Osage plural

[Pustet]

Pustet <Pustet at lrz.uni-muenchen.de> schrieb:
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------

Kommentar:
----------
OK -- LaFlesche's strong Omaha background should explain a lot about his Osage transcription. But what I was wondering is whether the two languages were in a contact situation that made borrowing, i.e. complete adoption, of Omaha/Ponca plural -i into Osage possible.
But actually, the more I think about it the less likely I find it that borrowing took place, or that LaFlesche just sort of confused the plural marker in Omaha/Ponca with the plural marker in Osage. There is an alternative explanation: if the original state of affairs is a plural marker -pi in Osage, it is conceivable that it was shortened to -i in the course of time. Such reductive processes are normal, especially with high-frequency items, as Bybee and others tell us, and plural markers are in this category.
The Lakota plural marker, which happens to be -pi as well, is a case in point: in today's spoken Lakota, the full form -pi is not that frequent. Realizations of the plural marker run the gamut from -pi, -p, -b, -m, -mp to vowels or semivowels like -w, -u, -o, etc. That Osage -pi is still -pi in LaFlesche's and Dorsey's ceremonial texts would fit the overall picture because ceremonial language tends to be more conservative than everyday language, in which structural reduction happens first.
Best,
Regina



------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------

Diese Nachricht wurde ueber den WWW-Server des LRZ verschickt.
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de
Rechnername des Absenders: stnb-d932e714.pool.mediaways.net
IP Adresse des Absenders: 217.50.231.20