*ki and -i(N)##

[Rory M Larson]

John wrote:
> This gu takes a bit of explaining, especially since I don't really
> understand it ... OP has as its principle demonstratives dhe 'this', s^e
> 'that (near you)', ga 'that (yonder, not near you, maybe out of sight)'.

I think we might want to double check that interpretation of ga.
I believe it was a year ago last spring that I was teaching these
to our class with this interpretation when the speakers corrected
me at one of our evening meetings.  According to them, the term
for 'yonder' is actually s^ehi'.  The ga demonstrative, they say,
actually means 'right there, at that exact spot'.  How close it
is to speaker or listener doesn't matter.  So I had to go back
iNde' oNz^i'de to the class with this new doctrine and bear
the slings and arrows of those who would have preferred to be
taught right the first time.

I think this interpretation may make better sense with the Dorsey
texts too.  There is a section in Two Face and the Twin Brothers
in which the elder brother has climbed a tree to capture a nest
full of Thunderbird chicks.  Before he seizes each one he
addresses it to ask its name: "And ga'niNkHe's^e, what is YOUR
name?"  The ga'niNkHe's^e means 'YOU there, the one sitting right
there'.  It certainly doesn't mean 'yonder' in this context.


> These parallel Teton le, he, ka, except that whereas he is the more
common
> of the distal demonstratives in Teton, ga may be a bit less marked than
> s^e in OP, though both are common enough.  Anyway, paralleling dhe, s^e,
> ga are du, s^u, gu.

That's interesting!  I hadn't fully made this connection!


> I think the OP 'where' form agudi is essentially a- INTERROGATIVE + gu
> YONDER + di LOC, so there's another -gu.  I call this the "Where Away?"
> hypothesis.

This is also an interesting idea!  I had always wondered about that
gu in a'gudi.  But if gu parallels ga, and if ga actually has the
sense of 'right there', then it is more transparent than "Where away?".
Another form of 'Where?' is awa'ta, which is generally used with verbs
of motion in the sense of 'what direction is someone going'.  A'gudi is
used for asking about a precise location.  So perhaps a-gu-di parses as
INTERROGATIVE + PRECISE_SPOT + LOC, which is exactly what it means.


Rory