OP Accent (was RE: OP stative verb ablaut?)

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> >   toN'ga - 'he is big'
> >   toNga' - 'he is bigger'
> >
> >   oNtoN'ga - 'I am big'
> >   oN'toNga' - 'I am bigger'
>
> In Kaw it seemed to me that accent shift in words like tto'Nga 'big,
> great' was related to where the accent fell on the preceding word in the
> clause.  Basically, there seemed to be a constraint against two accented
> syllables juxtaposed across a word boundary.

In this case there's a pronominal shielding against this affect in the
second case, but I agree that a comparative per se seems an unlikely
explanation.  But if there were a different degree of emphasis, a
comparison might be implicit.

In the Dorsey OP texts avoiding accent on the preceding word seems
irrelevant, in the sense that we find mikka' ttaN'ga 'big raccoon',
iNs^ta' ttaN'ga 'big eye', and so on, but tta's^ka-hi ttaNga'=xti 'very
big oak tree', ttaNga'=kkiz^i 'when it is big', ttaNga'-dheha 'large
around', ttaNga'=bi, a'higi ttaNga' 'a great many'.  My argument used to
be that forms that did this had different accentual pattens when they had
enclitics attached, or when they were modifiers vs. independent verbs
(often with enclitics).  I started noticing that accent was fairly
moveable in Dorsey, at least for some words, about the time I ran out of
time on my dissertation.  A very awkward time to notice that I didn't
understand accent as well as I had thought.

Of course, another possibility is that English speakers, including Dorsey,
hear accent all wrong, or miss length changes that control it. I
definitely stumbled almost invariably in recording accent until I started
looking for HL patterns (inspired by Ken Miner's description of Winnebago
and Randy's description of Crow).  As soon as I started doing that Mr.
Wolfe stopped correcting every word and looking puzzled.  On various
occasions I was forcibly recalled to a realization that a word pronounced
with English intonation was so wrong sounding as to be unrecognizable.  If
the intonation wasn't approximately right people wouldn't even attempt to
parse what I'd said.

As to how this might account for Dorsey's patterns, imagine that
ttaNga'=kkiz^i is ttaN(H)gaa(L)=kki(L)z^i(L) or something that gets heard
as ttaNga'=kkiz^i, where, for the moment, ' marks "English style" accent.
I can definitely put "English style" accent on the L in a HL, and I think
what I'm doing is putting length plus maybe a slight fall there.  I also
wonder if my ear doesn't more or less ignore the rather pronounced HL
business of Omaha accent in favor of the slighter LHL I produce in the the
second syllable.  The first is "just that sing-song thing" while the
second is "real accent."

I do know one place where Dorsey and Fletcher & LaFlesche between them
seem to agree that there is a patterned difference in accent, and that is
in "female vocatives."  A certain number female-speech vocatives are
marked with either initial accent, or final (on the vocative particle)
accent or both, as opposed to the male term with accent on the intervening
second syllable.

For example, look at Fletcher & LaFlesche, p. 315, last column where we
see Dadi'ha, TigoN'ha, Negi'ha, Timi'ha (male forms), but Da'diha,
Ti'goNha, Negiha (no marking), Timiha' (female forms), and so on.
Reading between the lines, I suspect that the f pattern is really not
CV'CVCV alternating with CVCVCV', but CV'CVCV', whatever that may mean in
intonational terms.  (I only worked with male speakersand don't recall
noticing anything like the "female" pattern.)

And in Dorsey, z^iNdhe'ha 'elder brother' (m) (also z^iN'dheha'), dadi'ha
'father' (m), but dadiha' 'father' (f), ttinuha' 'elder brother' (f),
ttigaNha' 'grandfather' (f), etc.

Since the male forms sometimes follow the female pattern (though
infrequently), and the female forms sometimes follow the male pattern
(though infrequently), I'm thinking that the pattern has something to do
with a pattern of emphasis or emotional coloring that is socially more
appropriate for females than males, but not absolutely sex-associated.

I notice that both sexes are regularly reported to say kkaNha'
'grandmother' and (iN')naNha(u)' 'mother', so perhaps the "female" pattern
amounts to "sweetening."  (I used to work a lot with female computer
programmers, and got in the habit of agreeing to things with a nice bright
pleasant falling intonation on "OK!"  I then accidentally used that in
talking with a visiting male math professor, who swiveled around and
stared at me for a second in surprise.  After that I was careful to bark
"Sure thing!" in a particularly gruff tone when agreeing with him.)