Biloxi nominal markers

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> ... The impression I get from working with Dave on the Biloxi matter
> (just watching him do all the work, actually) is that it involves focus
> more than just definiteness.

Of course, there's definitely something in the line of focus going on with
the more independent -e ~ e that turns up widely in Mississippi Valley,
including Omaha-Ponca.  That's quite clearly syncrhonically distinct form
noun suffixes per se in MV, but I think it is clearly the same element
found in contexts like Dakotan miye, niye, etc., where the intrusive -r-
surfaces.

I suppose we could see archaic Dakota forms like thas^uNke 'his
(particular) horse' vs. s^uNka 'horse' as thas^unk=e 'the one that is his
horse'.  But along the lines I'm thinking this would then mean that the
-(r)e on nouns in Dhegiha and IO and would be essentially a bleached focus
marker reduced to noun morphology and at the same time occuring in a
functioning, non-moribund capacity as -e FOCUS in forms like e-e 'it is
the one that' and numerous other contexts.  Further afield, e.g., in
Mandan and Biloxi it would be more lively and transparent in meaning in
all contexts.

I tend to think that the demonstrative e 'the aforesaid; it' is the same
thing, too.

I know you don't trust protean morphemes like this, but we do have some
others, e.g., -gaN in OP, that show that a piece of morphology can get
caught up and used and reused in various ways, productive and
non-productive.

> But heck, what do I know?

Usually quite a lot in my experience.  :-)