A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

predicted event. In (29b), the speaker uses nashke to point out that because there are so
few traditional healers these days, that this is the reason why Indians are adversely
affected in modern times. In both cases, this “pointing out” or highlighting function of
inashke has the affect of confirming a pre-existing belief or condition put forth by the
speaker, a belief or condition that perhaps was not previously obvious or appreciated by
interlocutors.
While the above examples show that inashke may have various functions in
discourse, i.e. prefacing descriptions of special insights as a way to provide perspective,
drawing out distinctions, presenting examples, and confirming speaker disposition, these
realizations are only manifestations of the underlying function of inashke as a discourse
highlighter, which is its function at the sentence level. In other words, inashke allows the
speaker to highlight upcoming text in order to mark it as salient in relation to prior text.
3.1.1.2 miinawaa
In the dictionary, miinawaa has the listing ‘and, also, again’ (Nichols and Nyholm
1995:89). Its primary role in sentence grammars is as a coordinating conjunction, but it
may also have minor functions as an adverb, or as an adjective. As a coordinating
conjunction, miinawaa may coordinate various constituents as long as they are the same
category, and it usually occurs in between the coordinated clauses. This is shown below
where miinawaa is shown to coordinate noun phrases, adjective phrases, and verb
phrases.
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