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

Thu Dec 13 14:02:44 UTC 2007

I'm going to side with Bob on this one.  It seems to me that the basic 
meaning of the vertatives is not 'toward home' but 'back (again)'.  Over 
and over in the texts we read "i na gli na...." -- 'went there and came 
back and...' without the concept of 'home' anywhere around.

Allan had an explanation for khi but I've forgotten it -- and I can't put 
my hands on the paper right now, either.  Bob?

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007, Jan Ullrich wrote:

> Regina,
>
> I fully agree with this conclusion. I have always been under the
> impression that the vertitives are possessive forms of the
> "non-vertitive" verbs.
>
> u    ->   ku
> hi   ->   gli
> ya  ->   gla
> i    ->    khi
>
> The only one that doesn't fit in (synchronically) is khi 'to arrive back
> there', but I am sure there is some diachronical explanation for the
> aspiration in it. Could some one elaborate on that?
>
> Jan
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> [mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of REGINA PUSTET
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 10:54 AM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: RE: Siouan ki- 'become (again)', 'return to'
>
>
> (quoting Bob)
>> Mississippi Valley Siouan *k-ri (syncope always applies) > Lakota gli,
> Dak. hdi, etc. 'arrive >back'. I'd reconstruct all of those initial
> vertitive g- (and k-) in Lakota as originally proto->Siouan *ki-, with
> the vowel present in other subgroups. Come to think of it, I guess it
>> doesn't "surface" in Lakota.
>
> Now I understand. The reason I didn't make that mental connection is
> that I thought that the ki-prefix, which indeed doesn't really surface
> in Lakota motion verbs such as gli 'have arrived at home', gla 'go
> home', and ku 'come home' but whose historical presence somehow imposes
> itself when you deal with these verbs systematically, is acually the
> POSSESSIVE ki-. Wouldn't that make sense? All these verbs imply 'home,
> place where one belongs', i.e. a location that you are possessively
> attached to, as the destination of the act of moving. I haven't immersed
> myself into historical studies regarding this issue tho, so chances are
> that this analysis can be ruled out on the basis of comparative data.
> Regina
>
>
> "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu> wrote:
>
> I'm sorry; I do have trouble sometimes looking at these problems from
> the Lakota point of view, since Lakota is not on my list of
> accomplishments! I was looking at vertitive from the point of view of
> languages like Tutelo, where 'to go home' (Sapir's translation)is gi-li,
> cf. Biloxi ki-di, but Mississippi Valley Siouan *k-ri (syncope always
> applies) > Lakota gli, Dak. hdi, etc. 'arrive back'. I'd reconstruct all
> of those initial vertitive g- (and k-) in Lakota as originally
> proto-Siouan *ki-, with the vowel present in other subgroups. Come to
> think of it, I guess it doesn't "surface" in Lakota.
>
> Allan Taylor's article in IJAL from the early/mid '70s details some of
> the interesting idiosyncracies of the motion verbs, and Linda Cumberland
> has done interesting recent work on how they structure.
>
> This discussion of 'become'/'become again' is really interesting to me,
> as I had overlooked it in Boas and Deloria and have only the very few
> cases in Dhegiha. I wonder how much I missed in Kaw from simply failing
> to ask the right questions? Now I'm really curious about how they are
> conjugated. I hope someone will ask.
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of REGINA PUSTET
> Sent: Tue 12/11/2007 2:09 PM
> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
> Subject: RE: Siouan ki- 'become (again)', 'return to'
>
>
> Thanks Bob, that helps a lot.
>
>> 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.
>
> Off the top of my head, I can't come up with examples of vertitive ki-
> with motion verbs in Lakota (although khi- 'separative etc.' does occur
> with motion verbs, but that's probably irrelevant here, unless there is
> a connection between vertitive and khi-). Which does not mean, of
> course, that historically speaking, Lakota ki- 'to become' cannot be
> analyzed as a vertitive.
>
>> 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-.
>
> At least in Lakota, motion verbs exhibit morphological irregularities
> that are not found in any other part of the grammar -- they are
> strcuturally special. This might be the case in other Siouan languages
> as well, I just don't have the necessary background to judge the
> situation. At any rate, if motion verbs have a special status in Siouan
> in general, it wouldn't surprise me if they showed idiosyncratic
> behavior wirh respect to ki-syncopation.
>
> Regina
>
> "Rankin, Robert L" wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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