argument structure of k'u 'give'

[Jan Ullrich]

I have been musing about the wicha-ma-k'u-pi for some time. In fact, I
posted on this verb form on 29 February 2000, but it didn't arouse much
interest on the list.

I encountered it in the following sentence:

Tona wicha'mak?u kiN hena' waNzhi'ni wauN'mni kte shni.
>>From those he gave me I shall lose none.

However, the previous sentence of the same text says:

Ate tona mak?u kiN hena' oyas?iN el mau'pi kte.
All of those that my father gave me will come to me.

In both instances the object is animate according to the context.

At that time I finally came to a conclusion the wicha'mak?u was some sort of
error. Mainly because the text was a translation from English (Buechel's
Lakota translation of Bible History) and I believe the results of
translations are often unidiomatic. And also, because the use of mak?u for
'he gave them to me' is frequent and common, while I could only one
occurrence of wicha'mak?u in this meaning.

Therefore I am very surprised by Linda's Assiniboin sentence with
wicha'mak?u of the same reading. I always get mak?u from speakers when
eliciting sentences like "he gave me two horses" (ShuNkawakhaN nuNpa mak?u).

I also found wicha'mak?u with the meaning "they gave ME to them" as in the
sentence recorded by Regina:

Thoka'mayaNpi thawa'chiNpi kiN en wicha'mak?u shni wo.
= Don't give me to the will of my enemies.

This time it is from Riggs/Renvile's Dakota translation of Bible.
Riggs/Renvile use mak?u consistently for 'he gave THEM to me'.


There is another suspicious verbal form of this kind in Buechel's biblical
translation:

nima'kahipi = they brought you to me.


So I wonder what would be used for expressing "they gave YOU to me" and
"they gave ME to you"
Would it be nimak'upi and manic'upi respectively, or would one or both of
these forms be considered ungrammatical and some other structure would be
employed?


Jan




> lcumberl at indiana.edu
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:12 AM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: Re: argument structure of k'u 'give'
>
>
> Quoting ROOD DAVID S <rood at spot.Colorado.EDU>:
>
> >
>
> > Could it also mean 'they were given to me'?
>
>
> I have this in my data for Asb:
>
> pusapina wiNc^ha-ma-k'u-pi  'they gave me the kittens'
>
> Linda
>
>
> ---
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