kicaga vs. kichaga

[ROOD DAVID S]

At the risk of blowing my own horn, let me again refer you to my little
paper in the IJAL issue dedicated to Eric Hamp (1985:4, p. 561-2).  The
"ch" is not from *k at all, but from *y (as are many other Dakotan
aspirated c's).  Although I have never pinned down the environments
completely, there are many places where a Lak /k/ simply deleted at some
earlier stage of the language, especially after /i/.  The dative of kaga
is an example: *ki-kaga becomes *ki-aga, develops an epenthetic */y/, and
that */y/ becomes /ch/ by regular sound change.
	Perhaps another example of this k-deletion is the suus form of the
ka- prefixed verbs, which is gla, maybe from *kya from *ki-ka.

David

David S. Rood
Linguistics - Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295


>
> > Perhaps somewhat unrelated question:
> >
> > I have always wondered why the k in kag^a turns into aspirated ch in
> > ic?i'chag^a. It remains plain in ki'cicag^a. The same thing happens with
> > kuN'zA 'to decree' -> ic'ichuNzA = I decree for myself (I pledge).
> >
> > Deloria comments that "The possessive forms are irregular insofar as they
> > aspirate the c" (ibid 102) as in:
> >
> > we'cag^a ? I make for him/her (from ki'cag^a)
> > we'chag^a ? I make my own (from ki'chag^a)
> >
> > So here the difference between c and ch is used as an irregularity to help
> > differentiate the meaning, I guess. But why in ic?i'chag^a?
>
> My explanation for the Dakotan k > c^h where c^ only is expected is that
> these forms all involve allomorphs of the preceding prefix with a -k
> extension (as in the OP examples being discussed), so the allomorph of
> ic^?i- here is ic^?ik-.
>
> Dakotan aspirates reflect in large measure Proto-Mississippi Valley
> preaspirates, e.g., kheya 'turtle' corresponds to OP kke 'turtle', both
> from something like *hke-, and these preaspirates seem to be what arrises
> in PMV from unretained sequences stops, to judge from OP inflectional
> forms like ppaghe 'I make' < *p-kaghe or kkaN=bdha 'I want' < *p-kaN=p-ra,
> or kkikkaghe 'to make for oneself' < *hkik-kaghe, etc.
>
> So, Dakotan forms like kic^hagha (underlying *kikhagha) are presumably
> reflexes of *kik-kagha, and simularly with ic^?ic^hagha < *ik?ik-kagha.
> Naturally, a certain amount of this might actually result from analogical
> treatment of the prefix-stem boundary in paradigms perceived as similar,
> rather than from large sets of prefixes having an historical -k extension.
>
> I've looked at the question of the origin of the -k extensions
> extensively.  Initially I suspected that they were fossilized remnants of
> a original ki- that had been syncopated, rendering it less salient, and
> then supplemented - made more salient - by an extra full ki- (or whatever)
> in front of it.  Currently I suspect somethung rather different.  I think
> that the reflexive morpheme *hkik- is historically an incorporated "be
> with"  coverb *hkik-.  Fairly solid traces of it as a separate and as a
> dependent verb are described in Boas & Deloria.  The current surface forms
> in Dakotan are khi ~ khic^(a), of course.  The development of sense is
> something like "with" > "both"/"in the middle" > "reciprocal" >
> "reflexive".
>