Michigamea (Re: (O)maha)

Rankin, Robert L rankin at ku.edu
Mon Mar 29 20:34:54 UTC 2004


So maybe Michigamea is a "mirror image" language, like the kind of
finite-state grammars Chomsky used to talk about in Syntactic
Structures.  Just Algonquian, but starting from the ends of the words
and going forward!  Then wi/we would be a prefix!  With only about 4
words, it's definitely finite.  And there you are!

Bob

> Right, the /-si(i)w-/ negative often seen in Ojibwe & Miami is a
fusion of a diminutive suffix (the part with the 's') with an old
dubitative suffix (the part with the 'w'). My point was just that the
leap from an old Algonquian suffix to a prefix in an apparently Siouan
language seems unlikely.



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