another Siouan question

[Rankin, Robert L]

Bryan,
 
Are you certain there is a /khi-/ prefix with a reflexive or reciprocal, etc. meaning in Omaha?  I suspect Dorsey's transcription here.  Kansa and Quapaw have kki- 'reflexive' and kkikki- 'recip.', both with /kk/, never /kh/.  The only place I get /kh/ is with the syncopated form of the dative causative, k+hiye > /khiye/, but the k-h here is bimorphemic, not a unitary prefix.  I defer to the folks who speak or are studying Omaha and Ponca on this, but I seriously suspect JOD's ear here.
 
Bob

________________________________

From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Bryan Gordon
Sent: Mon 12/17/2007 5:51 PM
To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: another Siouan question



Bruce -

I don't know the etymology of most of these prefixes, but Omaha and
Ponca have an interesting choice between two reciprocals as well, and
they seem to be able to treat patients rather than agents, or a
general sense of "together", in the same way as ichi-.

kki and k?i are the two prefixes. Dorsey had a hard time
distinguishing between these sometimes, so it's not always clear that
it's a correct transcription, but there do seem to be some
regularities. Usually k?i is taken to be the "real" reciprocal, and we
analyse kki as a reflexive that just happens to have a reciprocal
function sometimes.

Reciprocal kki doesn't seem to be any more restricted in its use than
k?i, at least in Dorsey. I don't know what the situation is for modern
speakers.

Here are some examples of the patient-oriented reciprocal from Dorsey:
Íkkippehí?hi?xti - just like pillows on top of each other (403.8)
from í?behi? (pillow)
íkkippahá?zhiwáthe - caused them to be unable to recognise each other (624.10)
from íbaha? (know)
wánda? ík?ik?a?t?á?bi-amá - tied them together with it (150.17)
from k?a?t?a? (tie)
Ank?ík?ibaná? - we run a race together (165.12)
from k?ibana? (race)
ék?ithe - related to one another (84.13)
from ethe (related)
ék?igtha?bi-amá - came together again (two split pieces of ground) (291.10)
from égtha? (put something on something)
K?igthádabi-amá. - they crawled up on him together (360.5)
from gthade (crawl up on someone)
ak?ígthi? - sat together on it (421.3)
from agthi? (sit on something)
ák?ithétte - crossed it (the creek) together (422.7)
from áthitte (cross), áthitta (across)
ak?ízha?i - lay together (433.1)
from azha? (lie on something)
zhá?kki?á?he - situated lying together (627.3)
from zha??a?he (put oneself on top of someone, or put a body somewhere)
uk?ík?ie - talk together (very frequent word)
from uk?ie (talk with someone)

I think ank?ík?ibaná? provides evidence that the reciprocal can
actually be an additional proposition rather than an integrated
component of the main proposition - the verb has no patients, only
agents, and yet the way that they are reciprocal is patient-oriented,
because it more or less means "we race AND we are together when we do
it".

I wonder if anyone has found usage differences between k?i and kki.

- Bryan James Gordon