Foreground and background L. Bert Voorhoeve

take a bath’ is present and imperative. The enclitic particle katu ‘unobstructed’ has been moved from its normal postverbal position in the independent clause to serve as a “spacer,” signalling a major break in information structure Dooley and Levinsohn 2001:73f and Dooley 2006, §24.4.3.2, here between background orientation and foreground. This helps to signal that clause b is ad-clausal orientation reason, as a is also. Example 17 shows the same kind of independent tense marking in a background clause, but with peripheral subordination instead of ad-clausal modification: 17 rei tuja o-i-kuaa pota ma [hae vae pyavy-ve t-ay vaerã rã ] rich.man old 3-3-know try.hard already ANA REL night-same 3-son FUT DS ‘The old rich man watched closely to see whether his daughter would have a son that night.’ foreground: background b DS a indep The bracketed SR clause here is background peripheral subordination, according to criteria of table 2, and is of a type which can be called perceived event. Example 18 has peripheral subordination of a different type, concomitant action : 18 E-maẽ eme ke [xe-r-okẽ a-i-pea jave ] 2 SG . IMP -look NEG . IMP IMP 1 SG - R -door 1 SG -3-open SIM ‘Dont look when I open my door’ In 18, the imperative mood marked in the nuclear clause is not attracted to the background clause. We have seen, then, that although foreground clauses in Mbyá Guarani have operator dependence, background clauses in ad-clausal modification or peripheral subordination do not. This is similar to what happens in Papuan languages. In Amele, “In an SR medial clause chain the tensemood operator is marked only on the final clause in the chain but the scope of the operator applies to all the clauses in the chain.... In contrast, subordinate clauses can be marked independently for tense and mood....” Roberts 1988:51. However, the two “subordinate”—apparently ad-clausal—background types which Roberts 1988:58f cites in Amele—conditional and apprehensional—have an adverbial morpheme. In Mbyá Guarani, SR background clauses are often identical with foreground clauses in their internal form. 3 Further types of background Thus far, we have observed orientation background in the ad-clausal modification function and, in the peripheral modification function, the two types of perceived event and concomitant action. It is not unusual for clause chains to occur with more than one type of background: 19 a Kunhataĩ i-porã vae o-u vy ma maiden 3-pretty REL 3-come SS BDY b “Mbaexa ta xe-ngana?” hei ng-uu pe ramo what.sort about.to 1 SG -win 3.say 3. REFL -father DAT DS c [“Pevae” hei d [Pyxaĩ re o-maẽ vy] ramo] that 3.say name ABL 3-look SS DS e kunhata ĩ o-u vy f o-i-kuavã Pyxa ĩ ramo maiden 3-come SS 3-3-embrace name DS g t-ykey kuery i-vai gu-yvy pe 3-older.brother COLL 3-angry 3. REFL -younger.brother DAT ‘a When the pretty maiden arrived b and asked her father, “Who will win me to be his wife?” c and he said, “That one,” d looking at Pyxaĩ, e the maiden came f and embraced Pyxaĩ g and his older brothers got very angry at him.’ Clause a is orientation, repeating the last clause of the preceding sentence. In example 19 as in 16, there is an enclitic particle ma ‘boundary’ as a spacer between this background orientation and foreground: c DS foreground: background: a SS e SS f DS g indep d SS b DS The postnuclear clause d ‘looking at Pyxaĩ’ is another example of concomitant action in peripheral subordination, since it directly modifies the predication of its matrix clause c ‘he said, “That one”’. Example 20, from which 9 was excerpted, shows two types of peripheral subordination: