verb suppletion.

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005, R. Rankin wrote:
> Isn't this just the suppletion of Mississippi Valley
> Siouan *ra:the 'to chew, eat physically' with one or
> more persons of *rute 'to eat, dip'?

I don't think so.  While *...te and *...the might both yield Winnebabo
...c^ and IOM ...j^e (not sure why ...j^i in first and second persons),
the pattern of inflection with *ra... would be A1 *Raa-, A2 *s^raa-, A3
*ra-, i.e., something like A1 ha-daj^i, A2 ra-sdaj^i, A3(ruj^e) in IOM
(with pleonastic overlaying of the regular paradigm indicated before
dashes).  And in Dakotan (e.g., Teton) *raathe would inflect A1 blathe, A2
nathe, (A3 yathe), not A1 wate, A2 yate.  So, there's no way that
particular pattern of suppletion could account for the pattern A1
*wa-t(e), A2 *ya-t(e), A3 *ru-t(e).

The other examples are all good ones, of course.

The best hypothesis I could come up with for *t- ~ *rut- 'eat' was that it
might actually be *ut-, with the initial *r in the third person being
perhaps a relict of a third person in *i-, so that the inflection was
perhaps A1 *wa-(u)t-e, A2 *ya-(u)t-e, A3 (?) *i-(r)ut-e.  I'm not so sure
about that third person in *i-, though.