animate wa-

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Koontz John E wrote:
> A question this immediately raises, is whether examples in texts or other
> data suggest that the range of uses of wic^ha has been expanding
> historically at the expense of wa?  Is thi'wic^hakte - as a particular
> example of wic^ha use - replacing thi'wakte in nominalizations or
> indefinite object cases?  If so, we'd probably expect wa in older examples
> where today we find wic^ha.

A litle checking in the Siouan Archives encodings of the Deloria and
Bushotter texts suggests that thi'kte 'murder' and thi'wic^hakte
'murderer; he commits murder' are the forms there.

However, I have also found wakte-agli '(ones who) having killed return',
apparently referring to men who have returned successfully from a war
expedition, and waktoglapi 'they relate their (war) deeds (i.e., their
killings)'.  These terms are also cited in Buechel, I see, and Buechel
lists wakte' 'to kill, to have killed or scalped; to triumph', which seems
to be the base term.  Perhaps this is a more specialized term than
wic^hakte in wic^haktepi 'killing', etc., and so perhaps an older usage.

These are far from a complete analysis of wa vs. wic^ha for animate/human
(indefinite) patients, and it is rather presumptious of me to try to
serialize the examples on the basis of it, but it looks to me like there
is at least some potential for wic^ha and wa to alternate in animate/human
references, though Regina's and Violet's assessments clearly favor wic^ha
as the productive formation.

JEK