Dakota itazipA 'bow'

[Koontz John E]

I got interrupted in this before everyone else went off and did their
homework.  So now, of course, it's something of an anti-climax!

On Sun, 13 Oct 2002, R. Rankin wrote:

> > How about this, though?  OP mu[u]'=zibe 'to shoot', Dorsey
> > 90:189.9.  Mu= > is, of course, the shooting instrumental.  This stem
> > occurs exactly once in the texts.

> I bet that's it.  ...  Maybe [we] can check for it in other contexts.

Yesterday I quailed at the thought of this.  It's always a challenge to
look for other instances of instrumental roots in Siouan languages, thanks
to the instrumentals themselves being prefixed and possibly hidden under
datives, locatives, etc., prefixed to these.  Fortunately there are only
about five locatives (counting compounds) times four or five datives, etc.
times ten instrumentals times about seven separately lexiconized
Mississippi Valley languages ... This is a point at which the people
working with Crow and Hidatsa and Mandan smile gently.  There's also wa or
not wa and, in fact, a not option for each of the above, if you're doing
the math.

One thing every good Siouan dictionary needs is a good root index.  If
it's computer-based, links would be nice ...  I think this is not just a
convenience for scholars, but a necessity for speakers, though we're
plainly not clear on the extent to which any of this is productive,
perhaps because it often depends on the form, and not always the
constituent morphemes.

A good alternative to this is a computer-based text with search tool that
can handle pattern matching.  Looking for words with the syllable mu is
how I stumbled on mu[u]'=zibe, for example, but earlier I was looking for
kkimu and wanted to find instances not initial and irregardless of accent,
which was awkward.

So, with regard to OP -zibe < PMV *-zip-:

I thought I'd start with Winnebago, because Ken Miner does provide a root
index.  Since everyone leaped in with other stuff, I'll petty much leave
it at that!

boozip 'to mash by shooting, blowing, great force' (Da wo-)
gizi'p 'to stir something soft' (Da ka-)
honaNzi'p 'to smash st smeary with the feet'
(similar forms with -ru- 'by hand' and -wa- 'by pushing')
maNaNzi'p 'to smear with a knife' (Da wa-)
razi'p 'to mouth st soft' (Da ya-)
ruzi'p 'to get fingers in st soft or sticky' (Da yu-)
wazi'p 'to knead' (Da pa-)
woowa'zip (stative) 'to be lonesome' (wherein one experiences kneading)
ziizi'p 'be watery'  (perhaps better, 'be syrupy', see below)
taaniN'z^u ('sugar') ziizip 'syrup'

And, of course, you do have to worry about fricative ablaut or sound
symbolism, which seem to effect a large percentage of instrumental roots,
so ...

maNaNz^i'p 'to whittle' (Da wa-)
naNaNr~uz^ip 'to shave wood for kindling' ('wood' + 'to plane' below)
ruz^i'p 'to plane'  (Da yu-)
woowa'z^ip 'wood shavings' (by pushing) (Da pa-)
woomaN'z^ip 'wood shavings' (by cutting)

No -ghip examples.

The 'be mushy, watery' stem Bob suggests is not related, but one might
want to think about wazi'p 'to knead'.  That could certainly be a separate
'pinch' root -zip, but 'knead' seems to fit into the causality of making
things softer, more mushy rather nicely, and it seems possible to me,
given the 'pinch, sting' sense of cognates, that there could be a
development from exerting a compressive force to working with a mushy,
fluid substance.

The z^-grade -z^i'p 'whittle, carve, plane, shave' seems eather different,
and made me wonder to what extent bows are produced by whittling.  I
believe extensive whittling is involved, actually.  If you think about the
actions involved in whittling or shaving, they amount to taking a very
shallow cut or nip or scallop out of something.  The force exerted in more
a matter of scraping than pinching, but pressure, if not compression is
involved in any event, and the action of biting serves to unite the two
figures.

In any event, the same notions recur across MV with the same root or set
of homophonous, sound symbolism-varying roots *Zip.  I think capital S
(and by extension Z) are the symbols used in such cases in the Comparative
Siouan Dictionary manuscript.  That is, in cases where a variety of sound
symbolic grades or different grades are found, so that it is unclear what
grade to reconstruct as original (if any).

I believe that the semantic problems with this set or sets recur in the
materials assembled for the CSD.  There is a tendency to variability
across and within languages in root semantics between manner or means and
consequence, or between spatial figures in actions and sensual qualities
of products.  I won't try to assembles examples at this point, but this is
fairly typical.  Not all root sets exhibit this sort of problem, but it is
not unique.

JEK

P.S.  I looked pretty carefully manually for -c,ibe /zipe/, -zhibe /z^ipe/
and -xibe /ghipe/ examples in LaFlesche's Osage dictionary without turning
up anything.  Ditto in Ioway-Otoe, whre the forms would be ziwe, z^iwe,
xiwe (ghiwe?), with z tending to appear as dh and z^ as z.  I do not
guarantee these results.  I may not have looked hard enough.

Swetland/Stabler give athi'c,ibe /adhi'zibe/ 'to drape', which is
interesting in connection with Linda's 'erect tent' gloss.  Also aga'zibe
~ adhizibe 'to flap' (note ga- 'by action of wind', dhi- cf. Da yu-, ga-
cf. Da ka-).  There's also ttiha' wadhi'zibe 'a tarpaulin' (lit.
dwelling-skin draping').  Perhaps this is just a homophonous root, or
maybe the 'make indentations' sense Linda suggests unites it with the
rest.  The notion that 'whittle' means 'make scallops' may apply, too, and
is essentiallya variant of the former.

A more expected gloss would be baz^i'be 'to poke'.

There may also be a grade -ghibe in OP:  It's possible that a'ghibe
'bracelet' could be 'arm-compresser' (a[a]' 'arm').  Nu[u]'de dhighi'be
'to strangle' is perhaps literally 'throat hand-compress'. But on the
other hand nu[u]'de ghighi'be is 'windpipe'.  Or maybe that's 'throat
compressions'.

Obviously you can get carried away with this sort of thing!  The only safe
approach is to assemble examples and look at the whole pattern and then
admit that subsenses or homophones exist.  In some cases looking across
languages is very revealing.