A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

(116) naa as a wonder particle (Kegg 1991:118-119)
a) Miish ingiw ikwewag imaa jiibaakwewaad imaa, ginagaapiwaad igaye.
and then those women there they are cooking there they are giggling also
b) “Gaawiin dash naa awiiya animosh ayaasiin?”
not but DM someone dog not here
c) “Animoshag dash wiin igo baatayiinowag.”
dogs but on the contrary EMPH they are plenty
d) “Gaawiin na omaa besho bi-onji-izhaasiin animosh?
not INTERR here near s/he does not ever come dog
e) Oonh, ingii-metasinaa bakwezhigan.”
oh I am missing him/her bread
a) ‘The women were still cooking, and also giggling.
b) There aren’t [naa] any dogs here, are there?”
c) “But there’s lots of dogs here.”
d) “Did a dog ever come near here?
e) Oh, I’m missing some bread.”’
In (116b), a little girl secretly stole a piece of fry bread in order to feed an old man that
she was afraid of. Having noticed bread was missing, the women start wondering
whether it was a dog that stole the bread. It is precisely when they are trying to figure
this out that naa is used. The use of naa accentuates this baffled feeling expressed by the
statement in (116b).
Now, there is another use of naa (to be discussed in Section 3.2.2.7.3.1) where naa is
used within clusters da naa and sha naa (i.e. the damn it clusters) which are used to show
strong speaker emotion or distress. It might be argued that naa within the example just
discussed involving the dogs and fry bread that naa is not actually acting as a hedge (or
wonder particle), but as a marker of strong emotional distress (i.e. when the speaker
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