[Spam:0008 SpamScore] Pa Snuta (Eggheads?)

[Koontz John E]

On Thu, 7 Jul 2005, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> If you check under 'pecan' in Quapaw you'll find the more expected
> cognate, /stotta/.  It is the 'oblong nut'.  Kansa uses /sceje/ in a
> similar compound, even tho' it has a stative verb /stotta/.  I wasn't
> aware that Quapaw apparently had doublets (with tt/kk) from older -tk-.
> That's a nice find.

Of course, the credit for finding and preserving the doublets is really
all Bob's and James Dorsey's.

I'd argue that stotta, stokka aren't doublets from *srotka, but reflect,
respectively, *srotka and *srohka.  In other words, this is one of the
numerous cases of alternative "root extensions" that the CSD editors
noticed and that Wes Jones reported on in MALC (and at one of the Siouan &
Caddoan meetings).  There are numerous cases of "core roots" like *CV
'sense X' appearing in different (or the same) language as reflexes of
*CVt, *CVk, *SCV, etc., with 'sense similar to X'.  I think Wes suggests
that these are relicts of earlier derivational or inflectional
morphological behavior that has disappeared leaving only these traces.

The development of *CVh-ka as CVkka in Dhegiha is in line with Bob's
analysis of the origins of *hka as a verb formant in Mississippi Valley.
I thought that the reduplicated stusta form might also suggest *sroh.

I think Bob has suggested that developments like *srotka > stotta in
Dhegiha suggest a history involving metathesis.  This explains why *tk
and *kt both become tt.

Original      *srotka   'egg-shaped'    *pre= kta  'I will go'
Metathesis    *srokta
Assimilation  *srohta                   *pre= hta

Quapaw         stotta                    pde= tta
OP             snutta                    bdhe=tta

This is paralleled by the treatment of *tk in Ioway-Otoe:

Original      *maNaNtku 'bow'
Metathesis     maNaNktu
Assimilation   maNaNhtu

IO             maNaNhdu
Wi             maNaNc^gu

I won't try to remember the IO future, because I seem to recall that it
has special complications.  Basically it, too, reflects *kt as
developments of *ht.