen'

Hi Violet, if you're still listening: these are your examples from ages
ago! Toniktuka he?

Regina