Siouan ki- 'become (again)', 'return to'
Clive Bloomfield
cbloom at ozemail.com.au
Mon Dec 17 05:30:16 UTC 2007
Oh dear, oh dear! Thank you David - it seems I've been grotesquely
misinformed!
I hope Allan's sense of humour is a keen one.
Now, it appears, I given him a reason to say, in the illustrious
company of Mark Twain : "rumours of my demise have been much
exaggerated"!
Not all of us get that chance, eh?
But seriously, I beg his pardon, and that of everybody here!
I am absolutely mortified with embarassment!
Clive. (goodbye cruel world!)
On 17/12/2007, at 4:04 PM, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
> Clive,
> Allan Taylor is alive and well and very active, but not doing much
> with Siouan. He retired several years ago and is now very busy
> gardening (he was always a semi-professional botanist, working
> particularly hard to breed hardier varieties of plants that don't
> normally survive our winters; he just came back from several weeks
> touring old growth oak stands in Japan), playing with his 7
> grandchildren, and reverting to his original Amerindian role, that
> of Algonquianist. He's working on a very detailed grammar of
> Atsina (Gros Ventre). I see him 3-4 times a year.
> Thanks for your summary -- I may or may not have a chance to think
> it through.
> There is no direction contrast for "hiyaya" 'to pass by', but the
> inceptive (start moving) verb for 'go there' is reduplicated
> iyaya. So the six basic verbs are:
> start on the way arrive
>
> here hiyu u hi
>
> there iyaya ya i
>
>
> And their vertatives follow the same pattern:
>
> glicu ku gli
> iglagla gla khi
>
>
> David
>
>
> David S. Rood
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Univ. of Colorado
> 295 UCB
> Boulder, CO 80309-0295
> USA
> rood at colorado.edu
>
> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Clive Bloomfield wrote:
>
>> ALAN R. TAYLOR's IJAL paper, appeared in Vol. 42. (4) : 287-296,
>> in October 1976.
>>
>> I will try to summarize some relevant parts of it, since I have a
>> couple of questions of my own to put to List members about the odd
>> detail.
>> Naturally one realizes that most (if not all) of the information
>> given will be "old news" to scholars here!
>>
>> Major attention is given to Dakota, Dhegiha, Winnebago, Chiwere,
>> Mandan, Hidatsa, Crow, Biloxi, and Ofo. (Data from Tutelo &
>> Catawba are lacking.)
>> After stating that : "most of the Siouan languages have four basic
>> motion stems", Taylor represents these stems schematically :
>>
>> ARRIVING MOTION : Stem 1 (HERE); Stem 3
>> (THERE);
>>
>> MOTION PRIOR TO ARRIVAL : Stem 2 (HERE); Stem 4 (THERE).
>>
>> He then goes on to say : "In all of the languages, stems 1 & 3
>> refer only to the end-point of the motion, i.e. arrival.
>> Depending on the language, stems 2 & 4 refer either to inception
>> of motion, to motion underway, or to both." (p.287).
>> "All of the languages add several different prefixes to these
>> basic stems to form various additional transitive & intransitive
>> stems.
>> One such prefix, found in most (or all) of the languages, has the
>> underlying shape k.
>> Stems derived by this prefix relate the motion to one's home, or
>> TO AN EARLIER LOCATION ."(p.288)
>>
>> Taylor calls stems of this latter variety 'Vertative', and remarks
>> in passing that although the term was first coined by Kaufman, its
>> first appearance in print was by Robert C. Hollow, Jr., in his
>> unpublished Mandan Dictionary (Ph.D. diss., Uni Calif., 1965).
>>
>> In his discussion of the Dakota dialects, Taylor firstly nominates
>> the four basic stems (corresponding vertatives bracketed) :
>>
>> ARRIVING MOTION : hi [gli] - (HERE); i [khi]
>> - (THERE);
>>
>> MOTION UNDERWAY : u [ku] - (HERE); yA [glA] - (THERE);
>>
>>
>> Next, Taylor lists the following compound verb-stems (vertatives
>> bracketed) :
>>
>> DEPARTING MOTION : hiyu [glicu] (HERE); iyayA [khiglA]
>> (THERE);
>>
>> PASSING BY MOTION : (??) (HERE): hiyayA
>> [gliglA] (THERE).
>>
>> Question 1 : What happened to the missing pair of stems meaning ;
>> "pass by on the way coming here [home]"?
>>
>> Or have I got myself into another fine
>> (logical) mess?
>>
>>
>> Now, perhaps of greater relevance to David's email below, on pp.
>> 289-290, Taylor goes on to make the following fascinating (to me)
>> observations regarding
>> "PHONOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE SHAPES OF THE BASIC STEMS", entailed
>> by the addition of the vertative k prefix :
>>
>> "(The resultant changes) give some clues as to the underlying form
>> of the simple stems.(......)
>> Note that only ' u ' seems to have the same underlying and surface
>> forms.
>> ' i ' becomes ' hi ' when the vertative prefix is added, while '
>> hi ' and ' ya ' have ' l ' as their initial consonant when the
>> vertative prefix is present.
>> Underlying stem forms derivable from the comparison of the
>> vertative and non-vertative sets are ' Li ' (to arrive here), '
>> u' (to be coming), ' hi ' (to arrive there), and ' LA ' (to be
>> going).
>> (The symbol ' L ' represents an unspecified liquid.)
>> Consideration of additional related and other morphological forms
>> shows, however, that some of these suggested underlying forms need
>> further refinement.
>> Morphophonemic alternations involving the Lakhota liquid, ' l ' ,
>> are of two kinds.
>> On the one hand, there is a frequent and regular alternation of /
>> l / and / y / , an example of which is the ' yA : glA ' pair we
>> have just seen.
>> On the other hand, there is the exceedingly rare interchange of /
>> l / and / h / which is seen in the pair ' hi : gli '.
>> ' L ' in the two stems ' Li ' and ' LA ' could possibly represent
>> the same underlying liquid, since the following vowels are
>> different, but ' L ' might also represent different liquids in
>> those two stems. For the moment, we will consider that the two '
>> L's ' are identical, although one may have to be changed on the
>> basis of comparative evidence.
>> The suggested underlying form ' u ' also proves inadequate when
>> the inflection of the verb is consulted. Although the stem ' u '
>> has a perfectly regular inflection today, a now obsolete,
>> apparently regular paradigm for this verb shows ' phu ' in the
>> first person singular. The earlier underlying form of this stem
>> has to be ' hu ' in order to yield this paradigmatic form."
>>
>> Question 2 : Does this obsolete ' phu ' form explain such variants
>> as ' (wa)hibu' (in add. to the more common 'wahiyu') from 'hiyu'?
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Clive.
>>
>> P.S. What an immense loss to North-American linguistic scholarship
>> the tragic & premature loss of this dazzling scholar, Alan Taylor,
>> was!
>> May I pay my own small meed of posthumous tribute to him here :
>> Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.
>> Requiescas in pace.
>>
>>
>> On 14/12/2007, at 1:02 AM, ROOD DAVID S wrote:
>>
>>> 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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