Little Acorns and Great Oaks (Re: tree tree)

[Koontz John E]

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004, David Costa wrote:
> My favorite oddball tree name in Miami-Illinois would have to be
> /mihtekami$i/, which is the generic word for 'oak'. Those of you who've been
> reading these emails closely might have already noticed that this word
> literally means 'tree tree': /mihtek(w)-/ is the M-I reflex of the PA word
> for 'tree', and /-(e)mi$i/ is that 'tree' final again.

For what it's worth, the analog of this in, say, Omaha-Ponca, as an
example of Siouan patterns, is that 'oak' is the 'acorn tree' with hi
'stem, tree', e.g., tta(a)'s^ka hi 'burr oak', buu'de hi 'red oak'.  I
give the long vowel in the latter with a particularly clear conscience as
it is indicated as such in Gilmore.  Winnebago has c^a(a)s^ke(') hu
(Gilmore) and c^aaas^gegu (Miner) for the former, and, matching the
latter, huu'c^ 'acorn'.  Dakotan has usku'yec^ha-hu for 'bur oak' (sic,
for oskuyec^ha(N) hu (?)) and u'ta hu 'red oak' (Gilmore).  But Buechel
gives u'ta 'hazelnut, acorns' and utahu 'oak (acorn tree)' with u'tahu
c^haN for the 'burr oak'.  In the latter c^haN is 'wood' often used as the
'tree' term in plant names, and so we have an 'acorn-tree tree' form in
Siouan, too.  (Gilmore's example osku'yac^haN hu does, too, but reverses
the two 'tree' elements.)

Miner's form for the first Winnebago term in this pair is clarified by IO
tha(a)'s^ku 'burr oak', which has a contraction of *tha(a)s^ke and hu.
Miner's form might be a typo, but, giving it the benefit of the doubt, it
could be an analogical rectification of c^aas^ke' 'burr oak acorn' :
c^aas^ku' 'bur oak' to c^aas^ke' : c^aaske'gu.  Students of Winnebago
waffle somewhat on whether to write s^g or s^k in clusters.

The Dakota substitution of osku'ya 'sour' in the name of this tree is
interesting.  Sku'ya is 'sweet', cf. OP ski'dhe 'sweet', niNski'dhe
'salty'.  LaFlesche lists an Osage term hta(a)s^ka' sku'(dh)e hi 'sweet
acorn tree; white oak'.  It looks like the Dakota form may be abbreviated
from something like this.

The PMV term for 'burr acorn' seems to be *htaa's^-ka.  Tutelo has
taaskahuu(i).  I think the -i is an artifact of citation, though I'm not
sure.  The fricative grade is wrong.  Biloxi has aNtaska 'basket' and Ofo
atuphoNtuska 'basket', which may be connected.

Biloxi also has c^axku'(di) 'jack or post oak', presumably with -(h)u
contracted.  (Biloxi -di is predicative.)  Here the initial c^ is wrong
for *ht, and the fricative grade is also wrong, but the parallel in form
is remarkable. This form probably has something to do with Muskogean forms
like Creek "tcoska" "white oak', Hitchiti "tciski" 'white oak', etc., so
there are apparently comparable terms in other languages.

The 'red oak/acorn' term is irregular.  OP buu'de matches IO bu(u)'j^e,
except that we'd expect OP *biide in a regular correspondence.  (Quapaw
has ppi(i)'de, in which pp instead of p is the problem, possibly a
difficulty in Dorsey's transcriptions.)  Modulo these little problems we
seem to have PS *puut-.  The *p, however, is missing in the rest of the
family, including Winnebago.  Winnebago has *h, with huu'c^ from *huut-.
Dakotan has u'ta < *uut-.  Biloxi has uti misk(a) u(di) 'pin oak' (DS
283a), and Ofo has u'tu 'oak', again with -(h)u contracted.  These suggest
*uut-, too.  The b-initial in Dhegiha and Chiwere looks like what happens
when first person A1 *w(a)- is added to oral glottal stop stems, so
perhaps *puut- represents wa-(?)uut-, with the wa- nonspecific possessor
prepended.  Winnebago h- is unclear, though Winnebago does have a sort of
Cockney (or Shawnee) propensity to add epenthetic h to vowel initial words
- usually not if they are ?-stem verbs, though.

Choctaw has uti, oti 'chestnut', so there may be non-Siouan examples of
comparable terms.

A thing you have to know about IO bu(u)'j^e is that it also means glans
penis.  Latin glans has a similar double meaning.

These notes were compiled with the help of the CSD draft.