FW: possessive constructions in siouan

["Alfred W. Tüting"]

Thanks to David for elaborating on this.

>  Lakhota has several verbs for showing possession.  "Yuha" is used
most commonly today, but apparently its more subtle meaning has to do
with temporary possession, sort of like "hold".  So you can't use it
with kinship terms or body parts, i.e. the things that are inalienably
possessed.  This is very much parallel in structure to European
transitive verbs for 'to have'(...) <<

That's exactly what I - pretty "lengthily" - wanted to point out
referring to the "hand" thing in pretty different languages all around
the globe.


 > For inalienable possessions you must use "yukhaN"  (is this
Alfred's "yuka"??), which means something more literally like 'exist
for' -- 'two arms exist for me" -- not a very good translation, but
perhaps you see the point (...) <<


Yes, I thought of _yukxaN_ too. Yet, since Leon focussed on alienable
possession and (questionable) transitive use of _*yuka_, I think this is
a typo.
Of course, [yukxaN'] is different: "Igmu sinte yukan" (cats have tails).

It also seems that different shades of meaning can be expressed
according to the use of poss. prefix: managi vs. minagi (Oglala: my
shadow vs. my spirit/ghost).


 > The absence of posession is the ordinary negative for yuha, but the
negative of yukhaN is "nica" or "wanica" 'to fail to exist, to be
absent'.  I have never been sure I understood the difference between
those two, but it sometimes looks as if one of them refers to the
absence of something that you have to have, like fathers, as opposed to
something that you might have, like brothers.  I don't know which is
which.<<

I often fail to understand Buechel: according to B. _nica_ [ni'ca] is an
active verb (va) -> manice/ninice (to be destute of, to have none of),
whereas _wanica_ is an adjective (adj) with the meaning "none, without
any" - but, at the same time giving the same forms as for _nica_ i.e.
manica/ninica/unicapi! I'd tend to see wanica as a verb with a generic
object.


 > Now isn't that a lot more than you wanted to know about possession
marking in Lakhota?  I don't think you can call this a "have" language
or a "be" language. <<


Did I express this? Misunderstanding! I'm aware of the pretty
complicated possession marking in Dakota and just wanted to focus on
alienable possession in the sense of "I have money":
Ich habe Geld.
Tengo dinero.
Mazaska bluha.
Wo you qian.

vs.

Van pénzem.
Yesh li kesef.
etc.

Under this (limited) aspect, Dakota can be called a to-have language.


Alfred