Re: About persons

dirk elzinga sikayal:

I noticed something odd in the Uto-Aztecan data you gave here, Dirk.  Tell
me if I'm right:

> Shoshoni (1 is speaker, 2 is listener, and 3 is neither):
>            sg      du        pl
>     1+2   ----    taweh    tammen
> Chemehuevi
>     1+2       ----    tami      tawe
It looks to me like /tami/ is cognate to /tammen/, and /tawe/ to /taweh/,
which suggests that some of these forms have switched from dual to plural
over time.  Or has one of the languages used an innovative ending that
only coincidentally resembles the endings used in the other language?  I
think that they actually switched, because of the following data:

> Shoshoni
>     1+3    ne     neweh    nemmen
>       2    en     meweh    memmen
>       3  suten   suteweh   suteen
> Chemehuevi
>     1+3        nee         nemi
>       2        emi         memi
>       3anim    iNa         ime       here
>                maNa        mame      visible
>                uNa         ume       invisible
Here Ch. -mi or -me, which appear cognate to Sh. -men, always appear as
the plural, suggesting that the use of this same ending for dual in the
1st person is anomalous.

Am I right?

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

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