m's and w's and Mitasse: Caddoan phonology question

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> I hope that the Siouanists will tolerate a little Caddoan on this list,
> just as they do at the annual meetings, since there is not ever likely to
> be a Caddoan discussion list.  I have a very speculative idea about some
> phonological possibilities, and maybe some of you can relate to my
> musings.

Actually, we could easily start a Caddoan discussion list in parallel with
the Siouan one and I would happily take care of the administrative
details.  My fear is that there wouldn't be any Caddoanist discussion, for
want of Caddoanists as much as anything.

I've always enjoyed the Caddoanist papers at the SACC meetings.  David's
paper on Wichita syntax in 2004 was the first time I felt like I grasped
how Caddoan languages work.  It was a sort of "whoa - another way" moment.

> ... So at least one English speaking witness thought that a word that
> seems to have an initial /w/ in most of its instances was pronounced
> with something that sounded more like [m] by one Waco speaker.  Now, add
> to this the fact that Wichita has no /m/ phoneme, except in two verb
> roots, both of which have medial geminate [mm]. (One means 'grind corn'
> and the other means 'hoe').
>
> Next bit of information: In modern Wichita, [n] and [r] are in
> complementary distribution, with [n] occurring initially, geminate, and
> before alveolars, while [r] occurs before vowels or laryngeals.  (Neither
> one occurs before /k/ or /kw/.)
>
> What if, in Waco or even older Wichita, [w] and [m] had a distribution
> parallel to modern Wichita [r] and [n]?  Do any other phonologists out
> there think this is at all plausible?

I was wondering about this just by analogy with Crow and Hidatsa.  I
think the phonology is entirely plausible.  Notice
that the extant m examples in Wichita are geminate, and /r/ is [nn] when
geminate, apparently a more common situation with /r/.

In terms of Siouan parallels, geminate /w/ and /r/ are [mm] and [nn] in
Crow, and initial position is one in which Hidatsa has [m] and [n].

> If it is, then the name "Mittase" might have an initial phonemic /w/.
> Unfortunately, I can't go any further than that, because /witasi/, or
> /wirasi/ (many English speakers write the tapped [r] as _tt_), or other
> variations I can dream up still don't match with any morphemes I know
> that might lead to the meaning 'white baby' or 'white child'.

Mrs. Kelly has indicated to me that the final part of the name is
currently /es/ in her family, though the original Holt family usage may
have been /esi/.  I don't know if that helps any.

> What does anyone else think of the [m] = [w] speculation?

It seems reasonable.  I don't really have any ideas on the glossing in
Wichita terms beyond that!

Well, maybe one.  I think you pointed out to me in connection with
discussions of the attested term for 'white man' that -s- was the linking
element in compounds.  So perhaps wite(??)-s-(i)?

It was interesting to see the Osage loan for 'white man'.