OP: coming and going

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 19 May 2006, Rory M Larson wrote:
> > However, some Dhegiha forms - I'd have to look them up - treat the
> > stem as h-initial, e.g, I think Ks has A1 phu, A2 s^u, A3 hu, but
> > vertitive gu, if I'm remembering this rightly.  OP has A1 phi, A2 s^i,
> > but A3 i and vertitive gi.  The OP i, not *hi is a surprise in an
> > h-stem, but consistent with a ?-stem.
>
> John, my understanding is that OP has ppi, 'I came', for the A1 of i, as
> well as pHi, 'I went', for the A1 of hi.  I'm pretty sure I've gotten our
> speakers to agree to this on more than one occasion.  Is that not what your
> information shows?

I think it's:

PMVS    *(h)u            *ku              *hi   (vert *hki)
Da          u             ku                i   (vert khi)
Ks         hu (?)         gu               hi   (vert khi)

stem        i 'come'      gi 'come back'   hi 'arrive there

A1          phi           ppi              phi
A2          s^i          s^ki              s^i
A3           ai=i         agi=i            ahi=i

> I believe s^i works in both directions.

In a sense, per the above, but not for gi.

This sounds like a result of the serious difficulties that exist in asking
questions about deitics and directional verbs in an abstract context.
(Been there; done that!)  Siouanists get used to dealing with these verbs
in terms of the careful "pro forma" definitions offered by Dorsey, etc.,
but speakers, or at least those of today, take a more pragmatic,
contextual approach.  They don't map to the "pseudo-Siouan" 'come back' or
'travel hither again', they just map to the contextual equivalent in
English.  And since there are slew more Omaha distinctions than English
makes, and a certain number of homophonies and irregularities, it can be
very difficult to sort things out.  Fortunately, I started with Dorsey and
Taylor.

My rule of thumb is that you can get any English motion verb (come, go) as
a translation of any Omaha motion verb if you keep track.  When you throw
in arrive, reach, get to, be here/there, etc., it get a bit more
illuminating.

Same interchangeability of English demonstratives and Omaha
demonstratives.  When I first elicited ga and dhe, I was told they meant
'this' and 'that' respectively.  I filed this away under "the education of
a field linguist; crossreference:  figure out later" and kept going.