Attn: Dhegiholics.

[rlarson at unlnotes01.unl.edu]

While we're on the subject, I'm wondering if I could get a
little discussion of the OP article/positional { the }.  It's
been referred to repeatedly on the list as an EVIDENTIAL
particle.  For { athe' }, at least, this is clearly the case.
But for { the } itself, I'm not seeing it.

After a noun, { the } means "standing" or "ordered, in a bundle".
After a verb, it seems to me to make the action perfective.  It
can wrap up an entire preceding sentence into a nominal package
that we might translate with a "that"-clause, as in the classic
greeting:

     Dha-thi' the u'daN.
     It is good that you have come.

In the letters section of Dorsey, { the } is used almost
incessantly when the writer is describing the actions that have
been done by a local person:

     [Subject] [Verb] i the.

is the standard form for completed actions where we would
probably use the simple past tense in English.

In the myths, where the account is hearsay and statements
about characters' actions generally close with -bi-ama',
the standard way of saying that something had been done prior
to the current point in the story is to change the closing
sequence to -bi-the'-ama', [s/he] had done it, they say.

In all of these cases, { the } seems to signal the prior
completion or accomplishment of the verb's action.  It is
as if the implication were: "This action STANDS", which
would connect the verbal use to the standard nominal use.
I have seldom, if ever, seen any cases where { the } seems
to signal EVIDENTLY.

Is it possible that the EVIDENTIAL use of { the } could be
a reduction or confusion of a different morpheme { athe' },
which certainly does seem to be EVIDENTIAL?

Comments, anybody??

Rory