oȟ’áŋ

Lakota, like most (if not all) languages, places great emphasis on the verb. Ironically, the dictionary that I am using has no translation for "verb". Therefore, I used the word for "action" in my title.

When delving into the grammar of Lakota, I know I will be facing something depths. Languages are dark dungeons--and language familiarity is the lantern that guides the way. These first few steps for me represent blind exploration. So, let's enter into the darkness and see what diamonds we might discover.

I looked into a website that tried to explain Lakota grammar. Unfortunately, the author was not very adept at providing clear explanations or meanings. (The individual stated clearly about having a lack of knowledge about linguistics; therefore, I do admire the individual's endevour.) Therefore, I decided to go back to my morphosyntactic lessons. Look at examples and extrapolate what you can.

Here are 5 sentences that I found based on verbs.

Sing: Olówaŋ waŋží ahíyaya yo. (Sing a song.)
Sit: Anáǧoptaŋ yaŋká po. (Sit and listen to it.)
Open: Thiyópa kiŋ makíyuǧaŋ yo. (Open the door for me.)
Listen: Taŋyáŋ anáǧoptaŋ po. (Listen to him carefully.)
Pass: Mniskúya kiŋ hiyúmakhiya yo. (Pass me the salt.)

So what do we learn from these five sentences? [NOTE: I will be making assumptions because I am looking at the evidence presented. For everything we learn in life, we naturally make assumptions until presented with new, conflicting evidence. Maybe a reader can comment on this information. Maybe I will discover my errors at a later date. You cannot be afraid of assumptions--because this is how we learn.]

1) yo = Command (This was mentioned in the previous post.)
2) po = to it/he (?) Both examples that used pronouns in the dative form (to _pronoun_) change the "yo" to "po". Therefore there is likely a connection. When I look up "him" in the dictionary, I am provided with this message:




(This provides interesting evidence; however, it neither confirms or denies my hypothesis.)

3) Objects + Verb = All evidence points to objects coming before the verb.
            Olówaŋ = song (n)
            Thiyópa = door (n)
            Mniskúya = salt (n)
   Since these words occur first, and I know that they are the objects in the sentence structures, I feel confident in this assumption. (Is this an OSV language? No, other evidence from the image below proves that the language is SOV language, which is similar to Japanese.)

These examples show that the subject (boy) appears first.

4) kiŋ = for/to me (?) -- NOPE, kiŋ = "the"...When I look again, I notice that this could have easily been my assumption. However, I do learn that the determiner (like the articles a/an/the) FOLLOW the noun--something that English speakers might find very confusing. This is confirmed with the fact that waŋží = "any"...The first sentence literally translates to "Song--any--sing--(command)."

Well, I will need to pause here. However, I hope this investigate was both entertaining and educational. I hope all of you learned something about the linguistic thought process. And I especially hope that you have learned to not fear mistakes. I made a couple, but I used my simple resources to gain some knowledge...but how will I crack open those verbs? We will see in the future.