Connectives between sentences Connectives within sentences

3.1.1 Connectives between sentences

Intersentential connectives are more common than intrasentential connectives in Suba-Simbiti. Connectives occurring between sentences in the text corpus are listed in Table 7. Table 7. Intersentential connectives Connective Gloss Occurrence hano when Water 9 bhoono now a Inheritance 3 mbe so, then b Birds 14 kasi but Inheritance 9, Water 21, Mgendi 3, Mgendi 31 ho indeed Buffalo 18 ko bhoora because Origin 18 kora even Origin 25 na and Inheritance 10 ghwiki again Mgendi 12 a In the text corpus bhoono acts as both a thematic development marker and a generic connective. Its role as a thematic development marker is discussed in section 3.4. Therefore, the occurrence of bhoono which is cited here represents its role as a generic connective. b Mbe is sometimes used to mark the most important event in a story. See section 3.4 for a discussion of this role. In this occurrence mbe is functioning as a generic connective. The temporal connective hano tends to appear in dependent clauses that describe a new action preceding the action in the main clause. Ho seems to introduce an action that is a direct result of the action in the previous clause. The connective ko bhoora appears in dependent clauses that present a reason for the action that follows in the main clause.

3.1.2 Connectives within sentences

In Suba-Simbiti the frequency of connectives used to join clauses within a sentence is very low compared to the number of connectives that begin sentences. Connectives occurring within sentences in the text corpus are listed in Table 8. Table 8. Intrasentential connectives Connective Gloss Occurrence kasi but Water 2a, Mgendi 25a hano when Water 7b, Crocodile 10b na and Mgendi 3a, Origin 2a, Buffalo 2a okore so that Mgendi 8 emare then Buffalo 4b The text Mgendi contains an example of the connective okore ‘so that’: 24 Mgendi 8b–d bha-bhotor-e sinsiri seera së-bhöh-irë ömöröngöti okore 3 PL -cut- SBJ 10.rope 10. DEM _ DIST 10-close- ANT 3.mast so_that bho-oroor-e bha-ghooterre-ko 14-float- SBJ 3pl-hold: APPL : SBJ -17. LOC ‘They should cut the ropes fastened to the mast so that the boat would float and they could hold onto it.’ The connective okore indicates that the clause that follows is a desired consequence of what has just been described or an intention for which the previous clause provides the enabling conditions. A sentence containing okore consists of two clauses, both of which are in the subjunctive. Rather than describe in detail each of the connectives that occurs in the text corpus, two important types of connectives will be discussed: concessives and additives.

3.2 Concessives