Regular and Evidential Future (Re: OP stative verb ablaut?)

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 15 Feb 2004, Rory M Larson wrote:
> 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.

Dorsey usually glosses =tta=(i)=the as 'shall surely', while =tta=akha
(=tta=ama) using the "animate proximate (subject)" articles are the usual
third persons of the irrealis (first person =tta=miNkhe, miNkhe being the
first person of the 'animate sitting obviative (subject or object)'
article dhiNkhe (in third singular form).

The 'shall surely' forms look like the irrealis combined with the
"evidential" sense of the inanimate articles.  These articles appear at
the end of sentences with what I take to be the sense 'evidently,
apparently, one can conclude that'.  Dorsey just glosses this as past
tense, sometimes adding a positional sense, e.g., khe 'the horizontal, the
dead' might be glossed as past + 'in a straight line'.  The same set of
morphemes appear also in the sense of 'when' with subordinate clauses and
time demonstratives.

Catherine Rudin and Bob Rankin have pointed out to me that the regular
future always has the particular set of articles illustrated here:

1s   tta=miNkhe         1p (incl) tt(a)=aNgathaN, tt(a)=aNgadhiN
2s   tta=(s^)niNkhe     2p        tta=(s^)naNkhe
3s   tta=akha           3p        tta=ama

The 1s, 2s, and 3d forms are drawn from the paradigm of dhiNkhe 'the
(sitting, animate, obviative)'.  The 1p forms are from the paradigm of
'the (standing, animate, obviative)' or 'the (moving, animate,
obviative)'.  The 3s and 3p forms are the animate obviative articles.
These are not precisely singlar and plural.  Dorsey makes them singular
not moving and singular moving or plural, while Eschenberg (Ardis, of
course) has an explanation in terms of already being and entering
proximity.  Quintero (Carolyn) has noticed some degree of remoteness (less
or more) seems to apply to the cognate Osage forms.  All of these articles
or positionals are also used as obviative or proximate continuative or
imperfect auxiliaries, as well as in this future auxiliary paradigm.

The use of an auxiliary with the future is peculiar to Dhegiha within
Mississippi Valley Siouan, but Crow-Hidatsa uses a future auxiliary
without an trace of the *=kt(E) irrealis marker, and I've noticed that
most of the forms rather resemble the first, inflected syllable of the MVS
'sit' auxiliary, e.g., Crow has (for the auxiliary ii 'want to, intend
to', which I thijk is what's sometiems called 'the future'):

1s  b-ii         1p b-ii-lu
2s  d-ii         2p d-ii-lu
(no third persons)