more Shoshoni

On Fri, 19 Jan 2001, Luís Henrique wrote:

> Nice! I suppose that if shoshone was a conlang, it would be said that it
> is unnaturalically regular!
It does have a "planned" flavor to it. The pronoun system has a
similar planned feel; unlike many Uto-Aztecan languages,
Shoshoni has a full set of dual pronouns as well as an inclusive
exclusive distinction in the first person set. Here they are
(subject forms):

    sg       du         pl

1.  ny      nywyh      nymmyn    (excl)
            tawyh      tammyn    (incl)
2.  yn      mywyh      mymmyn
3.  sutyn   sutywyh    sutyyn

(The 3rd person pronouns are nothing more than the
demonstratives I outlined earlier.)

From a comparative UA view, the incl/excl distinction is clearly
a Shoshoni (actually Numic, the branch of UA that Shoshoni
belongs to) innovation, as is the dual set. This also seems
obvious by looking at their forms: the exclusive forms are
clearly built upon the singular (the inclusive plural shares the
UA root *ta- '1p'), and the dual and plural seem morphologically
complex with 'person roots' ta- '1', my- '2' and number suffixes
-wyh 'du', -yn 'pl'.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga                          dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir