A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

d) They got around in boats.
e) There were no cars and no road.
f) There was one lady standing around.
g) That old lady was nice-looking.
h) She came and grabbed me, asking me, “What is your totem?”’
As expected, when the verb occurring with miish i'iw occurs within the eventline
structure, the verb appears with conjunct order inflection; but when occurring within
background structures, it appears with independent order inflection.
Overall, what these data show is that while the conjunct has very specific roles at the
sentence level as marking subordinate clauses, it also has a very major role within
discourse, to carry the eventline structure of a story or narrative. This is evident even
where the use of the mii-complexes mii dash, miish, or miish i'iw are involved. With
them too, the conjunct carries the eventline, while the independent carries background
information. It is this elevation of the conjunct for work at the discourse level which
shows that it is not only individual lexical or grammatical items which are targets for
discourse work, but entire inflectional systems as well.
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