Regular Causative

[Koontz John E]

David pointed out that the Dakota causative is one of the few regular
stems in y.  The rest of the y's take the y-stem paradigm.

The reason for this is that the causative doesn't really begin with y.
The "y" here is a *r, as is the y of the y-paradigm, but in the causative
it is epenthetic, while in y-stems it is organic.

The inflection of the y-stems is explained as follows (using the ya < *ra
instrumental):

    PrePS       PMVS       PrePDa   PDa

A1  *w-ra-      *p- ra-    *b- Ra-  *b-Ra-
A2  *y-ra-      *s^-ra-    *s^-Ra-     Ra-
A3     ra-          ra-        ya-     ya-

*w- and *y- appear as *p (or *b, if you prefer) and *s^ in PMVS.

*r becomes *R in clusters (after p and s^).

*r becomes y elsewhere.

The s^- A2 marker is lost before *R.

And, of course, in Modern Dakotan *R (whatever it was) becomes l, d, or n.

The details of this were essentially worked out by Dorsey, who noticed
that OP was losing s^ before its own R (an n) and deduced that the same
thing had happened in Dakotan much earlier.

The causative is a different sort of thing.  Comparing it across the
family, especially in Mandan, Hidatsa, and Biloxi suggests that it was
originally something like *VERB=hi=PRO-a/e.  In the third person, where
PRO is null, the form was *VERB=hi=ra/e.  I assume that the *=hi is some
sort of subordinator, while the *PRO-a/e is the actual verb 'to cause'.

The modern MVS languages have sorted this out as either *=h(i)-PRO or
*=PRO-ra/e.  The paradigms of Dakotan and Winnebago show the details.  OP
is included to show that it takes the same route as Dakotan (but IO takes
the Winnebago route).

      Wi        Da             OP

A1    =waa      =wa-yA         =  a-dhE
A2    =raa      =ya-yA         =dha-dhE
A3    =hii      =   yA         =    dhE

Since the location and behavior of the pronoun are the results of
reanalysis and analogy, phonology hasn't applied.  (It might, of course,
but it hasn't.)  The pronouns were regular when they were part of the
longer original form.  They remain regular as rearranged with the
truncated remnants of the original form.

The longer form of the causative, *=hi=ra/e, is preserved in Dakotan in
what was originally the dative of this stem, *=k-hira/e > Da =k-hiyA.
(OP has =k-hidhE.) Note in this case that the dative is the right form for
an h-stem.  Of course, this is a Dakotan (and Dhegiha) take on the dative,
and not the PMVS form, whatever that was.  In Winnebago you get =gigi <
*-ki-k-hi.

In a similar way, hiyu, however it is inflected (which varies with the
source and dialect), doesn't treat yu (if it is inflected) as y-stem.  It
remains a ?-stem or off-breed h-stem or whayever it is, i.e., A1 wahibu,
A3 hiyu, not *A1 wahiblu, A3 hiyu.

There are certainly cases in Dhegiha of stem initial epenthetic *r leading
to a stem being inflected as an *r-stems, but this has not happened in
Dakotan.

John E. Koontz
http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz