Same word, different meanings

[Rory M Larson]

I don't think the first two words are actually homonyms,
at least in Omaha.  Our speakers definitely distinguish
them, and pronounce them with a somewhat different tonal
contour that I haven't really been able to pin down yet.
I'll have to raise this with them again.

I'd be interested in knowing the full context of the
noNz^iN Jonathan has found for 'young boy'.  The usual
word for 'boy' is nu'z^iNga, literally 'little man', as
Kathy indicates.  The final -ga at the end is common with
animate nouns and some stative verbs, and is often dropped
(or never existed) when the word is in a leading position
in a compound.  I suspect it was originally an independent
classificatory particle (in MVS or earlier) that functioned
as a generalizer.  The best evidence for that hypothesis
would probably be

  nu  - 'man'                   nu'ga  - male (animal)
  miN - 'woman' (originally)    miN'ga - female (animal)

As for nu -> noN, the leading [n] would force the following
vowel to be initially nasal, which could lead to nuN.  And
since uN -> oN/aN in OP (and I think Dhegiha generally),
that could lead to an interpretation as noN.  Also, even away
from nasal consonants, I have to admit to sometimes having a
little trouble distinguishing [u] from [aN] at times in
unaccented syllables in extended speech.  Maybe these factors
played in the recording of nuz^iN- as noNz^iN ?

Rory





             "Kathleen Shea"
             <kdshea at ku.edu>
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                                                                   Subject
             10/24/2004 10:37          Re: Same word, different meanings
             PM


             Please respond to
             siouan at lists.colo
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The first two are homonyms, with both vowels being nasal.  The third word
is a compound of nu 'man (male)' and zhiNga 'little, young.'  (I'm not
familiar with the truncated form nuzhiN.)  The word noNzhiN (naNzhiN with
Ponca spelling) meaning 'to stand, standing' can occur after the main verb,
functioning as an auxiliary with "durative" aspectual meaning:  naNzhiN
naNzhiN 'It keeps on raining.'

Kathy Shea
 ----- Original Message -----
 From: Jonathan Holmes
 To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
 Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 7:23 PM
 Subject: Same word, different meanings

 Recently I have seen the same Omaha/Ponca word in different texts with
 three different meanings ascribed to it.

 noNzhiN - arise or to stand

 noNzhiN - rain

 noNzhiN - young boy

 Are these meanings correct depending on the context they are used?

 Does the meaning change depending on other words used in conjuction with
 it?

 Is one meaning correct and the other two the result of mis-translation?


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