udhaN' 'to hold' (RE: Word for 'prairie'?)

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Koontz John E wrote:
> I'm now wondering if it's possible that udhaN' in this sense 'to hold' is
> simply a homophone (as far as it's root ins concerned):  Os odhiNge, odhaN
> (OP-ism?); Ks oyiNge; IO unaNge; Wi honaN'k 'help carry or walk'.

Clarifying my remark above, I didn't find a Quapaw or Dakotan form.  In
the former case this probably reflects the shortage of information on
Quapaw.  The Winnebago form here is a little problematic, due to the
gloss.

The iN vowels are a bit awkward in Osage and Kaw, but the glossing is
straightforward and the rest of the match seems perfect.  OP truncates
another similar -kE form, 'to talk', cf. OP udha' 'to tell', Os odha'ke.
I don't know of any other examples off-hand, so it's a bit early to talk
about a rule.

I'm a little bothered by the mechanics of 'in' + 'round shaped' => 'take
hold of', though it's not really so unreasonable.  What bothers me is not
so much the semantics, in fact, as two other factors.  First, the lack of
comparable forms for the other shapes (no *othe, *o(k)he).  Second, u < o*
doesn't usually act as a transitivizer, though it can redirect
transitivity. So, anyway, I doubt this form is tightly linked with dhaN in
OP, though it may well trace to PS *raNk-e 'sit'.

I looked for a Dakotan member of this possible set, but the best I could
come up with was naNp?anuNk yuza 'to take hold of something with both
hands'.  NaNb is plainly 'hand', and yuza is 'to grab'.  AnuNk is 'on both
sides' in several contexts, e.g., anuN'gwakhic^as^ka 'saddle bags', but,
as such, seems a bit inexplicable.  It doesn't seem to involve a morpheme
for 'two'.  Perhaps it is 'clasping on' a sort of two-sided operation.
It does seem to be a sort of relict, a bound-form-only participle in both
shape and distribution.  Perhaps some of the Dakota specialists know more
about anuNk or things like it?

I didn't see anything plausible in Mandan but raNke 'sit', so I didn't
look further.