Re: Tewa (natlang) question

From:    "Elyse M. Grasso" <emgrasso@...>
> The San Idlefonso pueblo near Santa Fe, New Mexico, now has street signs for
> the first time in its history (house numbers, too). Many of the streets/roads
> have names like XYZ Po, where XYZ is the name of noted grandparent of some of
> the current inhabitants.
>
> Does anyone know a good source to find out what 'Po' is derived from?
I'm by no means an expert on Kiowa-Tanoan languages, but my guess
would be that it's cognate with closely related Kiowan _-bo_, which
is glossed in Mithun as the inverse suffix and which sometimes affects
the reading the number of the noun:  _alO:_ 'two apples', _alO:-bo_
'one or two apples'.  This doesn't sound like an Algonquian-style
inverse marker, so maybe it's some kind of nominal abstract modifier?
Anyways, the implication is that it's the equivalent of saying 'street
characterized by [Proper Name]'.

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