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

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, R. Rankin wrote:
> That's an interesting point.  I've been tempted to do a conference paper
> on the causative-like K- that occurs with positional verbs.  k-raN,
> k-re, k-?oN-he bear the same relationship to raN, the, (w)uN that 'set,
> stand, lay' bear to 'sit, stand, lie' in English, i.e., they behave as
> if they had the causative suffix.  The only other verb that behaves like
> this that I know about is Dakotan kta 'kill' acompared with t?a 'die'.
> The K- certainly behaves like a causative, but it would be very hard to
> interpret as one since in languages with this word order have their
> AUX's after the main verb all the rest of the time.  FWIW.

I've always associated the *k in these positional formations with the *k
in vertitive motion verbs, assuming it had something to do with "returning
to home position," or maybe something else more general like "place with
respect to something."  That wouldn't handle ktA, though.

I kind of wonder about the "organic" *k in the root *k?u 'to give', too,
though I think that may be just a plain dative, even though I don't think
*?u is attested.