Deictic motion verbs

Thu Feb 15 09:21:02 UTC 2007

Dear Jimm,

thank you very much for sending around this list with deictic motion verbs in 
IOM. Most of the forms and meanings are quite familiar to me, because they have 
obvious correspondences in Hocank. Taking Linda's systematic description of the 
forms as a point of departure, it is easy to compare the deictic motion verbs 
formally and semantically. The respective forms in Hocank are given in the table 
below, which I adapted from Linda's dissertation (I hope you receive this table 
uncorrupted). The forms behind the slashes are your IOM forms; (abbrev. DC = 
deictic center, usually the speaker)

                           phase of motion

                                begin
                            be on the way
                                arrive

                           -motion toward DC
                                 [GO]
                         -motion towards base
                                rée/re
                                raahé
                                hii/hi

                         +motion towards base
                               keré/gre
                                karahé
                                gii/gi

                           +motion toward DC
                                [COME]
                         -motion towards base
                                húu/hu
                              huuhé/huhe
                                jíi/ji

                         +motion towards base
                                gúu/gu
                              guuhé/guhe
                               kirí/gri

Now, all forms in IOM have exact correspondences in Hocank except two of them, 
the first one  hire (go off; depart)  and 10.  gigre (go by; going away; be gone)). There is a verb in Hocank 
hiiré 'to go by', 'to go through', 'to go to', which seems to be the cognate of the first form in your list. I suspect it does not 
belong to the list of deictic motion verbs. At least in Hocank, we do not count is as a deictic motion verb (but who 
knows). The second IOM form gigre has no direct cognate in Hocank (we have no similar form in the dictionary), but it 
looks to me like a composition of gi-gre and gre corresponds in Hocank to kere (see the table!). I suspect the IOM gi- is 
related to ki-(REFL)/ or gi- (BEN) in Hocank, but I have no oppinion about this. 

Right now, Iren Hartmann (my research assistant) and myself are compiling a list of combinations of deictic motion 
verbs with each other and with other verbs in order to find out somthing about the asymmetries in the usage (and 
semantics, markedness, grammaticalization) of these forms in Hocank. 

On the other hand the two forms I marked in blue in the table above are missing in IOM? These are 
the 'being on the way' or 'progressive/ continuative' forms - certainly the marked forms (it is 
obvious, that these forms are composed historically). Interesting, isn't it?

All the best,
Johannes

---------- Ursprüngliche Nachricht / Original message ----------
Datum:	Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:55:35 -0600
Antwort an:	siouan at lists.colorado.edu
Von:	<goodtracks at peoplepc.com>
An:	<siouan at lists.colorado.edu>
Betreff:	Re: MOTION VERBS

Brian:
Thanks for your reply and that of Bob; and meanwhile, excuss that long time to reply.

If you refer to the chart we got from Linda, there were some languages that had more complete repertoires of motion 
verbs than others. 
I happen to be sitting next to Johannes as Linda made her presentation, so I was able to add on to the lOM lists 
those that she left out.
For Group Adeparted from "here". (Follow down on her list as she listed the terms), the corrections, additions 
are:
1. hire (go off; depart)
2. re (go; be going; start going). Destination not mentioned.
3. hi (arrive there [going]).
4. gu (depart back; start back[to return here]).
5. guhe (be coming back; approach coming back).
6. gri (arrive back home; arrive back at the place one initiated the action of departing).

Group B departed from "there".
7. hu (start to come; be coming).
8. huhe (be coming; on way to there).
9. ji (arrive there at this place).
10. gigre (go by; going away; be gone).
11.gre (come back home; be coming back).
12. gi (arrive going back there to that place)

You see those "combined" forms like hidhe in older texts. OP arrival verbs seem to be aspectually accomplishment 
verbs (that is, they entail a bounded activity, a process with a definite termination point). Is it the same for other Siouan 
languages?

IOM is particularily rich in combined forms. I have not ever tried to list them. However, a quick glance at the 
dictionary, we find:
Arrive going back; go on by = jigre.
Come here; draw near; approach=jihu.
Go to a certain place   = iware.
Have gone home again  =  gre rustan.
Go having something; take = añi re.
Depart back with s.t.; bring=añi gu.
Come back home & sit down/
Return to one's seat = grinange.
Arrive having something =  añi hi.

And so it goes. And I am fairly sure that the other Siouan languages have similar examples to offer.

Now, when time permits, to see how it all comes out in the texts....when time permits.
Jimm

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bryan Gordon 
  To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu 
  Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 5:33 PM
  Subject: Fwd: Any reference terms for frozen hide?

  Howdy Jimm!

  It's not a given that the motion verb template functions the same across 
  all the languages, BUT I think it's a really nice working hypothesis that 
  it does work the same or almost the same, and we can all test it in our 
  respective languages to see how much the same it does work. 

  If you refer to the chart we got from Linda, there were some languages that 
  had more complete repertoires of motion verbs than others. 
  For instance, I remember that most of the languages collapsed the verbs of 
  departure and motion-in-progress together, and distinguished them from 
  verbs of arrival. But there were some that had three separate categories 
  for these. Also, I remember that the verbs of departure, for some reason, 
  seemed to be composed of the other two categories in most cases. 

  Omaha-Ponca seems in a more archaic form to have distinguished all three, 
  but in its modern form only to distinguish the two. You see those 
  "combined" forms like hidhe in older texts.

  Another note: OP arrival verbs seem to be aspectually accomplishment verbs 
  (that is, they entail a bounded activity, a process with a definite 
  termination point). This is very different from English arrival verbs, 
  which are aspectually achievement verbs (that is, they entail just the 
  termination point, not the process that precedes it). Is it the same for 
  other Siouan languages? 

  By way of explanation, in English, we would say, "After work I went home 
  and ate," while in OP we would say "After work I arrived back there at home 
  and ate." You only use the OP motion verb "go back there" when the motion 
  is in progress or has just begun, and you only use the English arrival verb 
  when you're not interested in the motion part. 

  - Bryan

--

Prof. Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht
Professur für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Regensburg
Institut für Medien-, Informations-, und Kulturwissenschaft (IMIK)
Universitätsstr. 31
93053 Regensburg
Deutschland

Tel: ++49(0)941 943-3388
        ++49(0)941 943-3387 (Sekretariat)
Fax: ++49(0)941 943-2429
E-Mail: johannes.helmbrecht at sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de

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