possessive constructions in siouan

[ROOD DAVID S]

I have only been writing to the Siouanist list -- I'm not sure where the
first question came from.

David

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005, R. Rankin wrote:

> 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>