A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

In (46), there are two negative sentences, but it is the occurrence of mii with the negative
sentence which projects the attitude that the speaker has no doubt about the proposition I
don’t know.
From these data, we can see that mii has a variety of sentence level functions, but it
is the deictic feature of mii that is borrowed for work at the discourse level within the
discourse complex mii dash (or miish). Discourse complex (or cluster) mii dash consists
of two components, mii and idash. The second element, idash, and is a discourse marker
itself and will discussed in details in the next section (Section 3.1.2.1). In short, idash is
a type of topic marker (used loosely here). 43 It allows speakers to move on to new topics,
breaking with prior discourse. Thus, while having separate individual functions, mii and
idash function as a unit as a DISCOURSE SEQUENCER. This discourse complex has
become such a common occurrence in Ojibwe discourse that it appears to show signs of
lexicalization (though not complete), since mii dash shows a loose syntactic connection
to its containing clauses. In other words, while mii at the sentence level shows a very
strict syntactic requirement for conjunct verbs, e.g. aspectual use of mii where mii must
occur with plain conjuncts, mii dash on the other hand may occur with both conjunct and
independent order verbs. 44 As a discourse complex then, mii dash has the overall
function within discourse to advance narratives, having roughly the force of the English
and then, or and so. A typical usage is given in the example below.
43
I’m using the term topic marker very loosely (and cautiously) to be a marker which signals a break from
prior discourse to a new topic (which may be simply the introduction of a new character, theme, or subject).
It basically marks topic shifts. As we will see, this is one of the major functions of idash within discourse.
It is merely a label of convenience.
44
A fact also noted in my earlier work on mii (Fairbanks 2008, forthcoming). There, I provided examples
from a northern dialect of Ojibwe, Northwestern Ojibwe, where mii dash (or miihsh for that dialect)
occurred exclusively with independent order verbs in an environment where conjunct verbs would be
expected to occur for southern dialects of Ojibwe like Mille Lacs.
94