Winnebago Song (Re: SSILA Bulletin #205) (fwd)

[Koontz John E]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004, Koontz John E wrote:
A little more progress.

> Hizhan, hodochuch ka,           zhe ske shununa.
  hiz^aN  hoduuc^uc^=ga           z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one     I made him smart having thus    habitually DECL

The -ka in the first-third and fifth lines is presumably Lipkind's -ga
"This suffix forms subordinate clauses which, if not connected causally
with the principle clause, are yet associated in the sense of acompanying
actions."  Or, putting it another way, this is the conjunct marker, rather
comparable to Omaha-Ponca egaN.

Having failed utterly to recognize any plausible horuc^uc^ equivalent in
Winnebago lexical materials I had ready access to, I started looking
further afield and turned up Dakota yuthuta 'to make smart', 'smart' in
the sense of 'sting':  horuc^u'c^ would correspond regularly to a Dakota
form like *oyu'thu'ta.  The OP cognate of the root is -tti'de, which
appears in naNtti'de 'to make a drumming noise with the feet'.  It is, of
course, risky to try to gloss one language based on another, not too
closely related.  Even different dialects of Dakota or Dhegiha sometimes
vary significantly in their use of a particular form.  However, for want
of anything better, I am assuming "hodochuch ga" represents
hoduu'c^uc^=ga, meaning something analogous to 'I having made him smart
there' or 'I having struck him there'.  I suppose the locative refers to
an occasion or locality or body part.

> Hizhan wa ya kitt'ehka[,]  Zhe skeshunana;
  hiz^aN waiagit?e=ga        z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one    ... speak of having thus    habitually DECL

Here, after reflection, I think the underlying verb is more likely hit?e'
'to talk', which is the analog of OP i(y)e', incidentally, of which we
were speaking recently.  This might have a dative form 'to speak of
someone' of the shape higit?e.

> Hizhan wa ya zhi zhi ka[,]  zhe ske shun[u]na       ya.
  hiz^aN waiaz^iz^i   =ga     z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one    ... whisper   having thus    habitually DECL (vocable?)

A good parallel with hit?e might be z^iiz^i' 'to whisper', though this
looks like it might be a hypothetical hiz^iiz^i, perhaps 'to whisper
about'.  Logically, it is possible that the inflected form here (and
above) is 'they ... about me', but I'm not sure the forms work for that.
In any event, it looks like the inflectional-locative string is the same
in this line and the preceding one.

> Hicha kolo hinuk  lo innag le    wi dokan nana.
  hic^akoro  hinuNk ro iNnaNk(i)re wi dookaNnaN=naN
  friend     woman  they follow me ?? I court (them?)

> HironaNk 'to follow', A1 hiroanaNk, so that I think hiroiNnaNk must be
> A12 or P1.

And I'm assuming that re represents (i)re, the third peson plural.

> RukaNnaN' 'to court, to woo', A1 duukaN'naN, plus declarative =naN
> (postvocalic form).

> Hizhan do maiku ka[,]  zhe ske shununa.
  hiz^aN         =ga     z^eeske=s^uNnuN=   naN
  one             having thus    habitually DECL

> In this line I think the verb might be ru?aN 'to carry' or possibly
> rogiguN 'to dare'.  These have the first persons duu?aN and roagiguN,
> respectively.  Marino lists ruaiNgu 'lift up', which is clearly based on
> the first and closer in form.