any more chairs?

[Rory M Larson]

>>   KinoN'noNge aniN' a?
>>   Do you have (possess) a car?
>>
>>   KinoN'noNge (kHe) ashniN' a?
>>   Do you have (your) car (along with you)?

> Anything is possible, I guess, but I suspect the
> article is the critical factor here.

I don't think that was the case.  She went out of
her way to explain this to me, and reassured me
repeatedly of the distinction.  The implication of
the second example (we're talking about a real,
known car) tends to force the article, but I'm
quite sure the primary distinction was intended to
be made by the verb.

Again, I don't know how general this is.  It may
well be a family dialect or an ideolect.  I know
that I myself have come up with definable words of
my own in English that I later find no dictionary
recognizes.

Mark and I talked to the speakers last night.  I
ran this by them for /moNdhiN/.  They recognized
the you- form in both versions: /moNniN/ and
/moNshniN/.  They weren't able to establish a
semantic difference that they could translate into
English, but they puzzled over it a bit in a way
that suggested there might be one.  I've asked
them to think it over and we'll check back with
them later.

Rory





                      Koontz John E
                      <John.Koontz at colorad        To:       siouan at lists.colorado.edu
                      o.edu>                      cc:
                      Sent by:                    Subject:  Re: any more chairs?
                      owner-siouan at lists.c
                      olorado.edu


                      07/31/2003 11:30 AM
                      Please respond to
                      siouan






On Wed, 30 Jul 2003, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I believe Bob said that Kaw had hn for 2s, and that is the
> way it is in OP.  Also, the La Flesche Osage dictionary
> conjugates 2s as moN-ni.

An example of an Omahaism in LaFlesche.

>
> Just to stick my neck out a little further, I might
> mention something one of our Omaha speakers stressed
> to me a few months ago.  She said that there was a
> distinction in asking about "having" something, as
> follows:
>
>   KinoN'noNge aniN' a?
>   Do you have (possess) a car?
>
>   KinoN'noNge (kHe) ashniN' a?
>   Do you have (your) car (along with you)?
>
> I've told Ardis about this, but I don't think I've
> brought it up to the list before.
>
> Is it possible that there are actually two grades
> of you- inflection for dh-verbs?  One which tends
> to preserve the original s^, and one which drops it?

Anything is possible, I guess, but I suspect the article is the critical
factor here.