argument structure k'u etc.

[REGINA PUSTET]

Thanks, Ardis... this is very helpful info.

The wo < wa-o thing is of course well known, but the question is , if ok’u means ‘to lend’, why should we have wok’u for ‘to give food’.  Both Jan and I are presuming that wo- means ‘food’ and does not come from wa-o

Bruce

I'm now quoting Buechel in detail on ok'u (p. 393): 1. 'to lend anything to one. 2. (of k'u). 'to give to, e.g. food; to give a portion to'.
There is not much to be done about the hypothesis that wo- means 'food'. Either the prefix exists, or it doesn't, at least you can always posit such an element. However, I recommend eliciting semantic combinations containing wo- 'food' in conjunction with verbs which don't have initial o-. My guess is that this is not grammatical. (Another hint: unlike a true wa-o contraction, as a hypothetical classificatory prefix, wo- 'food' shouldn't carry stress).
But there is nothing to be done about the hypothesis that wo- = wa-o either, because it reflects a highly regular contraction process in the language. Given the fact that some of us have stated before, namely that a reduction of woyute 'food' to wo- 'food' is unlikely because of the phonetic complexity involved, my vote is clearly and emphatically in favor of the wa-o hypothesis. i realize that this is just a minor issue, but I feel it deserves clarification.

Regina

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