5.2 The relative chronology of situations described by the verb
In addition to the function of distinguishing foreground and background material, and the expected grammatical function of expressing the tense and aspect of an individual situation, tense and aspect
categories in narrative texts indicate the relative chronological relations between situations. In this section, we consider the ways in which the languages in our sample use tense and aspect to indicate that
two events occur consecutively or simultaneously.
5.2.1 Sequentiality
The most common way to show that two events occur sequentially is simply to use the narrative or consecutive tense, as has been seen in §5.1.1 above. However, these tenses are not normally found in
subordinate clauses and therefore an event which is conveyed in such a clause must be marked in a different way to show its chronological relationship to the clauses around it. Fuliiru has two ways to
mark a clause of this type. In the first construction, which can be considered the default strategy, the conjunction iri ‘when’ in the subordinate clause is followed by an unmarked past tense SC-ka-VR-a.
Fuliiru Van Otterloo 2015:16 85 Iri
i-ka-b-a keera
ya-mal-a siku
zi-ta-li niini,
when 9-
PST
-be-
FV
already 9.
ANT
-finish-
FV
10.days 10-
NEG
-be few iyo
mbongo y-ana-galuk-a 9.
DEM
_
REF
9.gazelle 9-
SEQ
-return-
FV
‘When many days had already finished [lit. When it was already finished many days], that gazelle returned.’
In the second strategy, the conjunction mbu or ngu ‘as soon as’ is followed by a subjunctive verb SC-VR-e and a sense of suddenness or immediacy is conveyed:
Fuliiru Van Otterloo 2015:17 86 Ingoona
mbu i-yuvw-e ulubi, y-ana-i-bakul-a.
9.crocodile as_soon_as 9-hear-
SUB
noise 9-
SEQ
-4-gobble-
FV
‘As soon as the crocodile heard the noise, it gobbled them up.’ In both examples, the second clause contains the default sequential SC-ana-VR-a. The difference in
immediacy between the two examples is achieved by the choice of conjunction and verb form in the first clause. In the second example above, the verb in the subordinate clause is not a past tense, but the event
it expresses is understood with a past time reference in the context. A similar situation holds for the Malila strategy for expressing consecutive events with a subordinate clause followed by a main clause:
Malila Eaton 2015b:18 87 We
bha-a-mu-piny-a mwi pagali,
when 3
PL
-
PFV
-1-tie-
FV
on 5.stretcher
basi bha-khand-a
kʉ-shʉʉl-a na=wo
kʉ-mʉ-twal-a kʉ sɨpɨtaale well 3
PL
-
NARR
.start-
FV INF
-journey-
FV COM
=3
SG INF
-3
SG
-take-
FV
to 9.hospital ‘When they had tied him to the stretcher, well, they started to journey with him to take him to the
hospital.’ The verb form in the subordinate clause is analyzed as a present perfective SC-a-VR-a. When it
occurs in a main clause, it can be used to locate a situation in the present or immediate past, but not in the far past. When, as in this example, it occurs in a subordinate clause, it can locate a situation in the
far past, because it takes its time reference from the narrative tense of the following clause bhakhanda ‘they started’ which indicates far past.
Stegen 2011:278 raises the possibility that in Rangi, the choice between two tenses used to narrate consecutive events in main clauses may indicate a difference in how closely the second event follows on
from the first. This would therefore be similar to the phenomenon noted above for subordinate clauses in Fuliiru. In Rangi, some data suggests that the narrative SC-ka-VR-a is preferred for an event which
immediately follows the previous one, whereas the intermediate past SC-a-VR-a is preferred if there is a gap before the next event occurs.
When an event is presented out of chronological order, as a flashback, it is usual to use a tense and aspect choice to convey this. In Bena, for example, a far past is used below to show that the second
sentence does not represent the next event in the sequence as would be conveyed by choosing the consecutive, but refers to an event which happened previously:
Bena Eaton 2015a:29 88 Pa kaaye yaakwe
ii-kal-ag-a
30
ni mbwa yaakwe suwe.
at 9.home 9.3
SG
.
POSS
3
SG
.
P
2-live-
IPFV
-
FV COM
9.dog 9.3
SG
.
POSS
just Imbwa iyi
a-yi-peel-iye ilitaawa Kolandzi.
9.dog 9.
DEM
_
PROX
3
SG
.
P
2-9-give-
ANT
5.name
NAME
‘He lived at home with just his dog. He had given this dog the name Kolandzi.’
5.2.2 Simultaneity