Borrowings.

[Pamela Munro]

I have an alternative view on Western Muskogean 'nine'.

Chickasaw chákka'li / chakká'li 'to be nine' (cognate to the Choctaw 
forms Bob cites) seems quite clearly to be a g[eminate]-grade form (i.e. 
ablauted aspectual form) of a verb chakali 'to be pregnant, great with 
child', which my Chickasaw teacher knows but regards as Choctaw.

You might not immediately see a connection between 'nine', and 
'pregnant', but a variety of languages express 'nine' as something like 
'just about ready to reach (something, i.e. ten)', so I believe that 
these two verbs are in fact related. This suggests that the WM forms 
have their own etymology and thus aren't likely to be loans.

Bob is correct that -li can be a verb ending in these languages (e.g. in 
chokma 'to be good' / chokmali 'to make good'). I don't know any 
evidence that the -li in 'to be nine' is segmentable, however, unless 
one believes that all verb-final li's are segmentable.

Pam

On 9/9/13 5:48 PM, Rankin, Robert L. wrote:
> > I recall John Koontz mentioning some other forms to me – items for ‘cucumber’ from French concombre, and 
> also ttapuska ‘student, teacher’ which is shared by Dhegiha and 
> Pawnee.  I don’t know about ‘hau’ but Comanche ‘aho’ (hello) is 
> supposed to come from Kiowa.
>
> Allan Taylor did a comprehensive "how" count at one point. I don't 
> think he ever published results though.  'Cucumber' begins with /kko 
> /the PSI root for 'gourd', so it may be a borrowing or it may be a 
> coincidence again.  'Pig' is definitely from French.
>
> > Shankka also has reflexes in Western Muskogean (Choctaw and Chickasaw)
>
>
> Maybe.  The word is/čákkáàli/ and -/ali/ is an ending all right.  It 
> is borrowed into Biloxi as /čkane /I think.
>
>
> Note the Tutelo and Ofo terms. Tutelo has /ḳasą́hka/, so it is 
> definitely in the /shankka/ zone.
>
>
> Ofo /*kíštatǝška*//Sw //kĭ´ctatạcga/ — nine;//p. 325.  Some words 
> where /š/is expected turn up with /št/instead.  So this may contain 
> some variant of /shankka/ somehow. The prefix with /k/ mirrors Tutelo 
> to an extent but the sound correspondences aren't quite right.
>
>
> So this peculiar term for '9' turns up in Chiwere, Dhegiha, Tutelo and 
> maybe Ofo.  There are partial look-alikes in Western Muskogean and 
> Biloxi.  So it's not just around the Great Lakes region in Siouan, but 
> there's no trace in the Northwest of Siouan.
>
>
> Bob
>
>

-- 
Pamela Munro,
Distinguished Professor, Linguistics, UCLA
UCLA Box 951543
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/munro/munro.htm

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