A little more haplology.

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Tue Jan 14 16:29:32 UTC 2003


On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Linda Cumberland wrote:
> Interesting thought, but I my data don't support the desensitization
> argument. In a text Ray and Doug recorded from a Fort Belknap narrator
> we have the reduplicated form:
>
> ektashiNshiN  'strangely, in an unconventional manner'
> (ektashiN  'mistakenly')

This looks like the intensified double negative that Connie provided
examples of, which, I noticed, seem to be glossed 'ought not' or 'why not,
why don't'.  I wonder if this might not be, essentially, reduplication of
the negative?

In any event, perhaps these two cases (above and below) arise (or fail to
arise) in different ways?

> But ten years later, her daughter gave me the following:
>
> huNkeshiN                 'be slow'
> mahuNkeshiN               'I am slow'
>
> (Note that the word for 'fast' is not "huNke" or huNka" but ox'aNko)
>
> She rejects a negative form: *mahuNkeshiNshiN
> and gives instead:            miyeshiN mahuNkeshiN
> used in a phrase:             miyeshiN nahaNx mahuNkeshiN
>             'I'm not slowing down yet' (reference to effects of aging)
>
> So, the reduplication is acceptable, but the double negative is not.

I think I have run into OP ppiaz^iz^i (piazhizhi in the new orthography)
'not bad'.  Note that this is pretty close to huNkA in structure, as *ppi
is no longer found as 'good' except in derivations, and ppiazhi,
historically 'not good' is the current form for 'bad'.



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