i- in Dhegiha i-POSITIONAL=...CAUSE (RE: Word for 'prairie'?)

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> In Kansa and Osage the initial V in these forms is never /u/ (U-umlaut),
> so the motion verb would presumably not be (h)u 'come', but one of the
> others.  BOB

Yes, this is an important point, and this is why I pointed out the
unexpected correspondences in the rest of Dhegiha (though u > i also in
Quapaw, actually)  and IO.  I'm afraid that point got lost at the bottom
of the note:

> The second kind of evidence is comparative.  In Dakotan equivalents of
> the i forms you generaly see uN, e.g., uNgnahela 'suddenly', where I
> think the initial uNgna matches igdhaN.  I am not positive of this, and
> the OP i matches i across Dhegiha and in IO, all places where u might be
> expected, if i is from *u.

So, in short, if this is a verb of motion, it's an unusual one found only
in this context.  Or we have to conclude that we have two patterns of this
kind of auxiliary:

VERB-MOTION-ARRIVAL + POSITIONAL
i + POSITIONAL

The syntax is a little more complex than this, because either of these
patterns can have the positional reduplicated or a causative added.  I
don't think I've seen a combination of these!  The positionals can have
*k- prefixed.

In any case we have at a minimum the complication of defining

VERB-MOTION = thi, hi, i

instead of something more expected.

Positionals include not just the, dhaN, he, but also dhe 'moving'.

So, for example, the Dakota verb hiyaya turns out to be cognate with OP
thidhadha.

JEK