ASB puza

[Rankin, Robert L]

[RLR: ]  I don't have a lot to add to the voluminous correspondence on ASB
'cat' except to mention that the way you *call* your cat in a whole string
of European colonial (and other) languages is "pis, pis, pis" or "pus, pus,
pus".  This may or may not have anything to do with the ASB word, but I'm
inclined to agree with David that English is the probable source.

> I can barely decide where to begin with a discussion of the problems with
your proposal.
> MI      wiikwee-
> PSI      *-truN  (one might have plumped for *-kwuN, too)

[RLR: ] I don't know that I'd even consider this etymon reconstructible in
Proto-Siouan.  It *may* be a very early loan (I don't recall its occurring
in Mandan or Missouri River languages, so not PSi), but it may just as well
have been borrowed multiple times from without and within Siouan.  As John
quite rightly points out, the cluster is not acceptable in the vast majority
of Siouan phonologies.  /tr/ just isn't possible, thus the systematic
dissimilations.

This means that the existence of the critter terms in -tirVN- in Iroquoian
(working from Marianne's "Extending the rafters" paper, as I recall), where
they are reconstructible, became interesting and pertinent.  Likewise the
Yuchi term in -tyVN- (given the y/r relationship within Siouan).  I didn't
see any claim of cognacy in John's posting.  I think that what we assume is
that this root is a "widespread form" that has been borrowed and reborrowed
in the eastern part of the continent.  All Siouanists would want to say, I
expect, is that the word didn't likely originate with Siouan because of its
phonology.

This is not the only animal term that has diffused widely.  Mary Haas
discussed the 'bison' term and Michael Nichols has collected a large group
of such Wanderwoerter over the years, especially from the West.

> B. You are proposing to explain the initial w- in the Miami form from a
PreDakotan initial *w- from one or another of several sources, but the *w-
is not even reconstructable for the PreDakotan form.

It doesn't need to be.  *Wi- is reconstructible for a host of animal terms
in PSi or Proto-Mississippi Valley Siouan -- far more than is possible by
coincidence.  If it's reconstructible at a higher node than pre-Dakotan, it
can be inferred for that language unless there's evidence it was lost at an
earlier node too.  But we're not really talking about just Dakotan here;
this term is found all over Mississippi Valley Siouan and also in Biloxi.

> C. You are proposing that Proto-Siouan *-truN ' panther, mountain lion' is
cognate with or in some other way related to Proto-Iroquoian *ti:l-i/oN
'skunk' (see cognates in previous email), despite the difference in meanings
and the problem of where the vowel separating the consonants came from in
Iroquoian or went to in Siouan.

> D. You are proposing that Proto-Siouan *-truN 'panther, mountain lion' is
cognate with a purposed Yuchi form atyuNne 'wildcat'. No such form exists!
(Please check your sources before citing data from other languages, even in
emails; otherwise, you run the risk, as here (and with the gloss for the
Mohawk word ('skunk', not 'panther or mountain lion'), of creating new or
perpetuating old ghost forms.) A check of Bill Ballard's . . .

That is *Lew* Ballard.  I tried "Bill" with him when I first met him and got
corrected.  Nowadays he accepts "William" but not Bill.

> . . . English-Yuchi lexicon shows that the Yuchi word for 'wildcat' is
$athy at N ($ = s hachek, @N = nasal open o). He also cites a form from Gunther
Wagner, cat' an' e ($at?ane) which is not the same word. $athy at N also means
'raccoon'.  I have seen no evidence (other cognate sets) suggesting that
Proto-Siouan *tr corresponds to either Yuchi thy or t?, and there is no
explanation for the initial $a- or final - at N or -ane in Yuchi.

I've seen no claim of cognacy for this term.  John is citing it from a DOS
version of the Comparative Siouan Dict. that didn't have the fonts to
reproduce Ballard's rounded V preceding the nasal.  That is corrected in
Windows fonts.  Any central or back vowel borrowed into Siouan with a
following N will be adapted as uN or aN.  Whether it was schwa, A, open O,
close O or U in the source language doesn't matter.  The semantics remain
difficult, but the result in Siouan is uniform.  We've seen from the
Iroquoian discussion that the semantic questions lie there (where the form
appears to be reconstructible).  This may suggest a single borrowing into
Siouan at a considerably earlier time, but it's very hard to say.

Bob

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