interrogative -indefinites

[Koontz John E]

All these interesting things about Dakotan that I was ignorant of!

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 lcumberl at indiana.edu wrote:
> Lakota makes a realized/potential distinction, thus:'taku/ta'kul, as in:

> 'taku icu he 'what did he take?' vs. ta'kul icukta he 'what will he take'

This reminds me of the Dakota real vs. hypothetical vs. negative
distinctions with the indefinite articles in Lakota, cf. Rood & Taylor,
1996:456.

I don't think there's a parallel in Dhegiha, though this might be an area
where I've been unobservant.  The closest thing I have noticed is kki 'if'
vs. kki=z^i, which looks like it should be 'if-not', but is not.

But I do notice an Omaha-Ponca parallel for one aspect of these
interrogative forms.  The potential 'what' form in Lakota, takul, is an
exact parallel for the Omaha-Ponca form agudi 'where'.

     INDEF    yonder LOC
     *ta/(h)a  *ku   *tu
La    ta        ku    l      'what (unreal)'
OP          a   gu    di     'where'

Only the WH-morpheme differs.  I'm not sure what to make of it. (By way of
a caution, I'm not sure everyone agrees with my etymologies after the
wh-morpheme, on which all depends.)

> Assiniboine doesn't have that distinction but makes a distinction between
> non-specific-indefinite and specific-indefinite, thus: 'taku/ta'kux, as in
>
> 'taku eyaku he 'what did he take?'  vs. ta'kux 'eyaku he 'what, specifically,
> did he take?'
...
> There are also the pairs, tuwe/tuwex and tukte/tuktex, but not tona: *tonax

The -x reminds me of =xti.  Does =x have any other functions?

There's something similar with a different morphologies in Omaha-Ponca:

edadaN    eda'daN aNgaghe=tta=i 'what (specifically) should we do?'
          (asking for a course of action)

iNdadaN   iNda'daN=xti ed=ehe=tta 'what (indefinite) should I say?'
          (to self when put on the spot)

e'be      kki e'be gdhe ethedaN?  'which (of us) should go back home?'

ebe'      ebe'=di (s^)ne' a?  'who are you going to?'