Tomahittan?

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004, R. Rankin wrote:
> No.  There is no locative prefix with the shape to- in Siouan.  Some
> people are obsessed with "big turkeys" and also analyze Mosopelea as
> 'big turkey'.  What is it about turkeys?

In regard to a locative to- I was thinking of Dhegiha *to 'hither' (or
something like that) - part of the du/s^u/gu series in Omaha-Ponca, for
example.  This occurs with articles, postpositions, and verbs as a leading
element.  It's usually more of a nigh demonstrative rather than a
locative, but Wes Jones has shown that demonstratives tend to occur as
locatives in Siouan contexts.  This is definitely streching matters.  I
wonder if the anonymous etymologizer might have been thinking of *o-
'in(to)' as a verbal prefix.

Neither *to- nor *o- really fits the syntax of the form.  I'd expect *ma-
to be outside of *o-, and any *to functioning as a locative to be final.
A given language might well do surprising things with its morphology, but
in guess-work like this I'd rather not assume surprising morphology.  I
tend to tolerate surprising conclusions better than surprising
assumptions!

If the form has a very reasonable Algonquian etymology there's really very
little reason to prefer the Siouan one over it.  If it has neither then it
would be wiser withhold judgement.

I'd have thought that the -y- in Monyton went with the Moni- part?