OP stative verb ablaut?

[Rory M Larson]

Thanks, John.  I gather we don't really have the stative verb system
very well worked out yet for OP.  The examples you have given are from
Dorsey, and all are third person.  The grammar for modern Omaha may have
changed a bit, and we're looking for personal inflections here to build
a conjugation paradigm.  You may be right that ablaut may have to do
more with proximate-obviative issues than with plurality; we need to
pursue that angle more.  Some verbs may apply only to inanimate objects,
such as 'shallow' and 'deep' for water.  Others may apply only to
animate beings.  Perhaps these are what you are referring to as
'experiencer verbs'; I'm not sure what all is included in this class.

I think we have come up with a class of verbs that takes the patient
pronoun set, applies almost exclusively to animate beings, and seems
to behave pretty consistently.  These verbs start with wa- and have
the accent on the second syllable in the neutral form.  The personal
pronouns dhi- and probably wa- follow the initial wa-, and the pronoun
oN- preceeds it, making the two syllables together oNwoN'-.  Your
example of wakhe'ga is typical:

  wakhe'ga        's/he is sick'
  oNwoN'khega     'I am sick'
  wadhi'khega     'you are sick'
  wawa'khega      'we are sick', or 'they are sick'

Other words in this class seem to be:

  waxdhi'         'scared', 'frightened'
  was^ta'ge       'gentle', 'tame'
  was^u's^e       'kind-hearted' (often glossed 'brave')
  wasi'sige       'active', 'lively', 'clever', 'tought', 'spry'
  was^koN'        'energetic', 'strong'
  wase'koN        'fast', 'rapid', 'swift'
  wasni'de        'slow', 'tardy', 'late'
  waxpa'dhiN      'poor'
  waxu'be         'holy'
  wahe'he         'brittle', 'weak'
  wami'           'bloody' (as well as the noun, 'blood')

We have been having a little trouble with the wa- ('us' & 'them')
forms on some of our verbs, as you intimate.  Some words, like
toN'ga and s^toN'ga, are accepted readily in all forms including
the wa-.  Others seem to be acceptable with wa- only when the
verb is preceeded by some other pronoun like woN'oNgidhe,
woN'oNdoN, or s^e'ama.  The words z^iN'ga, s^u'ga, bdhe'ka, gdhe'ze,
gdhe'z^e, da', sagi' and nu'ka seem to fall into this category.
My example of bi'ze now seems to have been particularly ill-chosen,
as one of our speakers now seems to find wabi'ze/a unacceptable
under any circumstance.

Yet another interesting kink is that our speakers sometimes
shift the accent to the last syllable of some multi-syllable
stative verbs normally accented on the first syllable.  Mark and
I were told in our session on Friday that this is how one gives
a comparative in Omaha:

  toN'ga - 'he is big'
  toNga' - 'he is bigger'

  oNtoN'ga - 'I am big'
  oN'toNga' - 'I am bigger'

If the neutral form ends in -e, this accent shift causes ablaut.

  oNha'hade - 'I am light (weight)'
  oN'hahada' - 'I am lighter'

However, this same mechanism also seems to be used sometimes in
place of the wa- pronoun to indicate plurality:

  gdhe'ze             - 'it is striped'
  woN'oNgidhe gdheza' - 'they are all striped'

Anyway, that's where we seem to be at right now.  It's quite
probable that I'm are confused on some things.  Any further
suggestions or comments on this would be very welcome!

Rory