Caddoan Corn (Re: Fw: OK and more Ofo/Biloxi)

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 1 Dec 2004, R. Rankin wrote:
>I only bring it up here because there is pretty clearly some Caddoan
>influence in Biloxi and Ofo, to wit, the word for 'corn'.
>
>  Ofo:                        a-cé ki           'corn'
> Biloxi:                     a-yé:ki           'corn'
> Pawnee:                     ré:k  su       'corn'
> Pawnee:                     ni kii s         'corn' (Gilmore 1919)
> Arikara:                     ne:    s^u?    'corn'
> Wichita:                      té:    s ?       'corn'
> Caddo:                          ki  si?       'corn'

Doug Parks lists an absolutive (independent noun forming) suffix -u for
Pawnee.  The comparable element in Wichita seems to be ?a, though I don't
mean to suggest that this is cognate.  Even douvting it was cognate would
be overreaching myself in Caddoan!  I believe that in both cases these
elements occur with some nouns, but not with others with no conditioning
factor known.  The critical element is that the suffix occurs with an
affected noun in its independent form, but is lost when the noun is
combined with something else (presumably following).

I suppose that since in this corn set Pawnee has -s, Arikara has -su?, and
Wichita -s? that isn't a factor here.