?uN as AUX V.

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 3 Jul 2002 Rgraczyk at aol.com wrote:
> There is an "a" that occurs in Crow between a main verb and a conjoined
> continuative auxiliary, e.g.: huu-a-lawi'-k
>        come-A-continue-DECL
>        'he kept coming, he was coming along'
>
> It also shows up in Hidatsa, and Mandan has a ha: 'simultaneous'.  Could
> these be related to uN?  It's hard to know when you are dealing with such
> short morphemes.

I think the vowel would still be nasalized in Mandan, unless it was
borrowed from Crow-Hidatsa.  But the Mandan form sounds like it is used
somewhat differently from the Crow-Hidatsa -a-.

Siouan is fairly full of cases of linking -a-.  This is part of the ablaut
/ epenthetic vowel problem.

Perhaps it is relevant that Dhegiha also has something like a linking -a-
with continuatives.  Specifically, the proximate article forms akha and
ama (or apa ~ aba, etc.) have that initial a- and also function as
continuative markers (agreeing with the class of a proximate subject).

JEK