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The Function of the Post‐Nominal Element ki∼k'un in Lakota
Author(s) -
Ingham Bruce
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.0079-1636.2003.00123.x
Subject(s) - sentence , narrative , linguistics , element (criminal law) , function (biology) , subordinator , history , mathematics , literature , philosophy , political science , statistics , law , art , lévy process , evolutionary biology , biology
The Lakota post‐nominal element ki∼k'un lends itself to analysis as either a definite article or a topic marker. It can occur more than once in a sentence, though there are special conditions for this, but it does not occur with all notionally definite items, especially when associated with a postposition. Also it has the further function of relative clause marker and general subordinator. Comparison of texts shows that in narratives and non analytical texts it occurs less frequently per sentence, thus supporting the topic marker analysis, while in analytic discourse it occurs more frequently, supporting the definite article analysis.