OP /the/ vs. /dhaN/ (fwd)
Rory M Larson
rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu
Wed May 19 00:55:47 UTC 2004
I decided to wait till I had checked with the speakers again
before replying to this thread, and by now John has gone far
beyond me!
>> Rory said:
>> Thus, one leg would be /khe/, "elongate", but both legs would be /the/,
>> "the set". One eye would be /dhaN/, "globular", but both eyes would be
>> /the/. A single hand, however, is still /the/, I suppose because all
>> the fingers composing it are regarded as a set.
John commented:
> I hadn't realized that legs were horizontal, which is sort of interesting
> in itself.
Elongate, not horizontal. But I think John and Catherine have
already taken that position.
When I first asked the speakers about body parts a couple of months
ago, it seemed they consistently preferred /tHe/ for a set. When I
brought the discussion around to eyes, I tried the idea of 'cross-eyed'.
Their first response was /iNs^ta' dhoN/ (are crossed). I asked if you
could say /iNs^ta' tHe/ (are crossed), and they said it sounded better
that way. This past week, after John's posting, I asked again. This
time they flatly denied that you could say /iNs^ta' tHe/ for human
eyes; it must be /dhoN/ even in the plural. So for 'cross-eyed' we
now have:
iNs^ta' dhoN xa'wiN iNs^ta' [dhoN] dhixa'wiN
"s/he is cross-eyed" "s/he crossed his/her eyes"
(stative verb form) (active verb form)
For animals, however, we can say /iNs^ta' tHe/, as in the following
example they gave me:
iNs^ta' tHe unaa'goNba
"their eyes light up"
(referring to the eyes of coyotes at night in the headlights)
With legs, they agreed that it could be either /tHe/ or /kHe/
depending on how you were using it. But in specific examples,
they seemed to use these to distinguish the set from the singular:
z^ega' tHe z^ega' kHe
"both legs" "one leg"
z^ega' tHe oNni'e z^ega' kHe oNni'e
"my legs hurt" "my leg hurts"
z^ega' tHe dhihoN' z^ega' kHe dhihoN'
"elevate both legs" "elevate one leg"
Tangentially to this inquiry, I learned some nuances to the
'leg' terms. It seems that /z^ega'/ is the term for the
whole (mammalian) leg. Previously, I had thought it just
referred to the thigh. Fletcher and La Flesche have either
/z^i'be/ or /hi'/ for 'leg'. Our speakers do not seem to
recognize /hi'/ as an independent term for 'leg' at all,
though it is still good for 'trunk', 'stalk' or 'stem'.
They consider /z^i'be/ to be 'leg', especially the front
from the knee down, or in other words the shin. The shin
bone itself is /noN'xpahi/. The metatarsal segment, the
part of the foot between the ankle and the toes, is /sihi'/.
On horses, this seems to hold for front and back legs:
the entire leg is /z^ega'/, while the metatarsal or
metacarpal segment down to the hoof is /sihi'/. For
a /wagdhi's^ka/, the class of crawling creatures that
includes insects and lizards, the whole leg is /sihi'/.
Rory
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