  In this paper we use the relation of the index of an infinite aperiodic word
and its recurrence function to give another characterization of Sturmian words.
As a byproduct, we give a new proof of theorem describing the index of a
Sturmian word in terms of the continued fraction expansion of its slope. This
theorem was independently proved by Carpi and de Luca, and Damanik and Lenz.
