Date of Award

12-1974

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Linguistics

First Advisor

John C. Crawford

Abstract

In her Dakota Texts Ella Deloria appears to be using cha and chanke interchangeably. The goal of this paper is to show that the difference lies in the realm of subordination. For this purpose other languages have been examined to detect how subordination is marked in them. Both German and English are shown to mark subordinate clauses overtly, but Lakhota markers are not so apparent. Subordination is formally defined in a Generative Semantic framework and pertinent works on Lakhota grammar are reviewed. The solution implied by Boas and Deloria that cha is a subordinator is accepted and proven to be true. But Boas and Deloria's solution turns out to include two homophones under one meaning and cha is shown to have the function of a causal subordinator and also acts as an emphatic particle. Chanke is shown to be a coordinating conjunction.

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