Passages of interest from "Brave Ag. the Enemy"

[Clive Bloomfield]

Questions. :

Emil Afraid-Of-Hawk text :

"Thabloka kin le etan optaye washte wan ichagapi okihi hecha yelo!"

If it WERE a relative clause with Definite Antecedent, mightn't one  
have expected 'wan' with antecedent 'thabloka' and a 'KIN' after  
'okihi'? Like so :

"le thabloka WAN etan optaye washte wan ichagapi okihi KIN hecha yelo!"
[=Here is a bull, one of the sort from which it is possible a fine  
herd may spring!]


Perhaps an even more accurate translation of such a sentence as this  
may be :

"Here/this is THE kind of bull from which it is possible that a fine  
herd may spring/be bred"

(Which is, incidentally, how I would wish to translate the E.AOH text)


Whereas if it were a relative clause with Indefinite Antecedent, like  
so :

"le thabloka WAN etan optaye wan ichagapi okihi CHA hecha yelo."

[=This is A variety of bull from which...(etc.)]

Would there be a subtle difference there in the Lakhota? Doesn't seem  
to be a great deal in the English, but I guess that would be beside  
the point here.

If okihi IS being used Personally, (rather than Impersonally, as I  
supposed), its complimentation of ichagapi would appear to be  
somewhat irregular, would it not?
With this particular verb used personally, the two subjects, 
(principal & subordinate), would normally be one & the same [SS], &  
either agree "echo-pronominalization" (Pustet, Paper in Studies in  
Language, 24:1 137-170) or show only "higher predicate encoding" of  
the (principal verb) subject, no?
Here in E.AOH's original, there appears to be "lower predicate  
encoding" without concord with higher predicate, very odd!
Which is why I thought it may be impersonal here, or perhaps used  
adverbially/modally, in some way.
I realize that okihi is classified as an [SS/OO] verb when the  
subordinate verb/lower predicate is transitive, but the [OO] part of  
parsing that does not seem applicable here.

Can anyone please clear up my confusion here?

Toksha akhe, mitakuyepi,

Clive.





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