Siouan positional verbs

[Dan Folkus]

Sorry to bother you, David. Your various trajectories for specific
ethnographic research should remain unbounded by my more generalized take.
I'm a Wittgensteinian guy really, meaning *ordinary language* philosophy.
Ludwig used English and German. The sad thing is if the terms 'sit' and
'lie', as I interpret them, don't make ANY sense to you. I must be out of my
depth. I'll just listen then...
On 12/12/09, David Kaufman <dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry, Dan, but I'm afraid I don't follow what you're saying.  Can you
> elaborate?
>
> As a follow-up to my first email, I wanted to pass along a message I
> received from a fellow anthro grad student whose grandfather lived in SE
> Kansas for 95 years, though he was born in Italy:
>
> "My Italian grandfather would say a field lies and a boundary-less piece of
> land sits, and the ocean sits and the rivers lie."
>
> While this may seem like an unlikely source of support for this argument,
> we suspect that his grandfather talked to indigenous peoples perhaps from
> the Oklahoma nations, which, particularly if these were Siouan and/or
> Muskogean, would make sense.
>
> Dave
>
> --- On *Sat, 12/12/09, Dan Folkus <dan.folkus at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Dan Folkus <dan.folkus at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Siouan positional verbs
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
> Date: Saturday, December 12, 2009, 2:43 PM
>
>
> This boundedness flucuates in the case of the river, so the river lies
> across a land that sits there. The riverbed is temporary, I think. But a
> river lying on a bed that sits, well that seems normal, even if the river
> recedes.
>
> On 12/11/09, David Kaufman <dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=dvklinguist2003@yahoo.com>>
> wrote:
>>
>>  Hello everyone:
>>
>> I'm writing my third Field Statement (Anthro precursors to a dissertation)
>> on positional verbs in Biloxi and Siouan, and I'd thought I'd see if any of
>> you had comments on a couple of things. (I realize Siouan languages vary
>> considerably in how they use positional verb classifiers.)  (BTW--yes, I'll
>> be doing my diss on Biloxi - I've switched my focus from Algonquian back to
>> Siouan.)
>>
>> In Biloxi, positional verb classifiers are used, apparently as in other
>> Siouan languages, to denote shape or position along vertical 'stand',
>> horizontal 'lie-recline', or neutral 'sit' axes.  Some of these are obvious
>> while others are not.  What I'm really curious about is their use in natural
>> landscape objects, such as lake, river, land, field, etc.  I find it
>> interesting that, in Omaha-Ponca, land (in general) 'sits'
>> (neutral/unmarked) (maNzhaN dhaN) while a field 'lies/reclines' (u'e
>> dhe-khe).  Streams, rivers, bayous seem to 'lie/recline' (both Biloxi & OP),
>> although a lake 'sits' in BI but 'lies' in OP.  In BI a forest also 'sits'.
>> I'm wondering then if the difference between this 'sit' and 'lie' might be
>> one of boundedness - unbounded/non-delimited/invisible boundaries 'sit'
>> (land [general]/forest/lake?) vs. visible boundaries/delimited 'lie/recline'
>> (river/field/lake?).  While it seems intuitive to think of a river as
>> flat/horizontal (which it is!), we can also see it as being bounded (you can
>> usually see both banks of a river) and a field is usually partitioned off or
>> small enough to see its limits.  (Koasati Muskogean also has towns, fields,
>> rivers, as 'lying/reclining' - bounded?).  As for the lake 'sitting' in BI
>> vs. 'lying' in OP, this may well be something that is language- or
>> culture-specific depending on the size of particular lakes in a
>> cultural/linguistic area.  Perhaps the Biloxis saw a large lake (the Gulf?)
>> of which they could not see its edges or boundaries, while Omahas saw a
>> smaller lake with well-defined boundaries.
>>
>> The other curiosity is the use of positional verbs with body parts.  In
>> BI, an aching body part 'stands' (e.g., my head stands = I have a
>> headache).  A hand in OP always seems to 'stand' regardless of its actual
>> position at any given time, but I don't know about other body parts and in
>> what context these are used.
>>
>> I hope this makes sense!  Any thoughts, examples, counter-examples anyone?
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>
>
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