epenthetic glide.

[ROOD DAVID S]

Sorry to be coming in to this discussion late (and not to have read the
rest of of it yet -- maybe this is superfluous).  I've been doing Wichita
in Anadarko for the past couple of weeks.

I think it's relevnat to remind you of my little blurb in the issue of
IJAL that was dedicated to Eric Hamp (October 1985).  My concern was to
figure out why the suus form of the Lakhota verb "kaga" 'make' has an
irregular aspirated "ch" for the "k" (kichaga, not the expected kicaga).
What's relevant here is that this aspirated "ch" reflects PMV *y, and
the *y has to have been an epenthetic element after deletion of the
initial "k"  of the verb.  I don't know what the relative chronologies
would be, but it is NOT the case that all epenthetic situations seem to go
back to *r.

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Mon, 16 Jun 2003, Rory M Larson wrote:

>
> John wrote:
> > Actually, it seems likely that the -y- stage was in Proto-Mississippi
> > Valley, since all of the MV languages have reflexes of *r for epenthetic
> > situations.
>
> Hmm.  I was afraid of that.  Thanks to John
> for his thorough discussion of this fly in
> my ointment!  However,
>
> Bob wrote:
> > As John points out, lots of western hemisphere
> > languages simply use a tap or flap to separate vowels
> > in hiatus.  There's no need to go through the phonetic
> > [y] stage.  It is possible that Common Siouan /r/ is or
> > was phonetically 'dh'.  Its reflexes turn up as a host
> > of (mostly) dental liquid sounds, dh, r, n, l, t, and
> > even y in sundry languages and dialects.  The important
> > thing isn't so much its precise phonetic reality but
> > what it contrasts with.
>
> So perhaps I don't really need to worry about
> the sound being precisely a phonetic [y].  Just
> being as close in the neighborhood as [r] or [dh]
> may be good enough.  All I need is for the (*r)
> in *=ire to go away if the final -e is clipped.
> So if (*r) represents whatever sound in the [r],
> [y], [dh] range, I would propose this development
> of *=ire for Winnebago and OP:
>
>          MVS: =i(*r)e
>                  |
>       ---------------------
>       |                   |
>       |            Dh: =i(*r)e
>       |                   |
>       |                =i(*r)    (-e is clipped)
>       |                   |
> Wi: =ire             OP: =i      ((*r) goes away)
>
>
> Now if we take the verb /xe/, "bury", in plain form
> and the two alternate 3rd person plural forms, we
> have:
>
>   MVS:     *xe        *xa=pi         *xa=ire
>
>    Wi:      xe         xa=wi          xa=ire
>
>    OP:      xe         xa=bi          xa=i
>
> I've taken the Winnebago /xe/ example (via memory)
> from Lipkind.  Note that =ire conditions a-grade
> ablaut in this case.
>
>
> John wrote:
> > This is certainly an interesting hypothesis, though ideally we'd have to
> > understand the introduction of i into -ire (cf. IO -ne - pronounced with
> > enye before i).
>
> Do you see a problem with reconstructing MVS *=ire?
> I think you were coming up with *=krE for PS.
> Would *=kirE work?  Or do you mean that we can't
> get from MVS /*=ire/ to IO /=ne/?
>
>
> > Apart from that we'd have to assume that this source of i was generalized
> > from the third person to the inclusive and second persons from the third,
> > which is where this marker occurs in the Siouan languages that have it.
>
> Yes, and also from 3rd plural to 3rd singular in
> the declarative form, if the other ones are all
> like Winnebago.  For this matter, I think we might
> want to consider a hybrid explanation.  I've been
> insisting that =bi and =i are separate words in
> OP, while John and Bob have been equally insistent
> that =i is a phonological reduction of =bi, because
> they are so very similar phonologically, syntactically
> and semantically.  Well, why couldn't both views be
> correct?
>
> Suppose the sequence I propose above is correct,
> with *=i < *=i(*r)e coming down to proto-Dhegiha
> or proto-OP as an alternate 3rd person pluralizer.
> *=pi|*=bi is the general pluralizer, and is also
> used for the 3rd person singular declarative.
> There is presumably some subtle difference in
> meaning between the two particles, else the *=i(*r)e
> form would not have been retained.  But when *=i(*r)e
> is reduced to *=i, the two become very confusable.
> When the stop part of *=pi is elided in rapid speech,
> it comes out as [i], which is interpreted as *=i(re).
> Following slurred *=pi, a reconstructed *=i appears
> in all the locations originally reserved to *=pi.
> The process is similar to English "should have"
> first being slurred to "should've" and then
> reconstructed as "should of".
>
> Now the difference between *=pi and *=i depends on
> whatever sematic distinction they carry.  If this
> difference is weak, then *=i is regarded as simply
> a slurred variant of the more proper *=pi.  In this
> case, the old *=i(*r)e particle dies out, even in
> its original 3rd plural position, perhaps leaving
> behind a few traces of its original presence in
> fossil "diphthongs" such as /tta=i=che/.  This is
> what will have happened in Osage and Kaw.
>
> If the semantic distinction is strengthened,
> however, then the original 3rd plural *=i(*r)e
> element bursts its cage and becomes a completely
> parallel, but separate, form that needs to be
> rigorously distinguished from the *=pi form.
> This is what will have happened in OP.
>
> Rory
>
>