Talk:bééhózin

Etymology

Still needed. Verb stem -zin, variant of the -sin of bééhasin: to know a person. Verbal prefixes may be:

• béé- from baa: standalone about + yi-: third person object pronoun prefix (position 4), as in beisénah: I forgot about it.
  But then again baa + yi- usually becomes bei- as in beisénah, and not béé- as in bééhózin, so this derivation is suspect.
• -hó- from -ho-: the deictic prefix for space and abstract things (position 5).
  But then why the high tone? Unsure.

Anyone else know more? I'm working through Goossen's Diné Bizaad: Speak, Read, Write Navajo, and hope to get my hands on Young and Morgan's works at some point. -- Cheers, Erik Anderson -- 205.166.76.15 16:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Ack. Took me a while, but I finally got it. béé- is one of those prefixed postpositions (called position 0). -hó- is a contraction of -ho-, like you said, with the -ni- aspect marker (it's the only combination that produces -hó- in the imperfective). The only thing I'm still not sure of is whether deictic -ho- is the subject, or it's the object and the subject should be considered (empty) third person. Ewweisser (talk) 00:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Given that this verb only ever seems to be used in the passive, a bit like "XX is known by [person]", I suspect that the -ho- is the subject. Also, this is a neuter verb limited to the 3rd-person singular imperfective, no? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 15:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Yep! I agree. I was a little hesitant/confused because of similar verbs with "normal" subject pronouns and ho- in the object position, like bééhoniszin, but these all have different classifiers. Ewweisser (talk) 22:08, 9 May 2012 (UTC)