A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

a) ‘One time we were standing around near the road.
b) And then Zhimaaganish walked by.
c) He walks by.
d) He was really pointing that thing [his cane] around at us.
e) And so I started running to my house and went home
f) And I told my dad and mom here where they were: “Me and Biindigegaabaw
were laughing near the road, laughing it up, when Zhimaaganish walks by, he
thought we were laughing at him he said.”
g) And my mom told me, “Come, hurry, hurry and go over there and give him
tobacco, tell him you weren’t laughing at him.
h) He was constantly looking at me.
i) And then I told him, “Hey Zhimaaganish, we weren’t laughing at you,” I told
him.
j) The old man laughed about that, “Ho, ho, ho grandson.
k) And my mom and dad told me, “Never ever stand around laughing at old men
and old women,” she said.’
When we include the portions of the story which give setting or background information
that gives contextualization to the eventline, we find the use of independent verbs along
with sentence level use of conjunct verbs. This is shown from the following excerpt of
this same story. For easy visibility, the discourse conjunct verbs appear in bold type and
the independent verbs are underlined. Note also that the independent verbs are glossed
more narrowly than their surrounding words in order to show their independent order
morphological structure in more detail.
(139) Independent verbs carrying background information (Eagle 1998:16, audio)
a) Bezhig oshki-inini gwiiwisens gaa-wiijiiwag apane, ingii-wiijiindimin,
one young man little boy who I was with always 1.PAST-with each other-1P/INDEP
ingii-gikinoo’amaa-goomin di.
1.PAST-be taught-X>1P over there
b) Aabiding imaa naaniibawiyaang jiigikana.
one time there standing around-1P/CONJ near the road
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