Historical Explanation for *pi as Plural and Proximate and Nominalizer

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, CATCHES VIOLET wrote:
> opxa means to be included, or to include one's self in going or doing
> something with others, if one is going with others we can say 'ob ye' or
> 'opxa' or 'opxa ic'iye'... opxa and ob mean exactly the same thing, ob
> is just a short cut... I try to help you all in this way, by explaining
> the Lakxota words when i can ....

And I think I speak for everyone in saying that it is greatly appreciated!

> BE CAREFUL.  THE D DIALECT USES THE TERM A LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN THE L
> DIALECT.
> FOR US IT WOULD SEEM ungrammatical to say 'opa aya' which is pure Dakxota,
> to pursue for us would be 'pasi aya pi'  so we would n't say 'opa aya' in
> the same way, not to mean the same thing,  because our dialect is more
> particular about how things should be said or how words should be used.

It's very useful to have your comments here on the difference between
Teton and Santee usage.  It's been observed that Buechel relies strongly
on the Riggs dictionary, right to the wording of the entries, and it's
interesting to see here that the omitted material was omitted with cause.

> pi doesn't fit into the picture here at all with ob or opxa, unless we say
> 'they' included themselves or 'they' went with someone  'opxa pi' or 'ob
> eyayab' or 'ob iyaya pi' but we can't say 'opxa iyaya pi'
> I hope all this makes sense

Yes, and it draws attention to a point that I may not have made clear,
which is that I am trying to explain the association of plural marking
with the Dhegiha singular proximate (marked the same as plural in each
Dhegiha language).  So I'm trying to account for something probably that
took place a thousand years or more ago.  I'm not suggesting even that the
current Dhegiha pattern, where plurality and subject proximity are marked
homophonously, is to be accounted for in terms of this sort of comitative
focus marker.

It was then suggested that various comitative markers might also fit into
the *api pattern, and that opha might be one of them.  But this is sort of
like being related through a long dead ancestor to somebody else.  It
doesn't necessarily get you to invited to dinner.  The family feeling is
gone and there's no contemporary pattern of association.

JEK