Biloxi "ko"

[R. Rankin]

> I've been looking over Dorsey's dictionary and sample
> sentences noting a few of the uses of "ko" which is
> often glossed as a definite article or as 'when'.  I
> came up with a hunch based on some sample sentences I
> found, one of which I have below for illustration:

> aNsep noNpa amaNki ko kta = the two standing axes are
> his. aNsep = ax, noNpa = two, amaNki = dual/plural
> def. article, ko (simply glossed as ob. 'object'?),
> kta = his.

> There are several sentences with 'ko' glossed this
> way and occuring even with another definite article,
> in this case 'amaNki.'  Thus, my hunch is that 'ko'
> in this case may be sort of a Japanese 'wa', loosely
> translated as "as concerns it", thus, 'as concerns
> the two standing axes, they're his.'

I don't think /amaNki/ is a definite article.  It may
be partially grammaticalized, but it is a positional
verb, etymologically 'lying'.  Positional use in
demonstrative/locative phrases/clauses is a SE areal
feature that is very widespread.  The /ko/ is
definitely a demonstrative or article of some sort, of
course.  There are some comparative possibilities, but
any reconstructible meaning remains fairly elusive.

Crow /ko/ 'nonagentive reference'
Crow /ko/ 'that, abstract reference'

Hidatsa /ku/ 'that one'

Biloxi /ko/ 'demonstrative, various usages'  (not very
revealing)

There is another (or related) */ko:/ in Mississippi
Valley Siouan languages, meaning roughly 'that,
remote'.

Beyond that, you're pretty much on your own, I'm
afraid.  If I were doing it, I'd extract all examples
of sentences with the particle from the BI texts and
see what emerges -- but you've probably done that
already.  Beyond that, you probably want to try to deal
with all the demonstratives as a group and see if a
system emerges that might have 'pigeon holes' that
might help organize the results.  Somewhere in the
Archives of the Siouan List should be a message with an
attachment from me listing the prominent demonstrative
cognate sets.  Generally a three term system is
evident, as in older English: demonstratives THIS,
THAT, YON; deictics HERE, THERE, YONDER; and temporals
NOW, THEN, YORE.  But there are numerous variants, and
this schema does not account for differences in detail
in the various languages.  Your analysis in terms of
something like Japanese wa/ga sounds interesting and
might work out. . . .

Bob