Dakota 'orphan'

[REGINA PUSTET]

The structure of waxpanica 'poor' is apparently analogous to that of wablenica 'orphan'. But the position of ma- '1SG.PAT' is variable in waxpanica. Although Buechel has ma-waxpanica, I have recorded wa-ma-xpanica as well. The etymology of waxpanica is a lot clearer than that of wablenica: waxpaye 'baggage' (according to Buechel), plus nica, this time cogently the 'lack' word for semantic reasons. Given that the position of ma- is not necessarily fixed in compounds of this type, I'd vote for nica 'lack' as a component of wablenica. As for the wable component: no idea.

Regina



--- On Fri, 8/5/11, Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu> wrote:

From: Rankin, Robert L <rankin at ku.edu>
Subject: Dakota 'orphan'
To: "siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU" <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Friday, August 5, 2011, 9:05 AM


> Should the "nica" component in wablenica be the word nicA
> 'to lack smth/sb' then I would expect the 1st singular form
> of wablenica to be wablemanice. In reality the 1st singular
> is wamablenica (i.e. 'ma' is not affixed before nica and the
> final vowel is not ablauted, as it is in nicA).

> This makes me wonder that perhaps nicA 'to lack smth/sb' is not part of wablenica. What do you think?
> Jan

Given the parallel compounds in so many other Siouan languages, I'm quite convinced that /nica/ is indeed the cognate of /dhiNge, niNge, niki/, etc.  I guess, then, that I'd agree with Bruce:

> . . .  but equally it could have started from -nica and then the word got reanalysed as a unit, which would explain the placing of ma- in wa-mable-nica and could also explain the non ablaut which Jan mentions
Bruce

Reanalysis is pretty common with these two-part verbs.  For example the verb 'to cough', /hoxpe/, which incorporates the noun /ho:/ 'voice'.  In some Dhegiha languages it is conjugated conservatively, 
1sg      ho- a-xpe, 
2sg      ho-ra-xpe, 
3sg      ho      xpe
1pl oN-ho      xp-ape

In other Dhegiha languages it is reanalyzed as a gestalt and conjugated innovatively:
1sg  a-hoxpe
2sg ra-hoxpe
3sg      hoxpe
1pl oN-hoxp-ape

I feel sure nica here is the 'lack' verb, at least historically.  I'd be a lot happier if I knew exactly what wable was by itself.  Jan shows with wa-ma-ble that the root is -ble.

Bob
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