A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

Upon seeing the turtles start to move, the young girl is surprised, and wonders what is
happening, apparently not realizing that the warm water had brought them out of their
dormant state. The naa in this example, similar to the one occurring within the dog and
fry bread example above, occur in situations where there is some confusion brought on
by some surprising or unexpected event in which the speaker then tries to figure what is
going on. Even though naa occurs within an interrogative sentence, rather than in an
interrogative sentence as with the dog and fry bread example, naa shows the speaker’s
wonderment. In short, the turtles start moving, the young girl is surprised and cannot
explain what is going on, and as a result expresses this bafflement (or wonderment) by
the use of naa.
3.2.2.7.2 naa as an evidential marker
Another function of naa is as an evidential marker. When used in this way, the
speaker is accenting an utterance that represents some type of prediction based upon
visual evidence, past personal experience, or deduction. This evidential function of naa
should be distinguished from the function of the well-known evidential adverbs giiwenh
‘apparently, they say’ and iidog ‘must be’ (see Valentine 2001:830-832 for more
discussion about these evidential adverbs) whose major functions are to mark second-
hand information, i.e. information that speakers cannot personally vouch for because the
speaker was not personally present when the reported event occurred. In the case of naa,
however, speakers are usually present during the occurrence of the event in question (and
therefore able to directly report on it), or they have personally experienced or witnessed
something that allows them to deductively report on an event. When used in this way,
188