OK, I think I've come up with a nice system of demonstratives that make sense, so I'll post them here now.
There are 6 demonstrative roots encoding 3 distance contrasts and coming in animate and inanimate forms. The distances thus contrasted are proximal, distal and absent. the general trend seems to have been towards reinforcement of the animate forms with the inanimates more likely to have retained their original shapes.
Code: Select all
Ani Ina
PROX móšom móša
DIST hinan hini
ABS hišóóm hišá
The inanimate distal and absent are the only ones which continue a PA form unaltered, in this case
*eni from set B and
*eye· from set F. The animate distal form is derived from a reinforcing doubling up of the original form
*ena, also from set B. The animate absent is from the original form from either set D or set F,
*ewavka·/eya·ka· plus the common reinforcing particle
*ma. The proximal forms incorporate the reinforcing prefix
*ma·h- onto the original set A forms, with the animate additionally taking the reinforcing
*ma again.
In terms of inflection the demontratives take the relevant nominal inflections when used pronominally, but are uninflected particles when used adjectivally, as shown in the following examples. The ordering of the adjectivally used forms relative to their head noun is variable: in the northern dialect they tend to precede the noun, while in the southern dialect the post-nominal order is preferred, likely out of Siouan influence since this ordering is otherwise not present in Algonquian.
móšat napííkomomóót
móša-t na-pííkom-omóó-t
PROX.INA-PL 1-bring.TI-1s-PL.INA
I bring these.
hišóón mííhit náθóóθin napó
hišóón mííhi-t náθ-óóθ-in napó
ABS.ANI bison-OBV kill-3>3'.CONJ-ITER man
The man who kills those bison.
hinan hitanííšo máθimiiθííhi
hinan hitani-:šo máθi-miiθííh-i
DIST.ANI person-PL all-eat.AI-PL
Those people eat it all up.