OP stative verb ablaut?
Rory M Larson
rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu
Sat Feb 7 01:18:26 UTC 2004
In modern Omaha, the old =i particle after verbs seems to
be dropped in verbs of declaration. This =i normally acted
as a pluralizer, but it was also applied in the third-person
singular in what John describes as "proximate" usage. Since
the =i itself is generally dropped by our speakers, its
former presence can be inferred only for verbs ending in -e,
which ablaut to -a when the =i should be present.
I've understood that rule for a long time with respect to
active verbs, but I've been fuzzy about the situation with
stative verbs. Today Mark and I worked with our speakers
on stative verbs for a while, and it seems to have emerged
that stative verbs work the same way, except that the 3rd
person singular does not ablaut. Stative verbs use oN- for
"me", dhi- for "you", (a)wa- for "us", and wa- for "them".
So the basic conjugation pattern for a typical stative verb
ending in -e seems to work as follows:
bi'ze 'dry'
oNbi'ze 'I am dry'
dhibi'ze 'thou art dry' dhibi'za 'you all are dry'
wabi'ze 'we two are dry' wabi'za 'we all are dry'
bi'ze 's/he is dry' wabi'za 'they are dry'
Does this square with what other OP students have found?
Thanks!
Rory
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