Ablaut et al

[rankin at KU.EDU]

Yes Winn. lost final short unaccented -e for the most part.  Dakotan MAY have also, replacing it with -A.  

Bob

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: <voorhis at WESTMAN.WAVE.CA>
Sender: Siouan Linguistics <SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:37:47 
To: <SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
Reply-To: Siouan Linguistics <SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu>
Subject: Re: Ablaut et al

Bob & Bruce,

Just going by memory here: I don't have the books at hand for reference,
but don't a lot of the words where accent would predict a final
consonant in Dakota according to Shaw actually appear with the final
consonant in Winnebago: sep 'black', shunk 'dog', phec 'fire', etc.
Does this correlate with the Dakota words, or does Winnebago just drop
some or all final vowels?  Someone with the reference works handy will
have to check it.

As for the Semitic stem extensions, you can't just randomly add extra
consonants to get new roots, of course.  Has anyone ever explained what
the assorted suffixes like -f, -m, -r added to qat- might mean?  Can
they be identified with other monosyllabic roots yielding even vaguely
consistent changes in the semantics of the extended roots? Exactly the
same problem arises with Indo-European root extensions.  It looks to me
like the same thing as seeing an original root fl- in flicker, flit,
flash, flip, and flutter.

Paul


On 8/30/2011 12:42 PM, Rankin, Robert L wrote:
> Bruce,
>
> This is indeed an interesting topic.  There is a close correlation
> between Shaw's (and Carter's, etc.) Dakotan "consonant-final stems"
> and stems where the other Siouan languages have long vowels.  The
> rule seems to have been:  If the 1st syllable is long, it is
> accented; if it is short, accent the 2nd syllable.  Or, it could be
> phrased in terms of morae.  This begs the question whether or not
> Dakota had final vowels in the initial accent words.  I'm off this
> afternoon on a short trip up to Omaha and Council Bluffs and will
> return to this issue when I get back.
>
> Best,
>
> Bob
>
>________________________________________ From: Siouan Linguistics
> [SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu] on behalf of shokooh Ingham
> [shokoohbanou at YAHOO.CO.UK] Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 7:23 AM
> To: SIOUAN at listserv.unl.edu Subject: Ablaut et al
>
> --- On Mon, 29/8/11, rankin at KU.EDU<rankin at KU.EDU>  wrote:
>
> Bob, This is in reply to your earlier message , where you sent your
> article on Mississipi Valley Siouan "Ablaut".  Thanks very much for
> that.   I found it very interesting and noticed that you mentioned
> Shaw's work on Dakota phonology, which I read many years ago, there
> being a copy of it in the SOAS library.  One thing which interested
> me in Shaw was her explanation of the exceptional initial stress in
> certain disyllabic stems, káǧa  'to make' being one I think. She
> posits an earlier monosyllabic, final consonantal form for these
> stems such as kaǧ- . I have never seen this discussed much and
> wondered what other Siouanists thought about it.  It seems like a
> very neat analysis and parallels the argument of Greenberg about
> Semitic lexical stems which are now disyllabic in the majority such
> as katab 'to write'.  He suggests that Semitic stems were originally
> monosyllabic (in fact bisonsonantal) and that the second syllable
> (or the third consonant depending on how you look at it) is a later
> addition allowing for lexical expansion, an initial qat- 'cut'
> giving later qata', qataf, qatam, qasar and others all realtable to
> the idea of 'cutting'.  The other advantage is that it makes Semitic
> stems look more like Indo-European ones, which is attractive.
> Without wishing to appear to be talking Nostratic, I do like the idea
> of original monosyllabic stems, but of course it does get into
> difficult ground as to how far back you think you can go.  I wonder
> whether it holds up in other Siouan languages. Bruce
>