"phute'okicu" (etymological enquiry)

Tue Jan 22 10:51:17 UTC 2008

Incidentally, I have collected some data on kicu 'to give back to' because this verb gave me trouble when dealing with Lakota benefactives/possessives. The file still looks chaotic and I'm not even trying to present you with a clear picture of the morphological properties of kicu, but I think I can say this much:
  phutokicu 'elephant' might easily be derived from kicu 'to give back', a possible interpretation being 'to give back to the upper lip'. Elephants use their trunks to grab stuff and place it in their mouths (under their upper lips?) by bending back the trunk. So they pretty much 'give back' or return the upper lip to their mouths. Well, maybe that still sounds a bit weird. How about 'to give things (wo-) back to the upper lip'? Or: 'to give/move things back WITH the upper lip' (the trunk is an extension of the upper lip)? 
  Examples for kicu:
  ogle ki       kicu
  shirt DEF give back
  'he returned the shirt to her'

  he     kicu           we!
  that   give back  imperative
  'give it back to him!'

  In contrast to what Buechel says, kicu should not be written kic'u because the c is absolutely not glottalized. I will still have to figure out on the basis of my data if there is an etymological connection between kicu and icu 'to take', or possibly even between kicu and k'u 'to give', and whether a benefactive or possessive ki- should be posited as morphological component of kicu. I have transcribed the c in kicu as an unaspirated stop. 
  Some of the flyspecks in Buechel's transcription are negligible and confusing because they simulate phonetic distinctions which aren't there. There are three types of stops in Lakota: unaspirated, aspirated, and glottalized. Buechel adds a fourth category, which represents a special type of aspiration, but which I have never been able to single out acoustically. According to Buechel's definition, this must be a "gutturalized aspiration", and the exact phonetic value of this category still is a mystery to me. 
  icu 'to take' has an irregular benefactive/possessive form ikikcu. The expected form ikicu does not exist.

  Regina

Clive Bloomfield <cbloom at ozemail.com.au> wrote:    I've been little puzzled about the Buechel-Manhart etymology supplied for phute'okicu or phuto'kicu [=elephant] : 
  (Quote) Page 278 : "from pute'= upper lip + wokicu=what one RESTORES." (unquote, my emphasis). Why 'restores'? 'Restores' what? 
  Moreover, one notes that while 'wok'u' [with specialized meanings : i) give food to; ii) lend] does occur in the dictionary, the said form 'wokicu' is nowhere given.

  If I am correctly interpreting B-Md.'s rather bamboozling system of tiny superscript dots & microscopic inverted "flyspecks"  for annotation of the unaspirated/aspirated/"gutturalized"/ejective consonantal contrast, as employed in their phonological transcriptions for each dictionary headword (2002 edition), this word is "phute'okichu", hence, apparently, that etymology from kichu 'restore/give back' 
  (or is that just 'kicu'? - & I'm using a large magnifying glass! 
  In my edition of B-Md., the -c- is printed with NO dot, so accdg. to the Guide to Pron. p.xiv, it sounds as intitial ch- is Engl. 'chair' : aspirated, no?). 

  B&D. supply [p.89, Sect 104, 1.] : kichu' =to give back one's own'. 

  On the other hand, at the entry for kichu (kicu?) 'restore' , B-Md., (echoing Riggs' Dakota dict., s.v.), make a point of saying that this verb, by rights, ought to be kic'u, (as a derivative, obviously of k'u, with B&D's ki- 'back again' prefix), but ISN'T, and loses the ejectivity of C2. Perhaps then it is kicu, after all??

  Initially, I supposed that some confusion had arisen, perhaps due to Fr. Manhart (possibly?) being rather 'hoist in the petard' of this somewhat quirky orthographical system, and that perhaps the verbal part of the compound might be simply a Dative-Possessive form of icu 'take/take up', with added locative prefix 'o-' 'inside', hence etymology : 'he picks (it) up inside his upper-lip (trunk)'-->'elephant'.
  But then one observes that icu has an (apparently reduplicated/syncopated?) possessive form 'ikikcu' 'take back what one has given/take back one's own' (B-Md. s.v.), and there also  exists a form 'iikcu' 'take or obtain what one expects', but apparently no 'ikicu'! Wouldn't the form corresponding to my etymological speculation here, have been (phute)-oIKIcu?

  Anyway, while people are setting me straight on that, here's another speculative idea to account for the etymology of 'phute'okichu' :

  There is a verb ochu' meaning "to become damp in/to have drops of water inside". 
  The Dative/Possessive form might be "okíchu" : "it has [drops of] water inside (FOR him)"--->"his ....has [drops of] water inside". 

  Could the etymology of  phutéokichu be "his trunk (lit. upper lip) has [drops of] water inside" or "he has water inside his trunk", possibly originating when some Lakota person first saw a circus elephant giving itself a "shower"? 

  I know: it's a bit 'cute', and prob. transgresses good old William of Occam's ever-useful maxim, but I plead the mitigation of those infuriating dots swimming before my eyes!
  Il ne s'agit qu' un crime passionel, monsieur le juge! ;)

  Kind regards,

  Clive.

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