Dhegiha Plurals and Proximates

[Rankin, Robert L]

>   tta miNkHe      I-future
>   tta tHe         constrained future

> JEK: I'd have to say that =api (plural/proximate) is a rather different
case
from "positionals in various uses," and need not be governed by the same
factors.

RLR:  I'd agree with that.  My analysis of [a] as suffix-initial is for
'imperative', 'negative' and 'plural/prox'.  I agree that continuatives are
different.  I did, in fact, do a handout for a comparative syntax seminar I
gave about 3 years ago in which I treated all of the miNkhe, etc. forms as
collapsed bi-clausal constructions, so I think John and I are thinking along
the same lines.  I'll take a look at what I did and see if it would make a
good conference paper -- my recollection is that it sort of baffled my
students, so maybe it doesn't make much sense.  I don't think it followed
John's progression of grammaticalization in any event.

> JEK: I'm pretty sure now that the Dhegiha progressives are originally
nominalizations,...   These nominalizations do not
have -a-.  The verbs involved do not ablaut, though a-ma and a-kha seem to
have the -a- as a prefix, and the the obviative forms thaN, etc., get an
unexpected a- in the inclusive inflected forms.

>Though I don't know why, I think those Dhegiha futures in =tta=miNkhe, ...
are also nominalized, from *=tk=a=POSITIONAL.  This is probably an old
pattern, because I suspect that those Hidatsa and Crow inflected futures
are worn down remnants of the same structure, with only accented syllables
of the auxiliary remaining.  It would be nice if a piece of *=tk remained,
but I gather it doesn't.

RLR: Sorry, I'm sitting here on Sat. a.m. half asleep, but I don't know what
you're referring to with *=tk.  Could you possibly mean *kt- the 'irrealis'
marker?

Bob