Osage plural

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Pustet wrote:
> Well, in that case, it looks like the "Omaha contamination hypothesis"
> is the only one we're left with. I brought up borrowing and reduction
> as possible explanations because I just couldn't believe that
> LaFlesche was that sloppy.

I've been meaning to note that I've realized in rereading some of my
comments that expressions like Osage-in/Omaha-out and contamination have
potentially offensive readings that I didn't intend.  In particular, I
didn't intend any analogy to garbage-in/garbage-out, and I meant
contamination only in the sense of adding a non-native element relative to
Osage, not in a sense of adding something inherently unworthy or dangerous
(like a poison) or of adding something with less merit.

I'd also like to address the issue of whether LaFlesche's Omahaisms (which
could as well be Poncaisms or Omaha-Poncaisms, except that he was
specifically an Omaha) should be regarded as sloppy or deficient.  They
are certainly contrary to the scientific principle of representing what is
observed accurately.  And, since they make it harder for a subsequent
non-Omaha-Ponca or non-Osage speaking linguist later on to figure out what
was actually observed, such an individual would naturally regret them, as
I do.  However, I don't feel that Francis LaFlesche approached this task
as a detached scientific observer, but rather as a culturally-internal
literary exercise.  So, he probably wasn't simply being careless or
unconcerned.  On the other hand, he didn't say what he was doing, perhaps
because he did die before the project was completed, and so we are left to
wonder what precisely he did have in mind.

I don't think he willfully misrepresented matters, because he doesn't seem
like the sort of personality to do that wantonly, and no suitable motive
appears for doing it otherwise.

I don't think he was, for example, caught in mid-revision from an
Osage-oriented text to an Omaha-Ponca-oriented text, because the mechanics
of modifying a dictionary manuscript at the time would militate against
first correcting one affix or enclitic system and then another.

I don't think he was really trying to produce a generic Dhegiha
dictionary, suitable for use by all the Dhegiha groups, because the
changes made don't seem consistent with that goal, and I haven't noticed
any other tendencies in that direction, apart from the observation in the
The Omaha Tribe that the five tribes are cognate, meaning, I take it, that
they have very obviously related languages and many parallel social
institutions.

I'm left with something like what Regina originally suggested - that the
texts are morphologically correct because LaFlesche felt a strong duty to
reproduce them exactly in all details, while the dictionary reverts in
some respects to Omaha-Ponca norms because the results are are
approximately and satisfactorily correct and good enough for the context -
a context to which he presumably felt a considerable obligation as well.
In that case I suppose I would be claiming, in essence, that the
"pronunciation" differences between the two plural systems, which seem
real and significant to us, meant less to LaFlesche observationally than
such matters as using ts instead of t before e and i.  I'm not sure I
quite believe that, but so far it's the best I'be been able to manage.

It might be possible to make some deductions from a consideration of
LaFlesche's manuscript (or slip file), perhaps by comparison with Dorsey's
Osage slip file, which, as far as I know, is the only manuscript on the
subject.  I believe the NAA has the manuscript for the Osage Dictionary,
or at least the slip file, which I suspect would have been the bulk of the
manuscript for such a work, and the source from which it would have been
typeset.

It occurs to me to wonder if the Government Printing Office has an archive
of notes on its publications for the BAE separate from the BAE/NAA
materials.