possessive constructions in siouan

[R. Rankin]

Are you fellows forwarding these comments to the guy
who wrote me and asked the original question, or should
one of us do that?

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: ""Alfred W. Tüting"" <ti at fa-kuan.muc.de>
To: <siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 11:23 AM
Subject: FW: possessive constructions in siouan


> 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
>
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