6 Dog and Leopard 48a–48d
Pre-NO Pre-NI S
V OC
Post-NI Post-NO
48a Neke avange ukulagidza
CNS.S amaligo makomi ku Mbwa
then he.started to.throw
insults big at dog
48b ---
itigila PRES
[48c–49c]
he.says
48c [Uveeve ve wilagwave
--- ulatangana
F2
yousg yousg trickster yousg.will.meet
48d na
kiki kikumile ANT
with what it.should.swallow.yousg
Then he started to throw big insults at Dog, saying, “You trickster you, what will you meet with that should swallow you?
A further example of the connective can be seen in the peak episode of the Seluhanga text. 7 Seluhanga 17a–18
Pre-NO Pre-NI S
V OC
Post-NI Post-NO
17a Umunya kaaye amwibite
P2
one.with home he.caught.her
17b neke
--- amubamidze
CNS.S paasi
then he.slammed.her
down
18 Umuhiidzi yula
D:Dist aadeenyike
P2 ilivoko nu mugongo
thief that she.broke arm and back
The home owner caught her and then slammed her down. That thief broke her arm and back.
1.3.5 Denouement
The denouement of the narratives in the corpus commonly describes the consequence of the climax of the story, as in this example.
8 Ndegenyi 19
Pre-NO Pre-NI
S V
OC Post-NI
Post-NO
19 Iliiho lyakwe livedzaga
CNS litenda
mbaka neenguli
eye his it.was weak
until today
His eye is weak to this day. In Seluhanga, the denouement consists of a summary of the main events of the story, as told by one of
the participants 19a–21b and then a judgement of those listening to this summary 22a–c. The text corpus does not suggest that there are any particular linguistic features associated with a denouement.
1.3.6 Conclusion
The conclusions of the Bena texts in the corpus tend to draw a moral from the preceding events. In two texts Child and Big Bird 28, Spider and Hare 45, the moral is introduced by the word uluwulanidzo
‘lesson’. In other narratives, the conclusion and the switch from narrative to hortatory genre is signalled by the narrator addressing his audience, as in this example.
9 Ndegenyi 21a–21b
Pre-NO Pre-NI
S V
OC Post-NI Post-NO
21a Na yuuhwe vadzeela vangu Pro:Add
poodzili PRES
ingani [21b]
and we dear.ones my there.are
things
21b [---
dze twatwibedalila] HAB
which we.disregard
And we, my dear friends, there are things which we ignore. The conclusions of other texts describe a current situation which has resulted from the events of the
preceding narrative, as in this example. 10 Dog and Leopard 53a–53b
Pre-NO Pre-NI
S V
OC Post-NI
Post-NO
53a Ukuhumila peene apo
D:Ref u-Duuma nu Mbwa
vasipulingana kangi PRES
since that.time leopard and dog they.do.not.get.on again
53b ---
vasilimihwelanile nambi padebe ANT
they.do.not.spend.time.together at.all little
Since that time Leopard and Dog have not got on, they don’t spend time together at all. The conclusions in the Bena texts tend to involve a switch from the narrative genre to either hortatory
in the case of conclusions containing morals or expository for those conclusions describing a current situation resulting from the preceding narrative. As such it is usual to find subjunctives or present tense
verb forms in the conclusion, as illustrated in the examples given above.
2 Paragraphs
Paragraphs are used to mark the thematic units of a text. Paragraph breaks tend to co-occur with discontinuities of time, place, participants or action. That is, when there is a jump forwards or backwards
in time, a paragraph break is appropriate. It is also usual to start a new paragraph when the action moves abruptly from one location to another. If the movement is gradual, e.g. a character is on a
journey, a paragraph break may not be necessary. Similarly, if the cast of participants suddenly changes, this normally coincides with a paragraph break. Finally, paragraph breaks are used when the action
changes from narrated events to speech or vice versa, or there is an abrupt change of theme or information. Paragraph breaks can be characterised by more than one type of continuity at once. The
next section illustrates the relationship between paragraph breaks and discontinuities with reference to the Dog and Leopard text.
2.1 Paragraphs in Dog and Leopard
