Order of verb affixes

Rory M Larson rlarson at unlnotes.unl.edu
Wed Nov 10 01:32:40 UTC 2004


I'm just looking at a borrowed copy of Jimm Good Tracks' 1992
dictionary of Iowa-Otoe-Missouria in comparison with OP.  I've
run across the word for '(black) pepper', which is glossed as
"Mixed Herbs", or

     mankan iki'rohan (LR)/
     mankan' wi'kiruhan (JY)

In OP, the word for 'pepper' is

     weo'kkihaN

which seems to be formed from

     wa-i-u-kki-haN

where u-haN' means 'to cook' or 'boil'.  The entire construction
seems to mean something like 'something that is boiled together
(with the rest of the food)'.  In OP, verbs beginning with u-
take their affixed personal, reciprocal, reflexive and possessive
pronouns between the u- and the verb stem, except for 'we', which
attaches to the front to make ugu'-.

I don't know much about IOM, but it looks to me like the words
cited for 'pepper' are essentially the same except for the
preceding 'medicine'/'herb', but in a somewhat different order

     (wa)-i-kki-u-haN

with the reciprocal pronoun kki brought out in front of the u-.

Am I correct in this analysis?  If so, is it normal for IOM to
put affixed pronouns in front of the u-/o- in such verbs?  And
if it is, then how do Hochunk and Dakotan compare on this?

Thanks,
Rory



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