say

verb transitive social_communication

Proto-Siouan-Catawba *heʔ (?)

Proto-Siouan *e-_he•(-re)

Proto-Crow-Hidatsa *he•

Crow he• ‘say’ L , he ‘quotative’ RG , sheé ‘say’ RGG:51

Hidatsa he• ‘say, quotative’ J , šé• ‘say’ J

Pre-Mandan

Mandan é_he- ‘say’ [1s é•peʔš, 2s é•teʔš, 3s éheroʔš, 3p éhekereʔš 3p éhekereʔš] RTC

Proto-Mississipi-Valley *e-_he

Proto-Dakota *e_hA

Lakota eyá ‘say’ [1s ephá, 2s ehá (vowel ablauts)] RTC

Dakota éya ‘say’ SRR:118

Stoney eyá ‘say’ PAS

Proto-Hoocąk-Chiwere *e-_hé ~ *i-_hé

Chiwere e• ‘say’ [1s ihé, 2s ise, 3s é] RR

Hoocąk ée ‘say’ [1s hihe, 2s hiše, 3s ee, 3p aire] KM:295 , ee

Proto-Dhegiha *e-_hé

Omaha-Ponca e , †é• ‘say’ [1s ehe, 2s eše, 3s e, 1p ąðai] JOD

Kanza/Kaw é•` ‘say’ [1s ephé, 2s ešé, 3s ê•] RR

Osage e , †é ‘say’ [1s ephé, epše, 2s eše, 3s e] LF:40a

Quapaw ié, iyé , †ié ‘say’ [1s ihé, 2s išé] JOD

Proto-Southeastern *e-_he•(-ri)

Proto-Biloxi-Ofo *é-_he(-ri)

Biloxi e, ĕ, ĕ´di, ĕdí , †é(di) ‘say’ D&S:189a , he, hedí, hĕ´di , †hé(di) ‘say it or that’ [1s ĕ´ṭûñḳédi, 2s ĕ´ṭiḳiyĕ´di, 3p ĕ´tu] D&S:189b

Ofo (l)éhe , †éhe ‘say’ [1s béhe, 2s tcéhe, 3s lehé, 1p oⁿehé, 3p lehetú] D&S:326a

Proto-Tutelo-Saponi

Tutelo hahēwa , †ha_hé•- ‘say’ [1s hawahēwa, 2s hayihēwa, 1p hamañkhēwa; the final -wa is an aspect suffix] H

Proto-Catawba

Catawba -eʔ ‘quotative’ KS

General comment

Conservative conjugation. Cf. ‘think (1)’, ‘speak, talk’. Most MVS languages contract the citation form to e• but reintroduce *e-he in the 1st and 2nd person forms. Our reconstructions in MVS are internal, based on the inflected forms. The y in the Dakotan third person is an epenthetic glide, breaking up the vowel sequence that was created by loss of the h. The basic root compounds freely with demonstratives, and part of the confusion we see in the Southeastern languages has been produced by this; in particular, the initial l in Ofo comes from this. Similarly, the Crow and Hidatsa forms in š show demonstrative šʔe ~ šeʔe. Though Ofo now prefixes the agreement markers, Biloxi and Tutelo both retain the kind of infixing we see elsewhere. This argues in favor of Proto-Biloxi-Ofo having gone through the same type of contraction process that we see in MVS. Mandan and Biloxi have evidence for final r, although its appearance in Mandan is irregular. The reconstructible demonstrative preverb was e-, but Chiwere, Hoocąk, and Quapaw suggest i-, a possible contamination from íe ‘speak’.

Language Cognate Phonetic Siouan Meaning Comment Sources