Different /e/ phonemes in Siouan?

[Rankin, Robert L]

> 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.

> Is it possible that the Dakotan form is a compound of *hE + *a, where
> *a is some classifier like the /ama'/ used by our speaker?  If so, the
> /y/ would be epenthetic, but could still cause the preceding /E/ to
> shift to /e/.

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.

Bob