A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

c) Haaw niinawind imbaapi’idimin gaagiigidoyaang imaa, imbaapi’idimin.
okay we 1.laugh together-1P talking there 1.laugh together-1P/INDEP
d) Gaa-izhi-bimosed aw Zhimaaganish gii-izhinikaazo akiwenzii.
IC.PAST-RR-walks by-3 that Zhimaaganish PAST-be named so/INDEP old man
e) Aaniish naa imbaapi’idimin niinawind imbaapi’idimin imaa anooj ikidoyaang.
well ……… 1.laugh together.1P we 1.laugh together.1P there various us saying
f) Waa! Bimosed akiwenzii.
man! walks by-4/CONJ old man
a) ‘One young boy that I was always with, we were together, going to school over
there.
b) One time we were standing around near the road.
c) We’re just laughing and talking, laughing it up.
d) And then Zhimaaganish walked by, his name was Zhimaaganish.
e) Well, we were just laughing with each other there saying various things.
f) Man, he walks by.’
What this example shows very nicely is the distribution of independent verbs alongside
conjunct verbs. Though both conjunct and independent verbs are acting as independent
clauses, i.e. sentences, their functions in discourse are different. For example, in this
excerpt, the independent verbs in (139a, c, d, e) all carry information about background
which, in turn, provides contextualization for the eventline. The type of background
information provided in (139a, c, e) is largely setting information, while the type of
background information in (139d) is participant information, e.g. the name of the old man
in the story. This distribution of independent and conjunct verbs continues in this manner
throughout the story, and is a common distribution seen in all the stories examined for
this thesis.
There are complications though. While showing a nice distribution of independent
and conjunct verbs within discourse, the above excerpt also reveals that there are two
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