another Siouan question

[shokooh Ingham]

Dear Bryan,
Thank you for the interesting examples.  The strange thing about all of these in Lakota and to a limited extent it seems in Omaha, is that they all look so similar.  Lakota has ki- possessive and ki- dative, which I think occur in slightly different positions and have different morphophonemics, then kichi- (final stress) reciprocal, kici- (initial stress) benefactive, then ic'i- reflexive (final stress) and finally ichi- (initial stress) the ditransitive/reciprocal.  It looks as though it is deliberately designed to annoy and confuse the foreigner.
Bruce

Bryan Gordon <linguista at gmail.com> wrote: 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 kÊ°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 kÊ°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
kÊ°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:
Íkkippehíⁿhiⁿxti - just like pillows on top of each other (403.8)
from íⁿbehiⁿ (pillow)
íkkippaháⁿzhiwáthe - caused them to be unable to recognise each other (624.10)
from íbahaⁿ (know)
wándaⁿ íkʰikʰaⁿtʰáⁿbi-amá - tied them together with it (150.17)
from kʰaⁿtʰaⁿ (tie)
Ankʰíkʰibanáⁿ - we run a race together (165.12)
from kʰibanaⁿ (race)
ékʰithe - related to one another (84.13)
from ethe (related)
ékʰigthaⁿbi-amá - came together again (two split pieces of ground) (291.10)
from égthaⁿ (put something on something)
Kʰigthádabi-amá. - they crawled up on him together (360.5)
from gthade (crawl up on someone)
akʰígthiⁿ - sat together on it (421.3)
from agthiⁿ (sit on something)
ákʰithétte - crossed it (the creek) together (422.7)
from áthitte (cross), áthitta (across)
akʰízhaⁿi - lay together (433.1)
from azhaⁿ (lie on something)
zháⁿkkiʔáⁿhe - situated lying together (627.3)
from zhaⁿʔaⁿhe (put oneself on top of someone, or put a body somewhere)
ukʰíkʰie - talk together (very frequent word)
from ukÊ°ie (talk with someone)

I think ankʰíkʰibanáⁿ 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 kÊ°i and kki.

- Bryan James Gordon


       
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