argument structure k'u etc.

[lcumberl at indiana.edu]

I agree with the point about *interpretation* of data in B&D. I don't include
wo- 'food' in my discussion of "noun classifiers" (which I call "truncated
nouns") because, in fact, it is not a truncated noun, like the others in the
list; nor are its derivatives nouns, but verbs, so I see it as something unique,
a truncated verb (wa + yuta > wota > wo-) with specialized meaning. BTW,
Assiniboione has won-, cognate to Lak. wol-, by what I have labeled a process of
coda nasalization.

Linda

Quoting "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>:

> > On page 71 Boas&Deloria actually list wo- ('food') among those
> "nominal prefixes" you mention above. This was where I was coming from
> but couldn't remember the source until I made a search for it.
>
> I see where Jan's argument originates now, but, like Regina and others,
> I still question whether wo- could be a reduced woyute.  Alfred's *wol
> or perhaps woyul might be a better bet.  While Deloria's data have to be
> considered correct, I don't think her and Boas' _interpretations_ of her
> data are always right.
>
> While writing about positional verbs, I ran across the claim in B&D that
> the irregular verb forms maNka 'I sat', naNka 'you sat' (from yaNkA 'be
> sitting') have pronominal allomorphs that show these verbs have become
> stative (or 'neutral'/'passive', whatever).  But this is a mistake.  The
> pronominals m- and n- here are not allomorphs of ma- and ni- but
> historically regular variants of *w(a)- and *y(a)- respectively.  It's
> easy to see how a native speaker could reanalyze these as stative
> allomorphs, but historically it's inaccurate.
>
> One of the oldest examples of an incorporated noun must surely be
> ?uN(k)- '1st person inclusive'.  Given various forms of this in other
> Siouan languages like waNk- (Tutelo), wa:Ng- (Hochunk), aN(k)-
> (Dhegiha), etc., it almost certainly represents an incorporated form of
> proto-Siouan *wa:NkE or *wu:NkE 'man, person' (there are nearly exact
> parallels with modern French "on" 'we').  But even here the root-final
> -k is preserved contextually in most of the languages.  So I think most
> nouns don't undergo all that much phonological truncation when
> incorporated.  Mostly they only lose -E or -A and then the root-final
> consonant undergoes some mutation.
>
> Bob
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