OP stative verb ablaut?

[Rory M Larson]

> 1. I have only gotten wa for 3plural subject 'they' of statives a few
> times & I think these were just errors in my elicitation.

Good!  I'm sure my initial posting of wa- in that position for
statives was erroneous elicitation on my part.  It looks like
wa- is used only for 'us', not for 'them', in stative verbs.


> 3. AkHa does indeed occur with many things we consider 'inanimate.'
> But they tend to be natural phenomenon similar to what Bob proposed
> which are culturally important.  It frequently occurs with 'day,'
> weather terms (snow, rain etc.), heavenly bodies (sun, moon etc.)
> Interestingly, these also tend to take adjectives (descriptive words,
> statives) which are reserved for animates.  That is, trees don't take
> tega 'new' but 'young,'

z^iN'ga ?

> and not 'itoNthadi' 'old-inanimate' but
> iNsh'age 'old man.'  (This is from my dissertation.)

We probably should distinguish plants from planets here.  I
would expect that plants would take 'old' and 'young' like
animals, because they are living things that go through a
definite life cycle.  But does this principle actually
extend to other of the phenomena listed?  I don't suppose
that 'new moon' translates literally into Omaha, but do
animate-type adjectives really apply to planets, rain, snow,
ice and so on as 'old' and 'young' apply to plants?


> The horse harness surprises me, but maybe it's because it is so
> related to horse (animate).  I've never seen akHa with something
> like 'pencil.'

Again, caveat lector!  The proximate form of the horse harness
was my sentence, not the speakers', though they did approve it.
Perhaps you can double check this with the speakers in Macy.
Meanwhile, I'll check on pencils with the speakers here.


> It should be noted that the natural phenomenon noted above often have
> animate-like features, too.  The Sun moves, so does wind and snow and
> rain.  Also, these change and effect things, too.  So, aside from the
> cultural context, there are other reasons to mark them as proximate.

Dorsey notes that statements regarding the future of the weather
cannot be tta tHe', as that would indicate that that the speaker
could control the weather.  Rather, they must be tta akHa', in
deference to the fact that the weather acts of its own free will.


> 4. THe articles should really not be called 'focus' markers.  They
> don't mark the linguistic concept of focus regularly.  Often, they are
> marking given material (topic - not focus, which is new material).
> Consistently, however, they mark characters (or things, as per 3)
> which are of central concern, centerstage in narratives, topic of
> conversation.

Could you elaborate on this for someone who is a bit challenged
on the linguistic jargon?  In OP we have a series of things that
I have been calling positionals:

  akHa'        dhiN            kHe
  ama'         tHoN            tHe
               dhiNkHe'        dhoN
               ma              ge
               dhoNkHa'

I've understood that the two on the left marked proximate, and
all the others marked obviative.  Bob recently posted a very
interesting item noting the absence of the first two in Quapaw,
using the term 'positional' as exclusive of the akHa' and ama'.
Now you seem to be using the term 'article' for only the proximate
two on the left.  Do we still have a term for all of these together?

Then what about 'topic' and 'focus'?  I've generally understood
a topic in Siouan as a noun phrase that the verb comments upon,
but that's apparently not what you mean here.  I was using 'focus'
to mean entities "which are of central concern, centerstage in
narratives, topic of conversation".  Apparently 'focus' has some
other formal meaning.

Care to clue me in?

Thanks,
Rory