Dorsey's Breves; e vs. i in OP (Re: Biloxi/Ofo)

[are2 at buffalo.edu]

/i/ word finally in Omaha frequently sounds like /e/ in rapid speech.
GasaNdhi 'tomorrow' for example sounds like gasaNdhe very often.
-Ardis


Quoting Koontz John E <John.Koontz at colorado.edu>:

> On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, R. Rankin wrote:
> > No, Dorsey always writes the length distinction as if it were a
> quality
> > distinction.  No one has had the courage to undertake a complete
> > analysis of JOD's use of the breve and other vowel diacritics (it
> would
> > be a massive undertaking).
>
> Agreed.  I did look at this to some extent in the OP texts and came
> to the
> conclusion that e-breve is pretty closely associated with the
> context
> Ch__#, e.g., =the, =khe, =dhiNkhe 'the', but also e'be 'who' (first
> e),
> e'di 'there (demonstrative)', edi' 'there was (existential
> predicative)',
> e'gidhe 'it came to pass that ...; as expected ...', he' 'female
> declarative'.  Various longer forms have -<e-breve>, like t?e=dhe
> 'kill',
> we'ahide 'far away', and so on. I-breve was in variation with i and
> also
> mostly final.
>
> Typical cases of i-breve in Dorsey are kki 'if, when', -z^i NEG, Kki
> (khi?) 'And ...', =s^ti 'too', s^i 'also', and so on.
>
> Typical cases of a-breve are =ga 'male imperative', =a 'female
> imperative', =a 'interrogative', ha' 'well', ha' 'male declarative'.
>
> Typical cases of u-breve are exclamations, huN, wu, wuNh.
>
> It looks to me as if it could be argued that e-breve, i-breve, and
> a-breve
> are indications of a short vowel, but that lack of a breve would not
> be
> conclusive evidence of a long vowel.
>
> This reminds me that there are a number of OP words that Dorsey
> writes
> with final i, but LaFlesche with final e.
>
> The only form I have been able to come up with quickly is:
>
> ppaN'ghi 'parsnip' (JOD 90:653.11) :  ppaNghe 'radish' (Swetland
> 91:144)
>
> - ppaN'ghe is the form in in Ks and Os
> - there's no breve on this form in Dorsey
>
> Possibly relevant are cases like
>
> dhe'ze 'tongue', but cf. Da c^e'z^i', Wi reezi'
>
> In this case PSi seems to have -i, but Dh has -e.
>
> wathaN'zi 'corn plant' (all sources), but cf. Qu wathaN'se
> idha'di 'father' (all sources), but cf. Qu ida'tte
> ine'gi 'mother's brother' (all sources), but cf. Qu itte'ke
> sagi' 'hard' (all sources), but cf. Ks  da'sage 'harden in wind'
> -ppu'kki instrumental sound root, but cf. Ks -ppokki ~ -ppokke ditto
>
> In these cases some Dh has -e, but most -i.
>
> Not participating in this pattern are forms that seem to end in hi
> from
> PDh *hu in the sense of 'plant', e.g., bu(u)'de hi 'oak' or hazi
> 'grape'
> (probably from haz-hi); body parts like nu(u)'si 'armpits', ppi'zi
> 'gall',
> i'kki 'chin'; kinterms like itti'mi 'father's sister'; verbs like
> uaN'si
> 'jump', c^hi' 'to copulate', tte'xi 'difficult'.  Also ma(a)'si
> 'hail'.
>
> A number of these OP -i are from *-u, but not all, e.g., not ppi'zi
> or
> itti'mi.
>
>
>