Dakota: verbs with 'hill' involved

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004, "Alfred W. Tüting" wrote:
> Can anybody plz enlighten me with the construction (etymology?) of those
> one-word-sentences all involving the idea of 'hill'?

> gliya'hAN
> to appear on top of a hill in sight on one's way home
...
> e'yahAN
> they go up a hill and stand on
...
> yahaN'
> to prick or run into one, as a splinter, thorn etc

I quite agree with Rory's insight that these forms involve epenthetic y
between a high vowel and another vowel and his comparison of oxpayA to OP
uxpadhe 'to fall, to drop', i.e., 'to travel downward', a very exact
cognate.

The last verb 'to prick' may be unrelated.  I would help to know its
inflectional pattern.

The ahaN part of the others looks like it would correspond to hypothetical
OP athaN.  I don't recall if this is attested in Dhegiha, but it would be
superessive a- plus thaN 'to stand' - a positional root only in Dhegiha
with an analysis something like 'for an animate to be located or posed in
an upright fashion'.  This is not the productive lexical verb 'to stand'
which is naNz^iN.  In OP thaN is the inflected definite article,
(definite) relative marker, and progressive auxiliary for the category
'animate obviative standing', e.g., UmaNhaN aNgathaN 'we (standing) Omahas
(who)' or PpadhiN=thaN 'the (standing)  Pawnee'.