Omaha-Ponca 'Ought'

[Koontz John E]

In the Dorsey texts the modal sense 'must, ought, apparently' is
represented by an enclitic following the future and plural slots, wsith
the form as^e.

jod 1890:119.17

dhi' ha's^i=daN wahna'the=tt=as^e  (NetSiouan)
thi' ha'shidoN wana'tHetashe       (Popular, Net Adapted)
you afterward you must eat         (word for word)

jod 1890:144.14

hni'?a=b=as^e
ni'?abashe
you must fail

jod 1890:210.12

aNwaN'kkide=hnaN=tta=b=as^e
oNwoN'kidenoN tabashe
we must shoot at them regularly

Rory Larson reports that the =as^e form is no longer recognized.

> I don't recall ever seeing [kkude] in Dorsey either.  There, I think the
> word for 'should/ought to' is something like ttas^e or tHas^e, but [the
> ladies working with the Omaha class at UN] don't seem to recognize that.
> They gave us kku'de/kku'de tte instead, and we've been using it pretty
> freely ever since, without them objecting.  The kku'de is apparently a
> verb, but it's used impersonally and doesn't seem to conjugate.

The same pattern of impersonal usage applies, of course, to =as^e.

It occurs to me that there might be a chance of an etymology for kkude in
terms consistent with Dorsey, if it is =kkud[schwa] or has some other
heavily reduced vowel where e is written.  It could be =kk[i] udaN 'it
would be good if' ~ =kk[i] udaN=tte 'it would be good if'.  This pattern
is used for the imeprative in Northwestern languages, I understand.

In my experience u'daN is a good example of the strong tendency of final
aN to reduce to schwa, also exhibited in umaNhaN 'Omaha' and gdhebaN
'ten'.  And the verb u'daN is used impersonally.  It is also inflected in
the dative as an experiencer verb 'to like, to enjoy; lit. 'to be
pleasureable for', e.g.,

niN[iN]'niN gi[i]'ud(aN)=                 att(A)=s^(AN)
tobacco     she likes (to her it is good) very (completely to it)
She likes smoking too much.

... naN[aN]'de iN[iN]'udaN
... heart      to me is good
"I'm glad that ..."

Here V[V] => probably a long V
(V) => elided
(cap V) => elided or voiceless

However, this is just a sudden inspiration, and it might have no bearing
at all on =kkude.


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