Syntax of Lakhota Sentence from "Lakota Eyapaha"

[Clive Bloomfield]

Hello Regina, First of all, many thanks for those enlightening &  
subtle comments, as well as for the extra data.
Your second example is most intriguing! Is "eyas^" there on its way  
to becoming a sentence-final (adverbial?) particle, (in addition to  
the more usual conjunctional use), I wonder?
Presumably also some degree of Ellipsis is operative? (e.g. a  
suppressed concessive clause, or such.)

Incidentally, "kecamin" is as it appears in Starr's trad.  
orthography, (I inserted the aspirated c, and the penultimate word- 
accent [probably incorrectly, from another source], as well as  
interpreting the final "-n" as a nasal, in my transcription ) but  
perhaps it may be a typo. I thought it was probably a (sub-)dialectal  
variant of "kéchaNmi". Starr tells us at one point that he is Oglala,  
from Pine Ridge (but of Hunkpapa ancestry, through one of his  
grandfathers : "Ehanni tunkasilawaye kin Ojula Hunkpapa heca." [p.  
53]..."Lehanl Oglala na Hunkpapa we hankeke ematanhan." [p. 54]).

On checking just now, I notice that my edition of Fr. Buechel's  
Grammar [p.70, #49,  e) ] , rather confusingly, gives  
"kécami" (accented thus, & sans aspirate) as 1stPsg. of "kéciN",  
whereas Buechel-Manhart Dict. has "kéc(h)anmi" from "kéc(h)iN"
To tell you the truth, I find Fr. Manhart's system of denoting  
aspirated stops very trying (and difficult to even see, without the  
aid of a large magnifier!)

Regards,

Clive.

P.S. Wishing you & your team great success with the Reference  
Grammar. Sorely needed! Oglu waste eciciyapelo.


On 14/06/2007, at 5:46 PM, REGINA PUSTET wrote:

> 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:
>
>
> "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."
> 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.
>
>
>
>
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> Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center.

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