Non-wa Nominalizations

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I would agree that ie is bimorphemic, at least originally,
> but I don't see why we would suppose the i- is i-locative
> rather than i-instrumental.

This is a terminological confusion.  Although the i-locative is normally
instrument-governing (especially in Dhegiha), I think I'm correct that
traditional usage is to refer to all i, like a and o (or u), as locatives.
Only the instrument-encoding prefixes are referred to as instrumentals
(ga, naN, dha, dhi, ba, bi, ma, mu, na in Omaha-Ponca).  I've never run
into a Dhegihanist who was perfectly happy with this.

In effect, the terms locative and instrumental name morphosyntactic
classes, some members of which have shades of meaning not entirely
consistent with the semantics of the traditional class name.  Thus,
locative i governs instruments, while instrumental na 'by heat' indicates
a cause, not an instrument, and so on.  The terms derive from the Riggs,
Dorsey, Boas, Taylor & Rood (and Rankin) scholarly sequence.

I've experimented personally with referring to things that act like
"locatives" (including maN in OP) as "movable preverbs" while things that
behave like ma= or mu= would be "fixed preverbs," but in the end its
probably simpler to stick by the less satisfactory, but well-known terms.
Occasional refinements like "inner" vs. "outer" instrumentals may be
useful, and we can certainly reject Lipkind's "modal" (in the sense of
transitivity category) for wa-, but on the whole its probably better to
live with the existing terms.

Incidentally, I think Boas invented locative.  Dorsey came up with "second
dative."  I don't know who first called instrumentals instrumentals (in
Siouan).  I think Taylor & Rood came up with ablaut and vertitive, though
I'm not positive, and maybe agent and patient.  Maybe active and stative,
too.  I'm referring only to "first use in a Siouan context."