argument structure k'u etc.

[Bruce Ingham]

On 22/4/05 7:13 am, "REGINA PUSTET" <pustetrm at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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
> __________________________________________________

Regina
It may be that Buechel says ok¹u may involve food, but I¹ve only ever seen
it used to mean Œlend¹.  Also as the prefix wol- does seem to exist as an
alternant, I don¹t see why wo- is so difficult as a further contraction.
You then simply add it to k¹u Œgive¹
Bruce

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