*V-stems (Re: verb suppletion)

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005, R. Rankin wrote:
> I think the pronouns in these 'eating' verbs are the same conservative
> pattern you get with 'be sitting' (ra:Nke) and 'be lying' (ruNke), verbs
> in which the initial glides may be epenthetic.  The only difference is
> nasality of the V.  I think John is expecting a somewhat more innovative
> pattern.

That's true.  I was thinking of *raathe as taking an r-stem inflectional
pattern, because it does in Dhegiha.  However, there are verbs that take a
pattern of A1 wV..., A2 s^r-..., A3 r... as Bob says.  Usually the stem
initial vowel is nasalized and A2 s^- has been lost before r, so that
after all the sound changes have worked out you get a pattern of A1 m...,
A2 n..., A3 r... (or A3 w...).

Anyway, with that inflectional pattern A1 *waathe, A2 *s^raathe, A3
*raathe might occur, and mixing with A1 *prute, A2 *s^rute, A3 *rute you
might get quite interesting things, especially if the language also merged
*t and *th as *t (or *d) as Winnebago and IO do.  I hadn't allowed for
that.  However, though it would be exciting to have an(other) oral
instance of this pattern, I still tend to feel that this verb doesn't
exhibit it, on the strength of the Dakotan forms, which don't have
aspiration as far as I know.

In regard to the *V-initial stems, I have the feeling that the m/n/(*r ~ w
~ 0) pattern they exhibit is essentially an outgrowth of the *?-stem
pattern (m/*y/0).  I apologize for the mixed notation immediately
preceding.  I think that the basic pattern for *?-initial (or maybe it's
*V-initial) stems (and others) was

   *V-stems      *Regulars      *r-stems

A1 *w-V...       *wa-CV...       *p-rV... < *w-rV...
A2 *y-V...       *ya-CV...      *s^-rV... < *y-rV...
A3   *V...          *CV...         *rv...

The *V-stems stems in question are mostly nasalized - though *o 'to wound'
and *u 'to come (head this way)' seem to be oral - and mostly have some
element before the inflectional slot that conditions an epenthetic *r or
*w in the A3 form, e.g.,

A1 *i-w- uNghe 'I question'
A2 *i-y- uNghe 'you question'
A3 *i-  ruNghe 'she questions'

leading to paradigms like

   Proto-Dhegiha    Omaha-Ponca
A1 *imaNghe         imaNghe
A2 *iz^aNghe        *iz^aNghe
A2 *iraNghe         idhaNghe

except that the second person appears instead as is^naNghe (later
inaNghe), which amounts to substituting an A2 form from the *r-stem
(dh-stem) paradigm, presumably by analogy with the apparent *r-stem
(dh-stem) form in the third person.  Sometimes (across Dhegiha) you find
the first person in dh-stem form, too, e.g., ibdhaNghe, or the third
person might have epenthetic w instead of epenthetic dh (*r), e.g.,
iwaNghe.

> As I recall, 'sit, stand' and 'eat' are among the very few verbs with
> the archaic (V-initial?) conjugation pattern.

The pattern that appears with *i-(r)uNghe 'to question' also appears in
Dhegiha with some of the positionals, e.g., dhiNkhe < *(r)iNk- 'SITTING
ANIMATE' which inflects

A1 miNkhe      I-the-sitting
A2 (s^)niNkhe  you-the-sitting
A3 dhiNkhe     she-the-sitting

(And has the same pattern of inflection for the suppletive stem dhaNkha <
*uNk- in the plural.)

I regard the *?-stems as cases of this pattern, too, because I've noticed
that the Dakotan and Winnebago patterns for those stems match this mixed
*V-initial/*r-initial pattern, cf. Dakotan

   Dakotan          Winnebago
A1 muN              ha?uN
A2 nuN < *s^-nuN    s^?uN < *s^-?uN
A3 ?uN              ?uN

(Winnebago forms from memory and I'm not sure about length.)

In the same stem Omaha-Ponca has

A1 maN
A2 z^aN < *y-uN
A3 aN

OP z^ and Da n don't correspond (and neither does Winnebago s^?), but if
the Da n is from s^n and that s^n is an analogical importation from
*r-stems, then everything makes sense.  (I assume Winnebago has rebuilt
things on the assumption of a root *?uN.)

Of course, there's a rub, which is that I do have to assume that all
*V-stem (or *?-stem) verbs in Dakotan were switched to the mixed
*V-stem/*r-stem pattern, even when there was no initial element to
condition epenthetic *r in the third person.  By contrast, in Dhegiha it
seems that the switchover affected all stems with epenthetic *r, plus a
few more (the positional auxiliaries), but not the glottal stop stems.

If one is uncomfortable with different languages exhibiting different
degrees of extension of the same analogy, then I think that to be
consistant one has to recognize the following classes of verbs:

I)   to question
II)  auxiliaries with *r
III) auxiliaries with *w
IV)  *?-stems

There is some potential for combining I-III, and it's pretty clear that
the second persons of IV in the various languages don't correspond with
each other, though some of them clearly do match second persons in the
I-III classes.  In short, the purer you get, the more you sense that
you're overlooking the obvious.  At least this was my progression to these
conclusions:  careful insistence on regular correspondences => numerous
implausibly similar mini-paradigms => an assumption of differential
degrees of analogical leveling.

My understanding of the "degrees of analogy" thing is that (a) the
original IV (*V-stemor *?-stem)  pattern is quite odd relative to other
patterns in each language - we'd expect Dakota to have A1 muN, A2 *c^huN,
A3 uN, for example, by analogy with OP A1 maN, A2 z^aN, A3 aN, and OP A2
z^aN is quite a surprise as it is.  Hence, there's an obvious motive for
analogizing pattern IV away.

Then, (b) some verbs like *i-(r)uNghe 'to question' carry their own
epenthesis conditioner with them.  Others, like the auxiliaries, acquire
the conditioning only in situ as a positional enclitic following a
suitably preceding noun or verb, e.g., *(r)iNk or *(w)uNk - think
*s^uNka=r-iNk 'the sitting dog'.

Still other verbs lack the environment at all, e.g, forms like *uN 'do',
though some of them may also occur in contexts like *i-(r)uN 'do with,
use' that condition it.  Result - transfers from *V-stems to
*V-stem/*r-stem mixed-stems occur in different degrees in different
environments in different areas of the Proto-Mississippi Valley dialect
continuum and when the regional dialects become distinct branches of PMV
they show different patterns of behavior with stems that occurred in
different environments.  Eliminate random forms over a long period of time
and you end up with the different patterns we see today.