Dakota 'orphan'

[Jan Ullrich]

> The structure of waxpanica 'poor' is apparently analogous to 

> that of wablenica 'orphan'. 

 

I agree that re-analyses if often a factor in shifting the affixation spot and that it could be the case in wablenica, just as it obviously is in waxpanicA. 

But note that waxpanicA has ablaut, unlike wablenica. This is why I am still a little reserved to the theory that the “nica” component of wablenica comes from the verb “nicA” ‘to lack sth’. Why would it retain ablaut in one compound and not in another. I am not saying it is not possible, but there are lots of ka suffixes (ca when palatilized) that are potential candidates for the wablenica etymology.

 

 

> But the position of ma- '1SG.PAT' 

> is variable in waxpanica. Although Buechel has ma-waxpanica, 

> I have recorded wa-ma-xpanica as well. 

 

Buechel borrowed the 1st singular form from Riggs (see page 502 in the 1992 edition) and as far as I can tell it hasn’t been attested by a native Lakota speaker nor through authentic Lakota texts. It is possible that mawaxpanice is the 1st singular form in the Santee-Sisseton dialect but in Lakota the affix ‑ma- is rarely used in front of the indefinite object marker ‑wa- (I only know a couple of verbs where it is in this position). So until it is attested I consider the form given in Buechel’s dictionary (i.e. mawaxpanice) to be an error, at least for Lakota. There is plenty of evidence that Buechel borrowed an extensive number of inaccuracies and Dakota (i.e. non-Lakota) forms from Riggs and this is likely one of them.

Authentic texts (including texts from the Buechel collection) give the form wamaxpanice. This form is also given in the grammar by Boas & Deloria.

 

Jan

 

 




--- 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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