Lakota wa- 'variety object'

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, REGINA PUSTET wrote:
> But we can take it even further. My speaker also gave
> me
>
> (2)	w-í-wa-w-iyuNg^a-pi
> 	WA-LOC-WA-WA-ask-PL
>         'they ask around about him'
>
> and this structure contains three *wa-*s. The base
> verb *iyúNg^a* 'to ask' is transitive, so that, after
> three detransitivizations or PAT-eliminations, we'd
> get a valence of [-2] for PAT. So I conclude that
> rather than taking away valence slots, *wa-* functions
> to add slots, at least in some cases.

The comparable and cognate verb in OP is i'waNghe 'to ask someone (a
question)'.  The -waN- can be -maN-, too, though that was historically
reserved for the first person.  The personal inflection of this stem is
quite irregular, at least in part because the OP materials attest parts of
an old irregular paradigm intermingled with a newer, "regularized" one.

Older           Newer

*i'maNghe       idha'maNghe
*i'naNghe       i'dhamaNghe (sometimes erroniously idha'maNghe)
 i'waNghe       i'maNghe

The starred forms aren't attested as such, but occur in more complex forms
and/or elsewhere in Dhegiha.

I apologize for that digression, but anyone who referred to the Dorsey
texts would have encountered that horrible complexity immediately!

The thing about this verb that I wanted to bring up is this.  The wa-forms
[sic] for i'waNghe (i'maNghe) are:  we'maNghe and wawe'maNghe.  These are
both glossed something like 'to question', and are used when there is not
some specific object preceding (always eda'daN or iNda'daN 'what', I
think) and the context doesn't seem to suggest a particular question.  If
there is any difference between the two, it seems to be that the latter
form is often glossed 'to ask (different) questions', i.e., with more
than one question fairly explicitly indicated.  I don't think we'maNghe is
ever glossed with multiple questions, though wawe'maNghe is sometimes
glossed with a single question or general questioning.

That's pretty close to the 'variety object' that Regina was asking about,
and, as I hope will be obvious to everyone, it seems to involve a second
occurrence of wa-:  wawe'maNghe < wa-wa-i-(m)aNghe.

Note that the wa or wa's here refer to the question, not the person
questioned.

I looked for additional examples of wawe'- and turned up:

wawe'xaxa=i 'they are laughers at them' (they scorn various things about
people?)
     < i'xa 'to laugh at'

wawe'dhigdhaN=i 'rulers' (those who decide [various things?] for people)
     < i'dhigdhaN 'to decide for someone'

wawe'k[k]it[t]at[t]a 'a deceiver' (he cheats people [in various ways?])
     < i'k[k]it[t]e 'to cheat'

It seems particularly significant that two of the three examples involve
reduplication.  However, all of these examples involve at least an
implicit 'them', also marked with wa- in Dhegiha.

The following are probably not examples:

wawe's^i 'pay' (means of hiring)
     < wa...s^i' 'to hire, to employ, to send on errand'
u'wawes^i 'pay' (in which there is a means of hiring)
     < wa-u'-wa-wa-i-s^i)

Here the wa- in was^i' seems to be a part of the stem.  The u'- is from
*wa-u'-, rendering the second form complex, but OP is apparently only
marginally aware of the *wa- in u'-, since it provides a pleonastic -wa-
after it in some paradigmatic contexts.

wawe'dhit[t]aN=i 'he works at various things *for us*'
     < dhit[t}aN 'to work at various things'

Here I think wawe' < wa-wa-gi- INDEF-P12-DAT, and 'variou things' is
implicit in the stem, e.g., wabdhit[t]aN 'I worked at various things'.

I'm not sure what to make of the next one; I never have been!

wawe'naNghidha 'to attack (him, them)'
     < ie'naNghidhe 'to attack'

It seems reasonable to ask if there are wawa'- forms parallel with the
wawe'- ones, but the answer seems to be "No."  All the examples of wawa-
seem to be from verbs in wa-, like wa...khega 'be sick', wa...xpaniN 'be
poor', wa...kha 'to mean', wa...s^i 'to hire'.  In this respect the
presence of i- seems to be crucial to 'variety objects'.

JEK