animate wa-

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, REGINA PUSTET wrote:
> Yes, this is very helpful indeed. Wicha- all over the place -- rather
> than wa-.

I've been rather caught up in Christmas and family matters, so I'm just
catching up.  However, one question that has been nagging at me here.
I've always thought of wic^ha as being an animate (or, better, "human"?)
third person plural object marker, an inflection, with wa serving as the
indefinite object marker - essentially derivational rather than
inflectional - and covering the full range of human to inanimate
"indefinite" objects (or patients?).  However, it appears to me from the
discussion that, while wic^ha does have that "definite object"
inflectional role, wic^ha and wa also act as a pair in the area of
"indefinite objects," with wic^ha covering the human cases, and wa the
rest.

My question then is whether this corrected is something Dakotanists have
always been aware of, and I have missed, even though like a typical
Siouanist I tend to approach the family through Boas & Deloria, or is this
something that Dakotanists are just coming to terms with, too?I take it
from Linda's remarks that Dakotanists are at least aware of some examples
where was occurs in place of expected wic^ha?

I can say that in Omaha-Ponca it appears to me that wa there covers the
whole range of wic^ha and wa uses.  From what little I understand of the
rest of Dhegiha and of Winnebago-Chiwere, I think things are similar
there, too, though perhaps with some significant differences of detail in
Winnebago-Chiwere.  But, if, as I have always assumed, wic^ha is a Dakotan
innovation, replacing some uses of wa, then maybe this would account for
any residual exceptional uses of wa preserved lexically in Dakotan?

In addition, this insight into wic^ha, whether it is new or merely new to
me, might help to clarify whether wa in nominalizations acts as "head
marker" (or mark of nominalization) or merely occurs to code an indefinite
patient which occurs within the frame of the nominalization.  If the
latter, then we would presumably expect to find wic^ha for indefinite
human patients in nominalizations, instead of wa, which, in fact, we do in
forms like wic^ha'khipi 'robbery', wic^ha'kic^opi 'invitation',
wic^ha'ktepi 'killing', wic^ha'k?upi 'giving', etc.

'Murder(er)' is a convenient example here, because kill is straightforward
derivationally and a more or less canonical transitive verb.  Here I see
that Ingham lists for the agentive form thi'wic^hakte 'murderer' and for
the abstract noun thi'wic^haktepi 'murder'.  Interestingly, for the active
verb he gives thi'kte/thi'wakte (not thi'kte/thi'wic^hakte) and also, with
locative incorporands thi'lkte/thi'lwakte and thio'kte/thio'wakte.
Apologies for putting Bruce in the spot, here, but he's a lot more
explicit about morphology than Buechel or Riggs.  Buechel does include an
enttry thi'wic^hakte 'murderer; to commit murder', which might or might
not suggest thi'kte/thi'wic^hakte instead, but perhaps his thi'kte entry
implies thi'kte/thi'wakte as I have always assumed it does?

A question this immediately raises, is whether examples in texts or other
data suggest that the range of uses of wic^ha has been expanding
historically at the expense of wa?  Is thi'wic^hakte - as a particular
example of wic^ha use - replacing thi'wakte in nominalizations or
indefinite object cases?  If so, we'd probably expect wa in older examples
where today we find wic^ha.  We might find some "newer" pattern uses in
older materials, too, or at least this is the case in Omaha-Ponca for
other innovations:  modern day uses tend to occur sporadically in earlier
materials, too.  An example would be the modern practice of inflecting
daNbe 'to see' doubly as attaN'be 'I ...', dhas^taN'be 'you ...'.  Mostly
Dorsey reports ttaN'be, s^taNbe, but a few speakers in his day were using
the "modern" forms.  It might be a bit teleological to say "using them
already."  Perhaps with a large enough sample size any somewhat unusual
verb might be found at least sometimes doubly inflected in the pattern
regular + irregular - at any point in Omaha-Ponca linguistic history.
Double inflection certainly occurs sporadically in varying degrees
throughout Siouan, with various verbs or classes of verbs.  But in the
case of Dakotan wic^ha we have something specific and unique and connected
exclusively with Dakotan.  We have at least 0 and n to draw a line
through.

JEK