Dhegiha stuff.

Rankin, Robert L rankin at ku.edu
Sat Mar 30 22:01:23 UTC 2002


I was going through the La Flesche Osage dictionary and ran across the entry
"thoN-dsi" /dhaN ci/ 'at the', a locative classifier.  There are examples of
the sort:

haNpa íhtaxe ðaN-ci   'At the break of day.' (p. 64)
day its.tip the.sitting-LOC

zaNcé $e-ðaN-ci   'at yonder forest' (p. 153)
forest that-the.sitting-LOC

The entry and accompanying examples are interesting because they suggest
that the old inanimate-sitting article, dhaN, has been retained in Osage in
the locative classifiers, even though it has been replaced by the
animate-sitting dhiNk$e when it occurs as a simple article.

La Flesche's transcription mirrors real Osage here, so I'm wondering if the
use of dhaN is real or if, perhaps, he inadvertently substituted the
Omaha-Ponca article (which we've always thought no longer existed in Osage).


I haven't been able to find any instances of the dhaN particle in Carolyn's
dissertation yet.

Bob



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