Dakotan gw/gm

[Rankin, Robert L]

The problem is that we have very little understanding of Siouan/Catawban cluster phonology.  You're positing a pre-Catawban form on the basis of a borrowing that only occurs in 3 Siouan languages, and the vowels don't come close to matching.  Right now, I'd assume Catawba is simply unrelated.  But who knows?     B.

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of BARudes at aol.com
Sent: Sun 8/27/2006 5:07 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Dakotan gw/gm


Just to matters a bit more complicated, the Catawba word for 'gourd' is w'a:de:. If the Catawba word is related to the (Mississippi Valley) Siouan words - perhaps through a root *wa(:)t(w)-, it suggests that the earlier form was *watwuN rather than *wakwuN and that Ioway-Otoe and Winnibago are conservative while Dakotan and Dhegiha have velarized the initial member of the cluster (either in assimilation to the following *w or by contamination with the Algonquian word (?)). (There are plenty of cases of sporadic voicing of earlier /t/ to /d/ in Catawba.)

Blair