- by A. W. Tüting -
*The author, not a linguist of profession, but dealing with many different languages since about half a century, is - and would like to be - 'naive' in the sense of not (i.e. no longer!) carry the burden of a eurocentrical-biased view on non-Western (e.g. Native) languages, as commonly experienced with Latin-based grammatical rules laid upon non-Indo-European languages. This - although amateurish - try to breaking out of the fenced-in ways of 'Weltanschauung' was favoured (or even made possible!) by dealing and experimenting with the Conlang Lojban for some years, which initially had been created for the only purpose to scholarly prove the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of language influencing human thought and - even - perception of the world around us. The Conlang Lojban (le logji bangu - 'the Logical Language') has been modeled in quite some essential features after Native languages such as Nootka (Nuu-chah-nulth), Navajo etc. (so, obviously, sharing - at least some - common traits with the Siouan tongues, too). |
The Lakota Basic SentenceIn Lakota language, an utterance is basically composed by 'parts of speech' Western linguists commonly are calling 'verbs'. At a closer look, these 'verbs' always can stand for entire 'sentences'. Roughly speaking, Western linguists commonly devide these parts in so-called 'stative verbs' and 'active verbs' (the latter subdivided in intransitives and transitives) - yet, with regard to the considerations dealt with here and their very purpose, it is preferable to quickly forget these terms for some time. It seems that,
basically, these units are all of the same kind, e.g.:
Lakota
word in traditional transcription
(I.)
It seems that first of all - unlike in Latin grammar-based understanding - there is no distinction made between 'nouns' and 'verbs' ('adjectives', 'adverbs' etc.), which is highly uncommon and hard to imagine for most people raised and 'living' in Western thinking. (As far as can be seen, the linguistic approach here is rejected by Siouan grammar books most probably due to the fact that these are the works of linguists rooted in Western concepts of language - are there any Native linguists not raised in English as their first language? Parts
of speech called 'nouns' conceptually are referring to 'things' allowing
'names' to be tagged on them ('noun' fr. Latin 'nomen' = name). Although,
of course, there are nouns also given to immaterial topics like events,
philosophical concepts and ideas, uttered words etc., one 'deeply
feels' that nouns are 'things' thought of to in principle being able
to be touched with our hands. Now, these Lakota one-word sentences already have, say, 'pointers' built-in - or better, understood - to indicate what 'participant(s)' is/are involved in what the word's semantic contents denotes. So,
- as seen above - _waste_
e.g. is a relation telling of him,
her or it to be/having been 'good' or 'beautiful', where the
one referred to is not explicitely expressed in the word, but understood. (Just notice that in Lakota, these parts of speech all are having a slight flavour of past rather than present tense, whereas the future is indicated otherwise - see below). When
these tiny sentences are to tell us of more than just one single he
- she - it involved, this usually has to be indicated by an
other grammatical 'word' or unit that is following after. This unit
is _pi_ and can be called a 'plural marker' because
telling us that the one referred to is not a singleton. (Little words
like these often are named enclitics which is Greek
meaning about 'to lean on' because - although regarded as a separate
unit and mostly written separately - they're uttered together with
the preceding one-word sentence as if attached to it or 'leaning on'
it and forming one word.) Other
'participants' like I
- you - we - you all are not already 'built-in' so one has
to slightly alter the one-word sentences in order to point to them.
Doing this, the default reference is no longer valid. So,
_kte_
(s/he, it killed him, her, it) can be
changed to now mean "I killed him, her,
it" by adding the particle _wa-_ to it,
thus getting the Lakota sentence _wakte_. (In Latin-based
grammars, these particles usually are called affix which in
Latin is about 'to add/fix to smth'; if it's inserted in the word,
it is called infix instead.)
(*the sentences _unkte_ and _unkte pi_ are ambiguous: they also can be translated as "s/he, it killed you & me" and "s/he, it killed us"/"they killed us", respectively!) But in the basic sentences _kte_ (s/he, it killed him/her/it) and _kte pi_ (they have killed him/her/it) also the second kind of participants involved can be expressed in order to point to a patient different from the default him/her/it. The so-called patient is regarded as the participant to whom the action or event denoted by the basic one-word sentence is related to, i.e., here in the case of _kte_, the one who is killed. The small particles glued to the one-word sentence (i.e. the affixes or infixes - see above! ) must be different from those for the agents shown above. So, in order to e.g. express that it is me that was killed, the basic sentence _kte_ (s/he, it killed him/her/it) has to be altered by adding the little part _ma-_ to it: _makte_ (s/he, it killed me).
(*the sentences _unkte_ and _unkte pi_ are ambiguous - see above!)
Of course, it is possible to denote both kinds of participants, i.e. agent(s) and patient(s) in a sentence like this, thus using both sets of small particles (affixes/infixes) shown above. (And there are still some others not presented so far!) There is a special particle expressing the relationship of I-agent/you-patient which is _-ci-_ [-chi-] and still one more (for the moment!) that is _wica-_ [wicha'], pointing to a - so-called 'animate' - patient in plural see below!)
Note: In these cases, the particle pointing to the patient always precedes the one pointing to the agent! Exception is _un-_ [uN], which comes first (except for _wica-_ [wicha'])
There are still other forms, e.g. the reflective where the particle _-ic'i-_ [ich'i] (=self) has to be prefixed or infixed. In these cases the patient particles have to be added. Note that the particle _-ma-_ undergoes a change in his vowel (ma-ic'i-kte -> m-ic'i-kte) and after _un-_ a _-k-_ is inserted!
Whereas 'words' like _kte_ able to take particles for agents and patients, by Western linguists usually are called active transitive verbs, there are other so-called active verbs, words that only can take particles for agents because there are no patients (or objects) to be affected by the agent respective - therefore also called intransitive. These are words/sentences like _hi_ (s/he, it comes/arrives here; to arrive here):
* Different from the so-called distributive _hi pi_, _ahi_ is used for a collective e.g. a family or a body of warriors etc.
Finally, there
still are words/sentences like _waste_ or _wicasa_ -
see above! - which, as it appears, in principle are of the
same kind. Although according traditional Western nomenclature _waste_
could be thought of as an adjective or adverb (good/nice/beautiful)
and _wicasa_ (adult male/human) as a noun, they rather
can be regarded as kind of 'verbs'. Thus, Western linguists
name words like _waste_ by the term stative verb (yet,
the _wicasa_ kind obviously not?). So e.g. _mawaste_
[ma-wa'shte]
could be
thought of as, say, [being-good-is-in-reference-to/pertained-by-me]
etc.,
* The reduplicated
form _wasteste_ is used to indicate plurality for inanimates
(how Latin-based grammars would tell us), i.e. non-humans and non-animals
like trees, rocks, candies etc.
There are still other, different kinds of words (in the European sense) which in Lakota are all of the same type as shown above, e.g.: - Numerals - which are adjectives, adverbs or nouns in English (the first man, to be second, the one etc.): Lakota: _tokahe_
[txoka'he] (s/he, it is first), _unyamni pi_
[uN-ya'mni-pi] (we are three), _waniyetu wikcemna sakpe amakeyamni_
[wa-ni'-ye-tu wi-kce'-mna sha'kpe a-ma'-ke-ya-mni] (I am sixty
three 'winters'). - non-addressing kinship terms - which are nouns in European languages (e.g. my father, their grandfather...) Lakota: _atewaye_ [ate'-wa-ye] (about: I made/call him father), _tunkasilaya pi_ [txunka'shila-ya-pi] (about: they made/call him grandfather).
The
Lakota Basic Sentence slightly modified
|
'enclitic'
particle
(male/female speech) |
Pronunciation
|
Translation
into Western language
|
_hwo/he_
|
[hu-wo']
[he']
|
"Yahi
hwo/he?" (Did you arrive hear?) - Question
|
_sni/sni_
|
[shni']
|
"Wahi
sni." (I didn't arrive/I'm not here) - Negation
|
_yelo/ksto_
|
[yelo'/kshto']
|
"Niwaste
yelo/ksto! or: Niwastelo!" (You're nice!) -
Assertion
|
_sece_ | [se'ce] | "(Hena) hi pi sece." (They might have come) - Assumption |
_kte_ (ktA) | [kta'] | "Wimacasa kte." (I'll be a man) - Future/'irrealis' |
_s'a_ | [s'a'] | "Magazu s'a." (It often rained) - Frequency of action/event |
_yo/ye_, _wo/we_ | [yo'/ye', wo'/we'] | "Kte sni yo!" (Don't kill him/her/it!) - Command |
|
Basic
sentence
|
Translation
into Western language
|
_na-_
(foot/wheel action)
|
t'A
(s/he, it died)
|
"(He)
nat'e." (s/he, it died e.g. being run over by a car)
|
_ka-_
(blow action)
|
blecA
(shatter)
|
"Kawablece."
(I shattered it by hitting)
|
_ya-_
(mouth/teeth action)
|
sicA
[shi'ca] (s/he, it is bad)
|
"(He)
yasica s'a." (s/he often has a 'bad-mouth')
|
_yu-_ (hand action) | blecA (shatter) | "(Hena) yubleca pi" (They shattered it with their hands) |
_yu-_ (gen.: causation) | zaza [ja'ja] (*clear etc.) | "Yuzaza po!" [=pi yo] (Wash it! pl.) |
_wo-_ (piercing/shooting) | hla [h^la'] (sound/ring) | "Wohlahla." (They ringed of being shot, e.g.of bottles ) |
_wa-_ (cutting, blade act.) | hloka [xlo'ka'] (hollow) | "Wayahloke." (You made a miscut, e.g. while skinning) |
_o-_ (in, into, for) | kte [kte'] (s/he, it killed...) |
(mni) owicakte (... killed them in [the] (water) - a name) |
_o-_ (gen.: location) | ti [thi'] (s/he, it dwelled) | oti (where s/he, it dwelled/lived -> to be a lodge/house) |
_o-_ (gen.: location) | sni [sni'] (s/he, it is cold) | osni (where it is cold -> it is cold weather) |
_i-_ (by means of, on etc.) | ali [ali'] (s/he, it ascends) | oiali (where one climbs up with -> to be stairs/a ladder) |
_a-_ (on, upon etc.) | leze [le'je] (s/he, it urinates) | aleze (s/he, it urinates on) |
_wa-_ (generic 'object') | yawa (s/he reads etc. it) | wayawa (s/he reads smth. -> e.g. to attend school) |
_-kici-_ (dat.: for smb) | kagA [ka'g^a] (s/he makes) | kicicage (s/he, it makes anything for another) |
_-ki-_ (dat.: for/from smb) | manun [maN-nu'N]_(to steal) | makinun (s/he, it steals smth from smb) |
There are many more such particles that alter the meaning of words/basic sentences; here, just some more examples of how words are built in order to create new expressions:
Short dialogue:
Q: He otunwahe
kin el tuktel owotetipi
wanzi han hwo? (Where is a restaurant in this town?)
A: Ka wiglioinanzi kin hel isakib wanzi he. (There's one
right near the gas station over there.)
_o-wote-ti-pi_ [o-wo'te-thi'pi] (about: "where-one-eats-house"):
_ti pi_ (lit.: "they dwell" -> to be a lodge/house), _wote_ (lit.: "s/he, it ate smth" -> to eat), this is irregular from _yutA_ (wate, yate, yute: I, you, s/he, it ate it) with the generic object particle _wa-_ prefixed: wa-yute -> wote (to eat food), and the locative particle _o-_ glued to the beginning of the entire expression.
_wigli-o-i-na-zi_ [wi'gli-o-i'-na-ji] (about:"where-it-stands-upright-with")
_wigli_ (grease, fat -> gasoline), _zi_ [ji'] ("s/he, it is erect/upright") -> _nazi_ (na+zi - lit.: "to be upright by foot" -> 'to stand', plus _i_ and _o_ prefixed - see above.
Like in every natural language, there has to be a drop of bitterness in our wine of regularity! And as seen commonly, those parts of speech used very often usually do not follow the simple regular rules.
So let us give just a few examples to demonstrate other forms of expressing these one-word sentences, e.g. introducing the word _yA_ (to go):
Note: the capitalized A of _yA_ is only to indicate that this vowel is 'changeable' due to different position within an environment of other words or particles, usually it is pronounced and spelled as _-e_.
|
_yin
kte_ [yiN-kte] (yA)
|
_ble_
(I went/go)
|
_mni
kte _ (I will go)
|
_le_
(you went/go)
|
_ni
kte_ (you will go)
|
_(he)
ye_ (he
went/goes)
|
(he)
yin kte _ (s/he, it will go)
|
_unye_ (you & I went/go) | unyin kte _ [uN-yi'N-kte] (you & I will go) |
_unya pi (we went/go) | unyan pi kte _ [uN-ya'N-pi-kte] (we will go) |
_la pi _ (you (all) went/go) | la pi kte _ [la'-pi-kte] (you & I will go) |
_(hena) ya pi_ (they went/go) | (hena) ya pi kte _ [ya'-pi-kte] (they will go) |
Notice that the 'irrealis' or future particle (enclitic) _kte_ (ktA) not only triggers the changeable vowel A to become _-i_ (in 1st and 2nd person singular, i.e. I, you) but also the nasal _-iN_ (in 3rd p.s. and dual, i.e. s/he, it and you & I). Where there is the plural particle (enclitic) _pi_ following directly, the vowel A - in principle! - is left unchanged so no nasal conjugation is needed (see 1st to 3rd p. plural). In 1st p. pl., the change from _-a_ to nasal _-aN_ is triggered by the particle (prefix) _un-_.
[The one-word
sentence _yA_ (to go) might seem to have also become a
particle (suffix) to express the idea of 'to make/to cause/to
have for/to regard as', cf. _kolayA_
[kxo-la'-yA] (to have for a best friend) e.g. _kolaciye_
("I-have- you-as-best friend" -> "you're my 'kola'")
or _atewaye_ ("I-have-him-as-father" -> my
father). Nevertheless, this _-yA_
- different from 'to go'! - takes the regular suffixes, so
they might just be homophones and not be related at all. Yet
anyway, it's a very important particle, and part of the word _slolyA_
(to know) too:
_slolwaye_ (I know her/him/it), _slolyaye_
(you know her/him/it),
_(he) slolye_
(s/he,
it knows her/him/it), ... _(hena)
slolya pi_ (they
know her/him/it) etc.]
Now, just one more very common and important example with the word 'to go' included:
It is 'to start for/to set out for', composed by the words _i_ (the opposite of _hi_ - see above) with the meaning 'to arrive there' and _yA_ in duplication: _iyayA_
|
_iyayin
kte_ [i-ya'yiN-kte] (yA)
|
_iblable_
(I started/set out for there)
|
_iblamni
kte _ (I will start/set out for there)
|
_ilale_
(you started/set out for there)
|
_ilani
kte_ (you will start/set out for there)
|
_(he)
iyaye_ (he
started/set out for there)
|
_(he)
iyayin kte _ (s/he, it will start/set out for
there)
|
_unkiyaye_ (you & I started/set out for there) | _unkiyayin kte _ (you & I will start/set out for there) |
_unkiyaya pi_ (we started/set out for there) | _unkiyaya pi_ kte _ [uN-ya'N-pi-kte] (we will start/set out...) |
_ilala pi _ (you (all) started/set out for there) | _ilala pi kte _ [i-la'-la-pi-kte] (you (all) will start/set out...) |
_(hena) iyaya pi_ (they started/set out for there) | (hena) iyaya pi kte _ [ya'-pi-kte] (they will go) |
CommentsAll those one-word sentence words we have been dealing with up to now - see above - can be regarded as typical comments! Yet, what then are topics? Are there typical topic words, too? Yes, at least those kinds of words which are not sentences by themselves, like those already encountered above: _he_ and _hena_! In Lakota language (just like in many other Native tongues), space is devided in three areas (compare Lojban _ti_, _ta_, _tu_and _vi_, _va_, _vu_): _le_ [le'] -
'this one here' (within the reach of one's hands) _he_ [he'] -
'that one there' (within a distance of about six metres) _ka_ [ka'] -
'that one yonder' (in a greater distance) So, usually the words _he_ and _hena_ are used as topics in 3rd person (sing. and plur.) to express s/he, it and they respectively. Please be aware of that this grammatically is not necessary because redundant. Anyway, in a sentence like _he hi_ (he arrived here) or _hena hi pi_ (they arrived here) _he/hena_ is the topic (meaning 'this one/these ones') commented by the one-word sentence _hi_ (s/he, it/they have arrived her). Okay? So the basical topic-comment pattern is [as for: T] :: [C]
The comment sentence somehow refers to the topic to which it is related in some way. In our examples, the topic redundantly denotes an agent/patient already expressed in the one-word sentence respectively. But, please do not assume that the topic words have always to be in a somewhat defined relationship to the comment's 'subject' etc. as our examples might insinuate. The topic part rather offers kind of a 'plate' for the comment sentence to choose from. As we will see later, there can be - and usually is - a whole bunch of topic words to be referred to by the agents and/or patients expressed or implied in the comment sentence. Moreover, there also can be 'phrases' (groups of words belonging together) in the topic part not already referred to in the comment sentence. Here, some more examples:
So far, this doesn't seem to be something very important, already. Yet, not only these tiny topic words like _le_, _he_ etc. can serve as a topic but also any of those basic mini sentences we have been dealing with above! We already learned that e.g. _wicasa_ is a complete sentence meaning "he is an adult male/a man", and that "I am a man" is expressed as _wimacasa_ (about: "being-a-man-is-pertaining-to me"). Now, this idea can also be expressed with _wicasa_ put into the topic part of an utterance: here we have to use a second word (one-word sentence) which is _heca_ [he'cha] (about: be-of-such-kind/be-a-such). Hence: _wicasa hemaca_ [wicha'sha hema'cha].
Some more words: _pezuta_ [pxeju'ta]
(to-be-medicine)
Topic MarkerOne important kind of words are so-called topic markers following words other than 'innate' topic words like _le_, _he_ etc., i.e. those little one-word sentences mainly dealt with up to now, in order to indicate their syntactical function as a topic. Some of this new kind of 'little words' e.g. are the following:
Most of the
times when _kin_ or _wan_ follows a one-word sentence,
this word can be regarded as if a noun in Western languages (but not
always! - see below): So e.g. _wicasa kin_
[wicha'sha-kiN] usually can be looked at (and translated) as 'the
adult male/the man', which is just the same with _sunkawakan
wan_ [shu'NkawakxaN-waN] (a/one horse) or _atewaye kin_
(lit.: "the one-I-have-as-a-father" -> my father),
_tunkasilayapi kin_ [txunka'shila-ya-pi-kiN] from: _tunkasilayA_
- have-as-a-grandfather (lit.: "the one-they-have-as-a-grandfather"
-> their grandfather -> the US Government/the President of the
United States of America).
Some new words: _winyan_ [wi'NyaN]
(be-a-woman)
Usually, the subject of a comment's sentence refers to topic I, whereas an object is related to one of the following topics. Yet, one should always keep in mind that this is not a strict rule, since there is only context to decide where each of the built-in participants of the comment sentence is pointing to!
As mentioned already, topic words (and, as we will see, also phrases and sentences!) not only can be referred to by comments subjects or direct objects (sorry for these grammatical expressions!), but also by so-called indirect objects and still other parts of speech. There are 'verbs' (one-word sentences) bearing the dative infix _ki_ or just having a dative notion from its semantic, e.g.: _k'u_ [k'u'] (s/he,
it gives him/her/it to him/her/it, to give), e.g. _mak'u_,
_nik'u_ etc. (s/he, it gave it to me ..., to you etc.) These are also called ditransitive simply because being able to have/express three (and more) participants, e.g. the giver(s), the one(s) given and the recipient(s) as seen above. Notice that one-word sentences - like _manun_, here - can be made ditransitives by adding (incorporating) particles to them - like the dative marker _-ki-_ or others seen above - so they can express more participants and point to more topics directly. In other words, one can create additional slots for objects. _ni_ [niN']
- s/he lived/lives - one participant
New words: _wowapi_ [wo'wa-pi] (lit.: 'smth they wrote' -> smth written -> to be a letter, book)
As for the topic side of the sentence, of course, for each participant of the comment a topic 'word' can be filled in: so if the comment e.g. is _mawicakinun_ (s/he, it stole smb/smth from them), the three participants can point to three topics'words: e.g. _winyan_ (woman), _wica(sa)_ (man) and _cante_ [chaNte'] (heart), here: _cantepi_ [chaNte'-pi]* (their heart) in order to form a fancy sentence like: *(Why this is so, we will see later!)
Hence: "This woman stole/steals the hearts from many men." (admittedly, not a good Lakota sentence!)
Notice: topic I 1_le_ (this here) is kind of repeating topic I giving it a 'flavour' of closeness translated by 'this woman'. And, maybe, as kind of a rule to stick to: In this sort of one-word sentences which can take three participants ('ditransitives'), the topic I-slot is for subjects, the topic II-slot for - 'animate' - indirect objects i.e. the participants referred to by _-ki-_ (simply speaking: the one(s) smth is given to or taken away from!) and topic III-slot for the direct objects (the one(s) indicating what has been given or taken away). The
topic 'words' - in principle - do not express plurality - (apart
from the _ota_ added to _wicasa_ here) this job is done
almost exclusively by the 'commenting' one-word sentence.
As mentioned earlier, there can be many topics that are not already somehow - in nuce - included in the comment sentence and pointed to by it. Here is an example:
New type of word: _un_ [uN] - with, by means of etc. New
word: Remember:
_t'A_ - s/he,
it died, _na-_ - by foot/wheel action
The puppies were killed (run over) by a car !
The above rule-of-thumb only seems to hold for objects pointed to by the comment part, which roughly go by this order, whereas other topics are free - see below. New
word:
"Man lives not from bread alone" (Men do not live from bread alone)
Seeing that most of the topic words in principle are nothing else than the one-word sentences we already had encountered on the comment's side (although, as topics, understood and translated as if nouns) , it is not surprising at all to also find constructions like the following: Remember: _hi_
("s/he, it arrived here" - to come/arrive)
"It is good that you have arrived here!" -> "Welcome (here)!" Here, the topic is translated as a whole sentence ("you have arrived here"), hence, in the entire topic-comment structure, it is given as a subordinate clause! And, of course, these topic sentences need not be just one-word sentences as found on the comment side and transferred to the topics side to make them topics, they can consist of more complex sentences as well, thus having topics of their own. E.g., let's see the following example - now with the use of the enclitic _k'un_ - already introduced above! New
words: Remember:
I arrived home yesterday.
The children were/are really crying.
Yesterday, when I arrived home, the children were really crying.
Notice: It seems that sentence #2, here in total has two topics it is commenting on, namely sentence #1 marked by the topic marker _k'un_ plus _hehan_ which kind of repeats/points back to _tohan_ (that usually is omitted - and itself being a topic within sentence #1 and a subtopic with regard to the entire sentence composed here).
And, there are still more kinds of using whole sentences as topics, e.g.: New word: _keyA_ [ke'ya] (s/he said it) - It seems that the word derived from _kin eyA_ (topic marker + s/he said)
S/he
said that s/he came home yesterday. And likewise:
"I came home yesterday", s/he said.
As you might have recognized already, these topic-comment structures can be nested, thus being recursive and - in theory - infinite:
When s/he arrived home yesterday, the kids were crying very much, s/he said.
Looked at this sentence as a whole, its - outer - structure is the following:
Cutting off the comment part, the remaining topic part can again be split up, thus getting one topic part and its comment (which now is _(lila) ceya pi_) etc. etc..
The Topic & Comment Pattern as a Basic Schemetopic side:'adjectives'It seems to be widely acknowledged among Siouanists that there are no such parts of speech in Lakota that usually are called adjectives in Western linguistic.
The horse is good. but:
The good horse ... [lit. about: the horse that is good...]
New words: _wicahpi_
[wi-cha-h^pi] (to be-a-star; star)
The star is flying. but:
They called him Flying Star (i.e. Thecumseh).
That the _kinyan_ part in _wicahpi kinyan kin_ - though translated to English as if an adjective - actually seems to be something different in Lakota, might be seen when looking at the following examples:
New words: _ca_
[cha] - and so; and that's why etc. Remember: _yuha_ [yu-ha'] _bluha_, _luha_ etc. - to have smth/smb
I have/had a good horse.
But:
I saw a flying star!
Sentence
There was/is a star flying.
So the whole construction maybe is about: "There was a star that flew and so it was that I saw it".
The rule to handle this anomality occurring with 'adjectives' of indefinite 'nouns' (i.e. those with the topic marker _wan_ ) states that only adjectives that usually come together with a certain noun (e.g. 'a good horse') - maybe in kind of an idiomatic sense - can follow the first model shown above, whereas others (like 'flying star' or 'red shirt' etc.) have to be expressed in syntactical constructions using _ca_. This rule, not wrong though, doesn't help very much but at least gives us a hint into the right direction, indicating that it might have to do with something called idiomatism. Let us try to follow this track in order to get some better insight: Going back in our imagination into the past for about five hundred years when there still were no horses known to Native peoples on the continent of Northern America, we can state that the Lakota word _sunkawakan_ [s^unN'kawakxaN'] learned above did not exist either, then. Let us assume further that the Lakota word for 'dog' was about the same as today, i.e. _sunka_ [s^uN'ka], and the term for 'powerful/magic/holy (etc.)' as well. Now imagine a Dakota warrior, 'pezuta wicasa' or any other Native person in full command of expressing himself/herself in his/her Siouan tongue coming in sight of a horse for the very first time! Deeply impressed returning to his camp circle, s/he would have told others about this tremendous discovery maybe using the following sentence:
I saw a dog today that (really) was miraculous! Later on, more horses appeared, were caught and domesticated by the Native peoples. More and more, horses were to take over functions that earlier dogs had been used for: the term 'sunka wakan' (power dog) got established and used as kind of a fix compound to denote this new animal so important for the different Native peoples then living in the 'Plains', and essentially influencing and coining their very culture. Maybe, it was then already that talking of horses might have been expressed like this:
I caught a 'miraculous dog', yesterday. Today,
this term is glued together to 'sunkawakan' (also in pronunciation
one single word and usually slurred together to something like [s^uN'kaakaN'].
When using it, Lakota speakers today are even hardly aware of its
original meaning, just having the idea of 'horse' in mind. So, speaking
of a 'sunkawakan', there isn't any problem using the above syntactical
structure because the phrase being understood as one noun. It seems that 'adjectives' modifying nouns do not really exist in Lakota language - they are replaced instead by fix compounds built by topic words moreorless glued together with former one-word sentences (and be it just in the minds of the speakers!).
proper namesThe creation of proper names of the form 'noun' modified by an'adjective' (i.e. a Lakota topic commented by a one-word sentence) seems to be free, grammatically, just like the examples above using the definite topic marker _kin_. There might be two reasons for this, in relation with each other: 1) proper names are per definitionem meant to designate smb. (or smth.) unique, hence they're no generic terms, 2) so the indefinite topic marker _wan_ never is allowed to be attached to name compounds. (The use of the definite enclitic _kin_ is not necessary because understood with regard to the definiteness being implied.) So, here's just a few examples of proper - personal - names in Dakota/Lakota:
New words: _tate_
[txate'] (to be-wind, windy)
'Tatewikuwa'
about: 'Sun-chasing
Wind'
'Miniowicakte' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists)
about: 'Kill-in-the-Water'
'Tiowicakte' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists)
about: 'Kill-in-the-House'
'Tatanka duta' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists)
'Red Bull'
'Tasunka kokipapi' (historical name)
'Afraid-of-his-horse' And also:
'Cetan wakiyan' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists)
'Thunder Hawk'
'Hoksila wanbli' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists)
'Eagle Boy'
'Cante Peta' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists)
'Fire Heart'
'Wasicun Maza' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists)
'Iron White Man'
There are still other nominal compounds following a different pattern - maybe imitating the English model - e.g.
'Sunka Wicasa' (historical name from the Standing-Rock lists) 'Dog Man' and many other proper names formed like this (this aspect will have to be dealt with later!
comment side:'modal verbs'It seems that also the relationship between verbs and their modals (on the comment's side of a sentence) generally follows this pattern:
New words: _zi_
[zi'] - s/he, it is-yellow/pale; to be yellow/pale Remember: _cante_ [chante'] - one's heart
You're looking pale.
Or slightly altered:
My friend is looking pale.
I can see her/him/it.
'adverbs'
I went running/by foot.
It might appear that Dakotan syntactic structure - up to now called topic & comment - is still better understood as a basic sentence (i.e. the comment part) in some way 'decorated' or 'adorned' (by the topic part) in order to add some more detail information to it. Maybe the topic part is nothing more than that and doesn't really belong to the sentence, syntactically, as a sentence's subject or object would be a part of the whole structure. This said, in our understanding, it's no longer the topic (say subject or object) that is commented on by the basic sentence, but the other way around, the comment part that is given more details for modification. Thus, the adverb issue could be explained and understood more easily:
I'm very sad/sorrowful.
Thus, the left-hand (topic) part tells us how, in what way etc. the following basic sentence (comment) part is performing. We
already mentioned that in Dakota 'adjectives' do not seem
to really exist: an adjective modifying a noun actually
is rather a one-word sentence commenting on its topic.
So, also many words functioning like adverbs basically
are nothing but verbs too: very often differing somewhat
in their forms, i.e. being altered slightly in their endings. Yet,
this different form doesn't seem to be a feature specific to the
verb's adverbial function.
I went runningly.
Pretty often, when another word/particle is following, a word's finals are shortened in a specific way: For example, "Hena inyanka pi" (They were running), when expressed as a male statement, i.e. "Hena inyanka pi yelo!", becomes "Hena inyanka pelo/inyankapelo" with the final vowel _i_ and the initial consonant _p_ dropped and the remaining words moreorless slurred together. Usually, the remaining consonant undergoes softening, then, e.g. inyanke -> inyank -> inyang, just like in compounds when seperate words are kind of 'glued together': sunka [s^un'ka] (dog) + manitu [maN'niNtu] (ref. to outside the camp/wilderness) -> sunk + manitu -> sung + manitu -> sungmanitu [s^uNgmaN'niNtu] (coyote/prairie dog)
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