Different /e/ phonemes in Siouan?

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> > I believe that long vowels are another environment in which there tends to
> be lowering (and/or nasalization).
>
> Works with ancient Greek and Church Slavic where PIE e: is/was more or less
> [ae] ('ash'), but reflexes of Latin e: don't behave like that.  Mixed
> results, I'd guess.

Another lowering environment - of the point of articulation of neighboring
consonant type - is adjacent to h and ? (laryngeals).  If these disappear,
as they often do, you get an unconditioned (or no-longer conditioned)
vowel alternation.

> The only thing that occurs to me here is only partly pertinent.  In Quapaw
> the compound $uNke+akniN 'dog+sit.upon' = 'horse' has an /ea/ sequence, and
> the whole thing came out phonetically [$unkaegni], where ae is again a low
> front (accented in this case) vowel.

This happens with OP hoN=egoN=chHe 'early morning', literally 'when (its)
like night', which is h<ae>Ng<schwa>chHI.  There'a tendency of finaly aN
to become <schwa>, also reflected here.  ChHe (sure sounded like i or I to
me) is a diminutive version of tHe.

Dorsey shows raising as opposed to lowering in piazhi 'bad', writing it
pi<ae>zhi (well, he writes all the sounds differently, but that's the
idea).

JEK