84 god lived in their family home. The two of them said, “Oh goodness
brother, how can this possibly be? Prior to this we met an old woman and an old man, and when we asked them they said that god lived in our home,
but when we looked there we did not find god anywhere.”’
‘This man their own age said, “Oh my friends, god is not someone
else. God is none other than the old, whitehaired people who live in our homes...’
English translation from Lewis and Bai 2000:70-71, with demonstratives added to reflect the original, in V:169-170
In this story, the main characters are the two people who are searching for god. When
new referents are brought into the narrative, they are first introduced with an indefinite NP, and are referred to with demonstratives in further references. The first two people
whom they ask are introduced with yul and do not play a role in solving the central conflict of the story. The last person they ask is introduced with xil and gives the
information which holds the key to solving their problem. The author uses a change between the distal and proximal demonstratives to mark the third referent as salient.
4.4.2.2 The use of yul with participants who are not local VIPs
When an activated referent referred to by a common noun is a major participant but not a local VIP in a section, the demonstrative yul is used with reference to it. The
effect of this choice is to report on a participant who is not a local VIP without switching attention to that referent. This usage is well-illustrated in the narrative, “Not Just Me,” in
which the center of attention shifts several times between one major participant, the lazy man, and another pair of participants, the thieves. Where the center of attention has been
on the lazy man, the demonstrative is used to refer to the two thieves: 83a ‘...After the lazy man, tying a slip knot with the string, tied up the basket,
he got in the basket and yanked the string, ...’
85 83b
... hoqbyu
hultav jol
e saolhyuq yul niq
hhaq
roof on
be LNK
thief that
two HCL
yaol hhe
dav joq
leil zaol
moq miq.
ACC pull
up IMP
QUO do
command TRAN
‘... to command those two thieves on [the] roof to pull up [the] string.’
Not Just Me 16 In this section, the local VIP is the lazy man, and the thieves are participants outside the
main center of attention. In other sections, when the thieves become the center of attention, they are referred to by a lexical NP and thus activated as new local VIPs. A
pattern emerges in which referents are referred to with yul when they are not VIPs and in other sections, where they are VIPs, no demonstrative is used, causing them to be
construed as a center of attention rather than as forces affecting a center of attention. This is seen in the continuation of 83, below, where the thieves are once again the
center of attention: 83c ‘The basket was pulled up; ...’
83d ...
saolhyuq niq hhaq laqcal qiq hhaq
qiq siq eq thief
two HCL
fast one
HCL one
CL carry
83e alnei
naolhhuvq maq puv meil hyuqxeiv.
ADD back
NEG turn
MAN sneak.away
‘[the] two thieves quickly took one basket each on their backs and without turning back snuck away.’
Not Just Me 17 This passage is followed by a narrative unit which takes place on the road, with
the two thieves as the local VIPs. As such, they are not referred to with the demonstrative, until a later unit in which the lazy man once again takes over as the local
VIP:
86 84a
Gyuyoq saolhyuq yul niq
hhaq savqdol
wul lazy.man
thief that
two HCL
embarrased VOL
ssaq leil
mol taoqngaoq xil-meil
eil miq: ? QUO
see DM
this-MAN say
TRAN
‘Since [the] lazy man saw that those two thieves were embarrassed, he said this:’
84b ‘“We’ve been busy all night, we’re all definitely hungry. You two bring up some bamboo from the creek down there; let’s use bamboo tubes to
cook rice to eat.”’ 84c
Saolhyuq niq hhaq ngeeljil meil meivq
al, thief
two HCL trully
MAN hungry
CRS
‘[The] two thieves were truly hungry ...’
Not Just Me 27-29 In 84a-b, the lazy man is the local VIP, but in 84c, the center of attention turns to the
thieves and what they do next. Following this point, the thieves remain the center of attention for the duration of their presence in the narrative, and the demonstrative is not
used again with reference to them. The effect of the use of the demonstrative is to allow non-VIPs to interact with a
VIP without turning attention away from that VIP. This system is remarkably similar to that of Cerma Gur, Burkina Faso, as described in Levinsohn 2008:138.
4.4.2.3 Yul in reactivations
