*The author, not a linguist of profession, but dealing with many different languages since about half a century, is - and would like to be - 'naive' in the sense of not (i.e. no longer!) carry the burden of a eurocentrical-biased view on non-Western (e.g. Native) languages, as commonly experienced with Latin-based grammatical rules laid upon non-Indo-European languages. This - although amateurish - try to breaking out of the fenced-in ways of 'Weltanschauung' was favoured (or even made possible!) by dealing and experimenting with the Conlang Lojban for some years, which initially had been created for the only purpose to scholarly prove the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of language influencing human thought and - even - perception of the world around us. The Conlang Lojban (le logji bangu - 'the Logical Language') has been modeled in quite some essential features after Native languages such as Nootka (Nuu-chah-nulth), Navajo etc. (so, obviously, sharing - at least some - common traits with the Siouan tongues, too).

The Lakota Basic Sentence

In Lakota language, an utterance is basically composed by 'parts of speech' Western linguists commonly are calling 'verbs'. At a closer look, these 'verbs' always can stand for entire 'sentences'. Roughly speaking, Western linguists commonly devide these parts in so-called 'stative verbs' and 'active verbs' (the latter subdivided in intransitives and transitives) - yet, with regard to the considerations dealt with here and their very purpose, it is preferable to quickly forget these terms for some time.

It seems that, basically, these units are all of the same kind, e.g.:

Lakota word in traditional transcription (I.)
Lakota word in NetSiouan transcription to indicate pronunciation (II.)
Moreorless* (see below) literal rendition (III.)
English translation (IV.)
English equivalent according to Western nomenclature (V.)

It seems that first of all - unlike in Latin grammar-based understanding - there is no distinction made between 'nouns' and 'verbs' ('adjectives', 'adverbs' etc.), which is highly uncommon and hard to imagine for most people raised and 'living' in Western thinking. (As far as can be seen, the linguistic approach here is rejected by Siouan grammar books most probably due to the fact that these are the works of linguists rooted in Western concepts of language - are there any Native linguists not raised in English as their first language?

Parts of speech called 'nouns' conceptually are referring to 'things' allowing 'names' to be tagged on them ('noun' fr. Latin 'nomen' = name). Although, of course, there are nouns also given to immaterial topics like events, philosophical concepts and ideas, uttered words etc., one 'deeply feels' that nouns are 'things' thought of to in principle being able to be touched with our hands.
It is other than 'natural' and intuitive for us to imagine that the concept of e.g. 'house' is grammatically not different from. say, 'live'. On the other hand, there nevertheless are - be they few, though - comparable concepts also in Western languages - e.g. 'rain' (the rain/to rain) in English. There is no semantic difference saying "there is rain" and "it rains"! In e.g. Italian and Romanian, not even the 'subject' _it_ is needed, it's simply "piove" or "plouã" - just like Lakota _magazu_ [mag^a'z^u] which is a complete sentence too, with the meaning "it was/is raining" or "there was/is rain" (or even 'rain' - if regarded conventionally as a 'noun').
In German, there is a noun 'Haus' (house), but also a verb 'hausen' (to house) with the meaning 'to live/dwell' (with a maybe slightly pejorative connotation of "dwelling under not too comfortable local circumstances" in today's language). What it does not mean, though, is "there _is_ a house/_are_ houses" comparable to the 'rain' example. But a connotation like this is attested for at least some Native tongues - and, of course, the Conlang lojban with _zdani_ - to-be-a-house/to-be-houses -, e.g. "ti zdani" - this is-a-house/these are-houses, "vu zdani" - there is-a-house yonder/there are-houses yonder, where the so-called gismu 'zdani' doesn't differ from any other Lojban gismu like e.g. 'klama' (to go/come), neither in outer appearance nor syntactical use.

Now, these Lakota one-word sentences already have, say, 'pointers' built-in - or better, understood - to indicate what 'participant(s)' is/are involved in what the word's semantic contents denotes.

So, - as seen above - _waste_ e.g. is a relation telling of him, her or it to be/having been 'good' or 'beautiful', where the one referred to is not explicitely expressed in the word, but understood.
This is just the way _wicasa_ tells us of a certain him (rather than of a her or it in this case) to be a 'man' (i.e. an adult male), just like the small sentence _hi_ has to be understood that a certain he, she or it "has arrived here" or, in the case of the sentence _kte_ "has killed" a certain him, her or it, respectively.

(Just notice that in Lakota, these parts of speech all are having a slight flavour of past rather than present tense, whereas the future is indicated otherwise - see below).

When these tiny sentences are to tell us of more than just one single he - she - it involved, this usually has to be indicated by an other grammatical 'word' or unit that is following after. This unit is _pi_ and can be called a 'plural marker' because telling us that the one referred to is not a singleton. (Little words like these often are named enclitics which is Greek meaning about 'to lean on' because - although regarded as a separate unit and mostly written separately - they're uttered together with the preceding one-word sentence as if attached to it or 'leaning on' it and forming one word.)
So e.g. _waste pi_ tells us of certain thems to being 'good' or 'beautiful' ones, which can be translated as "They were/are good/beautiful". This is similar to _wicasa pi_ (they were/are men), _hi pi_ (they have arrived here - [and are here, now]) or _kte pi_ (they have killed him/her/it)

Other 'participants' like I - you - we - you all are not already 'built-in' so one has to slightly alter the one-word sentences in order to point to them. Doing this, the default reference is no longer valid.
This alteration is done by glueing small particles to the one-word sentence in front of the word or inside of it (BTW, that's why these Native tongues are often talked of as being 'incorporative').

So, _kte_ (s/he, it killed him, her, it) can be changed to now mean "I killed him, her, it" by adding the particle _wa-_ to it, thus getting the Lakota sentence _wakte_. (In Latin-based grammars, these particles usually are called affix which in Latin is about 'to add/fix to smth'; if it's inserted in the word, it is called infix instead.)
This particle - and others of the kind (see below) are to refer to the agent of the one-word sentence, i.e. who is related in kind of a causative sense to the action or event it denotes, or more simply expressed, its doer or performer.

(*the sentences _unkte_ and _unkte pi_ are ambiguous: they also can be translated as "s/he, it killed you & me" and "s/he, it killed us"/"they killed us", respectively!)

But in the basic sentences _kte_ (s/he, it killed him/her/it) and _kte pi_ (they have killed him/her/it) also the second kind of participants involved can be expressed in order to point to a patient different from the default him/her/it.

The so-called patient is regarded as the participant to whom the action or event denoted by the basic one-word sentence is related to, i.e., here in the case of _kte_, the one who is killed.

The small particles glued to the one-word sentence (i.e. the affixes or infixes - see above! ) must be different from those for the agents shown above. So, in order to e.g. express that it is me that was killed, the basic sentence _kte_ (s/he, it killed him/her/it) has to be altered by adding the little part _ma-_ to it: _makte_ (s/he, it killed me).

(*the sentences _unkte_ and _unkte pi_ are ambiguous - see above!)

Of course, it is possible to denote both kinds of participants, i.e. agent(s) and patient(s) in a sentence like this, thus using both sets of small particles (affixes/infixes) shown above. (And there are still some others not presented so far!)

There is a special particle expressing the relationship of I-agent/you-patient which is _-ci-_ [-chi-] and still one more (for the moment!) that is _wica-_ [wicha'], pointing to a - so-called 'animate' - patient in plural see below!)

Note: In these cases, the particle pointing to the patient always precedes the one pointing to the agent! Exception is _un-_ [uN], which comes first (except for _wica-_ [wicha'])

There are still other forms, e.g. the reflective where the particle _-ic'i-_ [ich'i] (=self) has to be prefixed or infixed. In these cases the patient particles have to be added.

Note that the particle _-ma-_ undergoes a change in his vowel (ma-ic'i-kte -> m-ic'i-kte) and after _un-_ a _-k-_ is inserted!

Whereas 'words' like _kte_ able to take particles for agents and patients, by Western linguists usually are called active transitive verbs, there are other so-called active verbs, words that only can take particles for agents because there are no patients (or objects) to be affected by the agent respective - therefore also called intransitive. These are words/sentences like _hi_ (s/he, it comes/arrives here; to arrive here):

* Different from the so-called distributive _hi pi_, _ahi_ is used for a collective e.g. a family or a body of warriors etc.

Finally, there still are words/sentences like _waste_ or _wicasa_ - see above! - which, as it appears, in principle are of the same kind. Although according traditional Western nomenclature _waste_ could be thought of as an adjective or adverb (good/nice/beautiful) and _wicasa_ (adult male/human) as a noun, they rather can be regarded as kind of 'verbs'. Thus, Western linguists name words like _waste_ by the term stative verb (yet, the _wicasa_ kind obviously not?).
The specialty here is that both kinds only can have patient particles added (but not the ones - shown above - indicating agents!). For native speakers (i.e. 'thinkers') of Western languages, this is not too intuitive to getting along with. So, it shall be tried to give a somewhat 'paralleling' model of circumlocution in English for that, just to give a slight idea of what these constructions might be 'thought' in a Dakotan mind set.

So e.g. _mawaste_ [ma-wa'shte] could be thought of as, say, [being-good-is-in-reference-to/pertained-by-me] etc.,
and _winicasa_ [wi-ni'-cha-sha] likewise as [being-an-adult-male-is-in-reference-to/pertained-by-you] etc.

* The reduplicated form _wasteste_ is used to indicate plurality for inanimates (how Latin-based grammars would tell us), i.e. non-humans and non-animals like trees, rocks, candies etc.
The terms animates, inanimates however don't seem to reflect Dakota spirituality. The Latin word animus (cf. English animal !) means breath, soul etc. which, in Native thinking, also might apply to trees and rocks etc., because comprised by the term takuye oyas'in (all is related). The Dakota expression for English animal(s) however is drawing a different line of distinction from e.g. trees, rocks etc.: it is _wamakaskan_ [wa-ma'-kxa-shkaN] meaning what-moves-on-the-earth.

There are still other, different kinds of words (in the European sense) which in Lakota are all of the same type as shown above, e.g.:

- Numerals - which are adjectives, adverbs or nouns in English (the first man, to be second, the one etc.):

Lakota: _tokahe_ [txoka'he] (s/he, it is first), _unyamni pi_ [uN-ya'mni-pi] (we are three), _waniyetu wikcemna sakpe amakeyamni_ [wa-ni'-ye-tu wi-kce'-mna sha'kpe a-ma'-ke-ya-mni] (I am sixty three 'winters').
(In Lojban, BTW, numerals are articles: _ci ninmu_ [shi ni'nmu] - three women.)

- non-addressing kinship terms - which are nouns in European languages (e.g. my father, their grandfather...)

Lakota: _atewaye_ [ate'-wa-ye] (about: I made/call him father), _tunkasilaya pi_ [txunka'shila-ya-pi] (about: they made/call him grandfather).

The Lakota Basic Sentence slightly modified
to achieve different shades of meaning

Comments

All those one-word sentence words we have been dealing with up to now - see above - can be regarded as typical comments! Yet, what then are topics? Are there typical topic words, too? Yes, at least those kinds of words which are not sentences by themselves, like those already encountered above: _he_ and _hena_!

In Lakota language (just like in many other Native tongues), space is devided in three areas (compare Lojban _ti_, _ta_, _tu_and _vi_, _va_, _vu_):

_le_ [le'] - 'this one here' (within the reach of one's hands)
_lena_ [le-na'N] - 'these here' (within the reach of one's hands)

_he_ [he'] - 'that one there' (within a distance of about six metres)
_hena_ [he-na'N] - 'those there' (within a distance of about six metres)

_ka_ [ka'] - 'that one yonder' (in a greater distance)
_kana_ [kana'N] - 'those yonder' (in a greater distance)

So, usually the words _he_ and _hena_ are used as topics in 3rd person (sing. and plur.) to express s/he, it and they respectively. Please be aware of that this grammatically is not necessary because redundant. Anyway, in a sentence like _he hi_ (he arrived here) or _hena hi pi_ (they arrived here) _he/hena_ is the topic (meaning 'this one/these ones') commented by the one-word sentence _hi_ (s/he, it/they have arrived her). Okay?

So the basical topic-comment pattern is [as for: T] :: [C]

The comment sentence somehow refers to the topic to which it is related in some way. In our examples, the topic redundantly denotes an agent/patient already expressed in the one-word sentence respectively. But, please do not assume that the topic words have always to be in a somewhat defined relationship to the comment's 'subject' etc. as our examples might insinuate. The topic part rather offers kind of a 'plate' for the comment sentence to choose from. As we will see later, there can be - and usually is - a whole bunch of topic words to be referred to by the agents and/or patients expressed or implied in the comment sentence. Moreover, there also can be 'phrases' (groups of words belonging together) in the topic part not already referred to in the comment sentence.

Here, some more examples:

So far, this doesn't seem to be something very important, already. Yet, not only these tiny topic words like _le_, _he_ etc. can serve as a topic but also any of those basic mini sentences we have been dealing with above!

We already learned that e.g. _wicasa_ is a complete sentence meaning "he is an adult male/a man", and that "I am a man" is expressed as _wimacasa_ (about: "being-a-man-is-pertaining-to me"). Now, this idea can also be expressed with _wicasa_ put into the topic part of an utterance: here we have to use a second word (one-word sentence) which is _heca_ [he'cha] (about: be-of-such-kind/be-a-such). Hence: _wicasa hemaca_ [wicha'sha hema'cha].

Some more words:

_pezuta_ [pxeju'ta] (to-be-medicine)
_wakanyeza_ [wakxa'Nyeja] (to-be-a kid/child)
_tona_ [to'naN] is a so-called 'T-word' (question word) and of the same type as seen above, i.e. a complete one-
word sentence with the meaning "to-be-how-many" (e.g. _(hena) tona pi hwo/he?_ - "They're how many?"
_yuha_ (s/he it has him/her/it), e.g. _bluha_, _luha_, ... _unyuha_, _unyuha pi_, _luha pi_, _yuha pi_.
_e_ (s/he, it is the one), e.g. _miye_, _niye_ , ... _unkiye_, _unkiye pi_, _niye pi_, _e pi_.
_sunkawakan_ [shu'n-ka-wa-kxa'N] (it-is-a-horse, lit. 'mystery/power dog'),
_oyuspA_ (to catch/arrest), e.g. _obluspe_, _oluspe_, ... _unkoyuspa pi_, _oluspa pi_, _(hena) oyuspa pi_.

Remember: _ksto_ [kshto'] is the female form of a statement enclitic (_yelo_ is the male form).

Topic Marker

One important kind of words are so-called topic markers following words other than 'innate' topic words like _le_, _he_ etc., i.e. those little one-word sentences mainly dealt with up to now, in order to indicate their syntactical function as a topic. Some of this new kind of 'little words' e.g. are the following:

Most of the times when _kin_ or _wan_ follows a one-word sentence, this word can be regarded as if a noun in Western languages (but not always! - see below): So e.g. _wicasa kin_ [wicha'sha-kiN] usually can be looked at (and translated) as 'the adult male/the man', which is just the same with _sunkawakan wan_ [shu'NkawakxaN-waN] (a/one horse) or _atewaye kin_ (lit.: "the one-I-have-as-a-father" -> my father), _tunkasilayapi kin_ [txunka'shila-ya-pi-kiN] from: _tunkasilayA_ - have-as-a-grandfather (lit.: "the one-they-have-as-a-grandfather" -> their grandfather -> the US Government/the President of the United States of America).
(We'll hear of _k'un_ later!)

Some new words:

_winyan_ [wi'NyaN] (be-a-woman)
_tehila_ [theh^i'la] (to love/be affectionate to smb)
_anpetu_ [aNpe'tu] (to be day) -> _anpetu kin le_ ('the day this here' -> today)
_itawa_ [itxa'wa] (to possess, own), _mitawa_, _nitawa_, _(he) tawa_, _-untawa pi_ ... ('I own him/her/it' ...)
_sunka_ [shu'Nka] (to be a dog),
_sungmanitu_ [shu'Ngma'Nnitu] (to be a coyote, 'wilderness-dog')
_Lakota_ [lakxo'ta] (be a Lakota, Native, Indian)
_iyecinkiyanke_ [iye'-chiN-k-iNyaNke] (lit.: "runs-by-itself", to be an automobile/car)
_opetun_ [ophe'txuN] (s/he, it buyed it, to purchase)

Usually, the subject of a comment's sentence refers to topic I, whereas an object is related to one of the following topics. Yet, one should always keep in mind that this is not a strict rule, since there is only context to decide where each of the built-in participants of the comment sentence is pointing to!

As mentioned already, topic words (and, as we will see, also phrases and sentences!) not only can be referred to by comments subjects or direct objects (sorry for these grammatical expressions!), but also by so-called indirect objects and still other parts of speech. There are 'verbs' (one-word sentences) bearing the dative infix _ki_ or just having a dative notion from its semantic, e.g.:

_k'u_ [k'u'] (s/he, it gives him/her/it to him/her/it, to give), e.g. _mak'u_, _nik'u_ etc. (s/he, it gave it to me ..., to you etc.)
_manun_ [maNnu'N] (to steal) -> _makinuN_ [ma-ki'-nuN] (to steal smth from smb).

These are also called ditransitive simply because being able to have/express three (and more) participants, e.g. the giver(s), the one(s) given and the recipient(s) as seen above.

Notice that one-word sentences - like _manun_, here - can be made ditransitives by adding (incorporating) particles to them - like the dative marker _-ki-_ or others seen above - so they can express more participants and point to more topics directly. In other words, one can create additional slots for objects.

_ni_ [niN'] - s/he lived/lives - one participant
_niyA(N)_ -> niye - s/he causes/caused to live; s/he, it breathes/breathed - one participant
_nikiyA_ -> nikiye - s/he causes/caused his/her/its own to live - two participants
_nikiyA_ [nikhi'yA] -> nikiye - s/he causes/caused him/her/it to live - two participants
_wanikiyA_ [wani'khiyA] -> wanikiye - s/he causes/caused smb. to live -> that who... -> saviour - one participant

New words:

_wowapi_ [wo'wa-pi] (lit.: 'smth they wrote' -> smth written -> to be a letter, book)

As for the topic side of the sentence, of course, for each participant of the comment a topic 'word' can be filled in:

so if the comment e.g. is _mawicakinun_ (s/he, it stole smb/smth from them), the three participants can point to three topics'words: e.g. _winyan_ (woman), _wica(sa)_ (man) and _cante_ [chaNte'] (heart), here: _cantepi_ [chaNte'-pi]* (their heart) in order to form a fancy sentence like:

*(Why this is so, we will see later!)

Hence: "This woman stole/steals the hearts from many men." (admittedly, not a good Lakota sentence!)

Notice:

topic I 1_le_ (this here) is kind of repeating topic I giving it a 'flavour' of closeness translated by 'this woman'.

And, maybe, as kind of a rule to stick to: In this sort of one-word sentences which can take three participants ('ditransitives'), the topic I-slot is for subjects, the topic II-slot for - 'animate' - indirect objects i.e. the participants referred to by _-ki-_ (simply speaking: the one(s) smth is given to or taken away from!) and topic III-slot for the direct objects (the one(s) indicating what has been given or taken away).

The topic 'words' - in principle - do not express plurality - (apart from the _ota_ added to _wicasa_ here) this job is done almost exclusively by the 'commenting' one-word sentence.
Here, the _-wica-_ part (expressing 'them') points to topic II (wicasa) thus indicating plurality, whereas the sentence as such (_ma-kinun_) with its 3rd person singular agent (s/he, it), related to topic I, denotes that _winyan_ has to be regarded as singular.
Since in this kind of one-word sentences (ditransitives) the direct object (here, 'that taken away') is rather implied than expressed, it cannot itself indicate plurality (or singularity) of the topic III-word (_cante_). So, if its plurality is necessary or wished to be expressed explicitely, this must be accomplished at the topic word itself (how this can be done in Lakota, we will see later).

As mentioned earlier, there can be many topics that are not already somehow - in nuce - included in the comment sentence and pointed to by it. Here is an example:

New type of word: _un_ [uN] - with, by means of etc.

New word:
_sunkpala_ [shuNkpa'la] - dog pet/puppy, from _sunka_

Remember: _t'A_ - s/he, it died, _na-_ - by foot/wheel action

The puppies were killed (run over) by a car !

The above rule-of-thumb only seems to hold for objects pointed to by the comment part, which roughly go by this order, whereas other topics are free - see below.

New word:
_aguyapi_ [ag^u'-ya-pi] - bread
_ecela_ [ece'la] - alone, only
_ni_ [ni'N] - s/he, it lives, is alive

"Man lives not from bread alone" (Men do not live from bread alone)

Seeing that most of the topic words in principle are nothing else than the one-word sentences we already had encountered on the comment's side (although, as topics, understood and translated as if nouns) , it is not surprising at all to also find constructions like the following:

Remember:

_hi_ ("s/he, it arrived here" - to come/arrive)
_waste_ ("s/he, it is-good/nice" - to be good/nice)

"It is good that you have arrived here!" -> "Welcome (here)!"

Here, the topic is translated as a whole sentence ("you have arrived here"), hence, in the entire topic-comment structure, it is given as a subordinate clause!

And, of course, these topic sentences need not be just one-word sentences as found on the comment side and transferred to the topics side to make them topics, they can consist of more complex sentences as well, thus having topics of their own. E.g., let's see the following example - now with the use of the enclitic _k'un_ - already introduced above!

New words:
_gli_ [gli'] - s/he, it arrived/came home -> to arrive/come home
_ceyA_ [che'-ya] (he) ceye - s/he, it cried -> to cry/weep (also: to pray)
_htalehan_ [h^ta'-le-haN] - to-be-yesterday -> yesterday (the day before today)
_lila_ [li'la] - really/very
_tohan_ [to'-haN] - when?, then
_hehan_ [he'-haN] - then, when

Remember:
_wakanyeza_ [wa-kxaN'-ye-z^a] - s/he, it is-a child/kid -> to be a child/kid
_k'un_ [k'uN'] the aforesaid

I arrived home yesterday.

The children were/are really crying.

Yesterday, when I arrived home, the children were really crying.

Notice:

It seems that sentence #2, here in total has two topics it is commenting on, namely sentence #1 marked by the topic marker _k'un_ plus _hehan_ which kind of repeats/points back to _tohan_ (that usually is omitted - and itself being a topic within sentence #1 and a subtopic with regard to the entire sentence composed here).

And, there are still more kinds of using whole sentences as topics, e.g.:

New word:

_keyA_ [ke'ya] (s/he said it) - It seems that the word derived from _kin eyA_ (topic marker + s/he said)

S/he said that s/he came home yesterday.
or
S/he came home yesterday, s/he said.

And likewise:

"I came home yesterday", s/he said.

As you might have recognized already, these topic-comment structures can be nested, thus being recursive and - in theory - infinite:

When s/he arrived home yesterday, the kids were crying very much, s/he said.

Looked at this sentence as a whole, its - outer - structure is the following: