argument structure k'u etc.

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Bruce Ingham wrote:
> The wo < wa-o thing is of course well known, but the question is , if ok¹u
> means Œto lend¹, why should we have wok¹u for Œto give food¹.  Both Jan and
> I are presuming that wo- means Œfood¹ and does not come from wa-o

I've noticed various Omaha-Ponca instances of u'- < *wo- that seem to have
the reading 'an instance of ...'.  I think u's^kaN - something like
'doings' - would be an example, though there are others.

'Doings' in the sense of 'get-together, celebration' is a usage I've
encountered in Omaha English.  It's not an active part of my own dialect
of English, but I recognize it and I think it's not restricted to Omaha
English.  I don't know if it's widespread in Nebraska.

Maybe Dakota wo'k?u refers to an occasion of giving and food is simply a
characteristic gift?

If wo'- (or OP u'-) in this case indicates to an instance or occasion,
then reversing the nominalization suggests that o- (or OP u-) indicates
something like performing an act of something or participating in an
occasion of something, which seems like an ideal sort of derivational
process for forming legal or other specialized terminology.  ("On or about
the 20th of April the aforesaid did give, or perform an act of donation,
...")  Maybe that helps explain why 'donate' has been suggested as a
translation rather than 'give'?  It seems to me that the native speaker
intuitions that Ardis relayed might reflect something like this notion of
the relationship between wa- and wo-forms, and hence of unmarked and
o-forms, though I may be reaching there.