Omaha fricative set

[Rory M Larson]

Bob wrote:
> You're right!  I copied the Kaw form by mistake.  Kaw does have /ziziga/;
Omaha /zizikka/.

Is the Kaw reflex of common Dhegiha preaspirates also hp/ht/hk, as in
Osage?


>  But Omaha does have /zaNziga/ 'flicker', with the etymologically correct
form of the root.  I guess /zizikka/ is what happened to common Dhegiha
*sihka in Omaha.  These various largish bird terms don't seem to really be
cognate across the plains Siouan languages.  Dakotan /ziNtka-/ not only has
the z/s problem compared with Dhegiha, but it also has the nasal vowel and
the /tk/ cluster.  Superficially, the /tk/ looks like it should match
Dhegiha /kk/ or /hk/, but, in fact, it doesn't.  The *tk cluster actually
metathesizes in Dhegiha to /kt/, with means that 'chicken' should really be
/sitta/, not /sikka/.

John mentioned before that in stop clusters, the second element usually
won, except when the first element was t, which usually took over in any
case.  Is this a more sophisticated explanation of that observation?  I.e.,
MVS *tk regularly -> Early Dh. *kt -> Later Dh. *ht ?  Does MVS *tp do the
same thing?  Can you offer any example words?


>  So these are all borrowings and diffused words.  Unfortunately this
reduces the usefullness of those three sets of apparent z/s correspondences
I posted.  'Five' is still a mystery though.

What about the 'squirrel' term?  Would that still be good?

But if borrowing/diffusion can explain the 'chicken' term, I would think
that a standard number term would be even easier, as a tool for trade
between groups.  The *s/z/aptaN term isn't even common to Siouan outside of
MVS, is it?

Maybe these problematic s/z terms all date to a period shortly after the
spread of MVS, after significant differences in pronunciation had developed
between dialects, but while they were still pretty well mutually
comprehensible, and while the speakers still recognized a common ethnicity.
Do we have any others?  (Trade terms?  Hunting small animals?  Spread of
bow and arrow?)

Rory
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