UC Merced The Journal of California Anthropology Title Some Northern Hokan Plant-Tree-Bush Forms Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7494t408 Journal The Journal of California Anthropology, 1(1) Author Silver, Shirley Publication Date 1974-07-01 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Some Northern Hokan Plant-Tree-Bnsh Forms* SHIRLEY SILVER N the conclusion of her paper on Cali­ lects, and Kashaya Pomo (Pk), and function I fornia Hokan, Mary Haas (1964) com­ either as members of noun phrasal or stem ments on intersection, an important problem compounds or as substantival suffixes. in Califomia linguistic prehistory. In compar­ The constituents of the SH, AC, AT, and ing some Proto-Hokan body-part terms with CH terms are noun stem + suffix. The K and Algon-Ritwan, Yukian, and Penutian similars, Y constituents are noun stem + noun stem. she demonstrates likely intersections between The K morpheme occurs only as a postpound Hokan and Algon-Ritwan, Hokan and Yukian, except in the noun theme Hpaha 'tree'. In Y and Hokan and Penutian. Haas (personal we also find the substantives '^i(na) in Central communication) uses the term intersection to and Northem Yana and ?/w/ m Yahi, with the call attention to similarities between forms (in meanings 'stick, wood, tree' (-na is an absolu- presumably genetically unrelated languages) tive suffix and -wi is probably the plural for which coincidence seems an unlikely marker [with cohective impHcation]). explanation and for which no evidence as yet The Pk term for 'sugar pine' is a type of exists to support an adequate genetic or noun phrase; however, Pk also uses noun stem diffusidnal explanation. compounding, e.g., "^ihte 'feather' + q^ale In this paper, I extend into the domain of 'plant' > t^eq^^ale 'elderberry bush' (Oswalt, plant life the consideration of intersection personal communication). Pk q^ale is a reflex begun by Haas within the framework of of Proto-Pomo (PPo) *qha • le 'tree', a form I body-part terms. Under discussion here are the diachronic complexities manifested by some northern Hokan morphemes occurring in terms for plants, trees, and bushes. These SUGAR PINE TERMS morphemes, all having a general interpretation Sugar Pine Nut Sugar Pine 'of the plant world', make up two separate phonological subsets whose members are cog­ SH ac'aw acawhihii nate. The fact that there are extra-Hokan AC assa assalo similars for each subset leads to consideration AT ac'^aw ac''awu:p of the possible extra-Hokan connections. CH hakew hakewna'a The morphemes in question occur in the o o K ''u's terms for 'sugar pine' (see Table 1) in Shasta ''usip (SH), Achumawi (AC), Atsugewi (AT), Chi­ Y cau(na) cau'i mariko (CH), Karok (K), the Yana (Y) dia­ Pk cuye' cuye' q'lale PLANT-TREE-BUSH FORMS 103 assume to have two constituents, *q'^a() + that *({^a • le had become synchronically un- *le. The basis for this assumption is as segmentable, i.e., it had undergone morphemi- follows. Robert Oswalt (1964), in a paper on zation.^ In reconstructing PPo *-6', an ele­ Pomo intemal relationships, cites PPo *k^ah- ment occurring in PPo forms for 'cotton- wa • (I), later revised to *q^ahwa • (I) 'bark (of wood', 'maple', 'live oak', 'pepperwood tree', a tree)', a reconstmction that fits every Pomo and 'soaproot', McLendon (1973:49) presents language except Northem Pomo (Pn); i.e., the other evidence for morphemization in PPo second syllable of Pn ^ewa 'bark' fits well plant-tree-bush forms in pointing out that the with the second syUable of *q^ahwa • (I), reflexes of *-b'^ are segmentable only in the whereas the first syUable does not fohow Pk, Pe (Eastem Pomo), Pn, and Pse forms for established sound correspondences. Oswalt's 'pepperwood tree' (cp. PPo *bah • e 'pepper- suggestion that sewa may be a blend of two wood nut', *bah eb'^ 'pepperwood tree'). elements, the second syllable representing a She also suggests that PPo *-b'^ involves cognate element and the first syllable a metathesis of an older Pre-Pomo **-^b (result­ non-cognate element, is supported by Sally ing from deletion of a Proto-Hokan */). McLendon's (1973:66) discussion of the aber­ To sum up at this point, there are two rant Pn form as a reflection of a proto form PPo elements, *-le and *-b''', both of which *k^e(h)wa or *xe(h)wa, or an early borrow­ occur in PPo forms for plants, trees, and ing of a similarly shaped form from Central or bushes; *-le appears to have been nonproduc­ Southeastem Pomo (Pc, Pse). The cognateness tive and *-b^ may have been quasi-productive. of the second syhable of sewa is an argument These two elements and the other northern for the morphemic complexity of *q^^a- Hokan plant-tree-bush markers shown in Ta­ hwa • (I), and comparing *q^a • le and *ciha- ble 1 fall into the two phonological sets given hwa • (I) raises the possibility that the first ki Table 2. syhables of these forms are variant shapes of In Table 2 both sets contain PPo and AC the same morpheme. If this is the case, forms. As is the case with PPo *-le, the *q^a • le is also morphemicahy complex and evidence for AC -Id • is tenuous. In his *-le represents an element that may be sec­ dictionary of Achumawi, Olmsted (1966) lists ond member of a noun stem compound. -Id • 'tree (suffix to name of fruit)' in the It is worth noting here that the remarks Achumawi-English section under L. In the Sapir (1917:17) made about Yana secondary section under 0 the entry -o • (-Id • after stems may weh hold not only for other areas of the Yana grammatical system but also for Table 2 other areas of the grammatical systems of PHONOLOGICAL SETS other Hokan languages, including the Pomo group: "... it is highly probable that they Set I Set 11 were originally primary stems which, being AC 0- 1 6- often compounded with other preceding primary stems, gradually came to lose their CH n (a)'> a independence ...[;] ... loss of independence PPo '' b Ob'') 1 e of secondary verb stems has evidently been SH h i- h u consummated as a general process in the very AT u: p remote past." I assume here that *-/e' had lost its K C) i- P independence by the time of PPo and also Y •^ i 104 THE JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA ANTHROPOLOGY vowel) 'tree' implies that there is one mor­ (set II) occur in apparent contrastive distribu­ pheme with two phonological shapes; how­ tion, -d • might be explainable as the result of ever, in his work on Proto-Palaihnihan (PPa) diffusion from AT; however, diffusion is a phonology, Olmsted (1964:67) compares AC more likely explanation for AC -u • p in -6 ~ -o • with AT -o • p and reconstmcts PPa pa'^yipu • p 'mountain mahogany' (cf. AT *o • p 'suffix denoting plant'. Since this re­ winayu:p 'mountain mahogany'). (Leonard constmction does not account for the variant Talmy [personal communication] says that shape -Id •, one imphcation is that AC -Id • -u:p [the AT entry in set I] is the probable and -6 • are two morphemes with same or underlying shape; colon represents a phono­ near-same meanings rather than phonological logical segment whose phonetic effect, under altemants. For further support of the two- as yet incompletely specified conditions, morpheme argument compare AC slao • 'tam­ lengthens and lowers a preceding vowel.) arack tree {Larix laricinaY, {sla 'tamarack K provides us with another possible case nut'), and slald 'Murray pine {Pinus balfouri- of diffusion. Haas (1964) suggests that K ana)'(Olmsted 1966). '^dhup 'wood' is a formation of ^a • h 'fire' + It is certainly feasible to consider the ('^)i-p, with -up as a rare allomorph of members of set I as cognate. A tentative PH (^)i-p^ (see also kusup 'plant, sp'. Bright reconstmction *h/^i • p^u, closely paraheling 1957:364). -up could have come into K from Proto-Shastan *hi • p^u (SH hi • hti; Konomi- one of the neighboring Shastan languages, hu hip(h)u as in kuwakinahip(h)u'^ 'peppemut e.g., New River Shasta. bush' (kuwakhin 'peppemut'); Okwanuchu AC -u • p and K -up are obviously part of -ihu as in atsahihu 'sugar pine') would imply: the diachronic problem exemplified by the (1) that in the Palaihnihan languages AC and forms in set I; whether they are instances of AT (a) the vowel of the first syllable assimilat­ borrowing or are to be explained in terms of ed to the vowel of the second, (b) the second historical phonological processes must be de­ vowel was lost, and (c) in AC the consequent termined through intemal reconstruction. final consonant was deleted; (2) that the Although the tentative PH reconstmction second vowel was lost in K and Y, and Y also for set I is no more than a 'housekeeping' deleted a consequent final consonant. form and it is uncertain whether the members We cannot mle out the possibility that the of set I are reflexes of proto-bimorphemic Y form, at least, may be a reflex of only one element, there can be Httle doubt that the set member of a proto-bimorphemic string, espe- I forms are cognate, not only with each other ciahy since we do not have for Hokan an at­ but also with forms from Yuman languages in tested body of phonological rules which spe­ southem and Baja Cahfomia. In Yuma ?/• cify the conditions under which final conso­ occurs as a first position element in noun nants would be deleted.