Meaning of Hethushka...Another consideration.

[Koontz John E]

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, Rory M Larson wrote:
> I'd also like to offer an idea here for consideration.
> Is it possible that the ledh ([dh]) in hedhu's^ka is
> epenthetic?  I know this happens between i- (high front)
> and other vowels in many old words.  The preceding e-
> is mid front, but might possibly have the same effect.

I'd say this was quite possible phonologically, but I'm not sure it gains
us anything.

> If so, we could translate the term as
>
>   he       us^kaN
>   horn     activity
>
> assuming that nasalization was lost from the last
> syllable, as often seems to happen to unaccented
> syllables in modern Omaha that are properly nasal.
>
> An example against this possibility is the pattern
> of verbs of the we+u'+[root] form, which do not
> produce epenthetic ledh between we- and u-.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Rory
>