Siouan ki- 'become (again)', 'return to'

Tue Dec 11 18:42:37 UTC 2007

Looking at the verb prefix templates and examples of the prefix orders in several languages and comparing Jan's Lakota examples, it appears that the ki- we are discussing is more closely related to the vertitive than to either reflexive or instrumentals.  The most general use of ki- I have found (outside of Jan's and Regina's new [to me] Dakotan cases) is in Mandan, where Mixco and others have a generalized ki- that occurs immediately preceding the verb with the meaning 'become'.  Some posit a homophonous Mandan prefix ki- meaning 'again', but I tend to think of these as a single affix, especially in light of Jan's observations.  

All other Siouan languages without exception have ki- 'vertitive' with verbs of motion, but only a few seem to have generalized a relatively productive use with non-motion verbs.  There are one or two differences in the behavior of these prefixes however.  The ki- of kini does not seem to undergo syncopy like the vertitive with motion verbs.  Otherwise I would expect something closer to g-ni 'recover', which does not occur in any Siouan language.  Similarly, we might expect to find g-luzahaN 'to get fast' or k-haNska  'to get tall', neither of which occurs.  So the syncope rule is only productive with motion verbs, while its (apparent) extension to other verbs and nouns seems to involve only invariant ki-. 

Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Jan Ullrich
Sent: Tue 12/11/2007 2:20 AM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: RE: Lakota ki- 'to become by itself'

I think it should be noted here that the meaning of the prefix ki- is not "to become" but "to return to the original state". Notice kini 'to come back to life', not 'to become alive'. The prefix is used with this meaning throughout the text corpus. Most of the words with ki- given in Buechel's dictionary originate in his translation of the Bible History texts (for instance ki-sagye - 'to turn into a cane' is used in the story about Moses) and are not attested by contemporary speakers. 

It is true that some younger speakers today use ki- with the meaning 'to become', but its use is semantically restricted, occurs for instance in kiwichas^a - 'to become a man'. Deloria (in her grammar) defines kiwichas^a as 'to become a man again (like a human who in a tale had appeared in animal shape)' and kiwiNyaN as 'to become a (respectable) woman again'

In my experience and fieldword data, the prefix is not productive. So I am a bit surprised by some of the words in Regina's list. If the words come from eliciting rather than texts, I would recoment caution and cross checking.

> ki-ska 'to turn white'

Deloria and a couple of my native informants give "to fade (to return to an original white color)" See also Bushotter's sentence: ... oowa uN owapi tkha hechunpi chan echakchala kiska s'a - 'when they painted (those things) with colors they often faded'

> ki-suta  'to get hard'

'to become hard again' as in mazasu s^loyiN na kisuta  'The bullets he melted became hard again'

> ki-bleza  'to become conscious'

'to become clear-minded or conscious again, come to one's senses', this is often used for 'to sober up'

> ki-was^tecaka ye!  'behave yourself!'

This is a dative. It means "Be nice to him/her." Very common phrase.

> ki-thamahecha  'to get skinny'

> ki-haNska  'to get tall'

> ki-ksapa  'he got smart'

> ki-luzahaN 'to get fast'

> ki-'okhate  'to become warm inside, like when turning up the heat'

These are all somewhat surprising to me.

Notice also, that for instance kini 'to come back to life' is an active verb (1s wakini), but kibleza 'to conscious again' is treated as a stative verb (1s: makibleze). This makes me wonder whether some of the ki- words actually originate in dative, just as akisni - 'to recover from smth, as a sickness (1s: amakisni)' or iyokiphi 'to be pleased with' 1s: iyomakiphi). 

Regina, what does your data say on conjugating the verbs in your list?

Jan