A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE ...

In discourse, dibishkoo has a function similar to a reformulation marker, with roughly the
force of the English in other words. In this function, dibishkoo reformulates prior
discourse in upcoming text in order to either make prior discourse more clear, or to allow
the speaker to elaborate on a general point. Within sentence grammars, dibishkoo is more
or less a linguistic equals sign, equating one object with another, e.g. mii aw dibishkoo
ma’iingan ‘He is just like a wolf’. At the discourse level, however, dibishkoo brackets
larger discourse units, i.e. sentences, in order to allow speakers to flesh out prior
discourse in the attempt to make that prior discourse clearer. This is shown by the
following examples.
(42) dibishkoo
a) (Clark 1998:8, audio)
i) Mii wapii nabaj idi gaa-maajaayaan, opime-ayi’ii gii-izhaayaan.
DP when probably over there after I left on the side of it when I went
ii) Dibishkoo-go ingii-paa-nanda-bami’idiz.
just like I was going around looking for ways to support myself
i) ‘That’s the time probably when I left there, when I went somewhere else.
ii) In other words, I was going around looking for ways to support myself.’
b) (Kegg 1991:152-153)
Mii miinawaa gigizheb goshkozigwen, mii miinawaa bi-maajaad, izhaad
DP again morning must wake up DP again left here to go
iwidi Gabekanaansing, dibishkoo sa go washki-giiwe.
over there place name just like DM EMPH s/he comes back
‘And in the morning when he woke up, he left here to go there to Portage Lake,
just like a round trip.’
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