Syntax of Lakhota Sentence from "Lakota Eyapaha"

[REGINA PUSTET]

Sentence-final eyas^ occurs in my data also. It imposes a concessive meaning that is sometimes hard to capture in translations. In
   
  wakhaN-yaN    ma-wa-ni                  is^ta  ma-sanila                   eyas^.
  spiritual-ADV  walk-1SG.AG-walk  eye  1SG.PAT-one+sided  EYAS^
  'I'm walking in a spiritual way, although I'm blind on one eye
   
  'although' works as a translation. The next example is a tougher case:
   
  tuwa         lel    hi        sece      eyas^.
  someone  here  arrive  maybe  EYAS^
  'Maybe someone has arrived'
   
  Here eyas^ implies that the arrival of 'someone' should have been noticed by the speaker. A more literal translation of your example might be something like 'although I have dealt with this in great detail [continuative -haN intensifies action] (and I actually should have encountered problems), I think it is easy to do'.
  iNs^e is an attenuating particle that can be translated by 'just' or 'maybe' in many cases. 
  BTW: is there a typo in kechámiN ? I'm familiar with the form kechaNmi for 'I think that' only.
   
  Regina
   
   
  

Clive Bloomfield <cbloom at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
  Greetings folks, I've been content to remain in "deep lurk mode" here 
for a quite a while, but now at last curiosity has got the better of 
me again!

I was wondering if any Lakhota scholar, or knowledgable person here 
could explain the syntactical construction of the following 
interesting sentence from "Lakota Eyapaha", by Ivan STARR (Lakota 
Books, Kendall Park, N.J., 1996. Page 27)? (Especially the second 
part of the sentence "enclosed" by "iNs^e....eyas^")

"Oecun was^te kecamin iNs^e iwaNblakahe eyas^." [ /OéchuN was^té 
kechámiN iNs^é iwáNblakahe éyas^/ ]

The translation supplied on Page 29, (presumably done by the author 
himself), reads :

"I'VE BEEN STUDYING THIS PROBLEM AND FROM MY OBSERVATIONS I THINK IT 
CAN BE DONE EASILY."

Just to make myself clear, I have no problem at all with "free" 
translations, or with Lakhota Word-Order of conjunctions, or in 
subordinate clauses. Also, the construction of : "oéchuN was^té 
kechámiN" [="I think/thought that it is/was easy to do/easily done."] 
is 100% familiar to me.
I am also familiar enough with the conjunction (or is it an adverb?) 
"iNs^é" (meaning here, one supposes, something like "in fact/indeed/ 
actually"), as well as the 1stPersonSing form of the verb : 
"iwáNyaNkA" [="look at; examine carefully/research; compare"] with 
added "Progressive" aspectual suffix : "haN/he".

What puzzles me somewhat is exactly how "éyas^" is operating there. 
What meaning, precisely, does "éyas^" add to that sentence? Is it an 
adversative conjunction? Does it link up with "iNs^é", to form a sort 
of "concessive complex" (so to speak) meaning "even though/ 
although"? Might it perhaps convey some idea of Indefiniteness?

Any observations would be appreciated.
Toksha akhe,
Clive Bloomfield.




       
---------------------------------
Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles.
Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/siouan/attachments/20070614/ce30783f/attachment.htm>