A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

(37) miinawaa at both local and global levels
TOPIC 1 (global)
miinawaa TOPIC 2 (global)
EVENT (local)
EVENT… (local)
While the two topics are coordinated by miinawaa, the event structures associated with
the second proposition are not. Rather, it is asyndetic connection ‘zero’ which links the
event structures associated with TOPIC 2. There appears to be no requirement, however,
that discourse topics themselves be linked by miinawaa in Ojibwe, since topics may be
found which are not marked by miinawaa. Schiffrin showed this for marker and as well,
where she found that the transition from the first discourse topic to the second may be
linked by so, rather than and (Schiffrin 1987:139). She also showed that and may share
environments with other markers as well, even the contrastive marker but. Discourse
topics may also be transitioned by other markers in Ojibwe, such nashke, mii, or by
asyndetic connection ‘zero’.
Just based upon these examples alone, it appears that Ojibwe makes use of asyndetic
connections much more productively than does English. 41 This perhaps explains why
miinawaa does not appear in narratives with the frequency that and appears to have in
English. For example, Schiffrin noted that 1002 clause-sized idea units in her corpus
were prefaced by and, compared to 440 by but, 206 by so, and only 53 by or (Schiffrin
41
This is supported by the general use of asyndetic connection (i.e. juxtaposition of two constituents
without a connector) in the language as a whole where a multitude of grammatical relations may be
selected and displayed by the use of asyndetic connection. One example is in the displaying causality, e.g.
Miish ezhi-mookawaakiiyaan wii-pimishkaayaan. ‘I started crying because I wanted to go paddling’ (Kegg
1991: 134). In this example, there is nothing within this sentence meaning because. It is the asyndetic
connection within context which allows the grammatical relation of causality to be displayed.
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