2.3.1 Temporal and spatial points of departure
Temporal PoDs are the most common type of PoD in the text corpora. Most temporal PoDs indicate abrupt switches from one time to another in a narrative. General temporal expressions such as ‘One day’
8
can be used once the event-line has been established, to imply a change of time from one day to another day, or they can be used to begin the event-line, as in the following example in which Rusiku rumwi ‘One
day’ begins the inciting episode:
Kabwa Walker 2011:10 12 Akare
hayo Wangiti na Wakatuuju bhanga bhasaani.
long_ago there Hyena
COM
Hare were[
HAB
] friends
Rusiku rumwi Wakatuuju akamuraarika Wangiti bhagye
obhugeni. day
one Hare
he.invited[
CONS
] Hyena they.go[
SUBJ
] on.journey
‘Long ago Hyena and Hare were friends. One day Hare invited Hyena to go on a journey.’
Other temporal PoDs relate the time of the new paragraph to that of the preceding events in a more specific way, such as the following from Digo: Huyu mchetu ariphogbwira mimba ‘That woman when she
became pregnant’, Juma na chisiku ‘After a week and a bit’, and Ligundzu ra phiri ‘On the second morning’.
Temporal PoDs can also be used to renew a temporal reference. In the Kabwa corpus, orusiku ruyo ‘that day’ referring to the current day in the narrative using a referential demonstrative introduces
important background information before the event-line resumes. The change from foreground to background information represents a discontinuity in the text. Similarly, in another text, the reduplicated
referential demonstrative ruyoruyo ‘that same day’ indicates renewal Walker 2011:11.
Spatial PoDs are very rare in all the text corpora, and entirely absent from the Suba-Simbiti and Makonde corpora. A change of location involves a certain amount of time, and therefore most spatial
PoDs are simultaneously temporal PoDs. Phrases such as Hinyo atu ariphofika hipho ‘Those people when they arrived there’ Digo and Anu bhaakingire munjira ‘When they arrived on the path’ Kwaya express
not just the place at which the participants arrive, but also use the arrival as a temporal reference point.
Locative phrases usually occur after the clause nucleus, but they can be fronted. However, not every fronted locative phrase functions as a PoD. One function of fronting oblique sentence constituents is to
give prominence to the sentence-final constituent. The following Jita example is paragraph initial. Rusiku rumwi ‘One day’ is a temporal PoD but mu-chaaro cheebhwe omwo ‘in their land there’ is not a spatial PoD
for two reasons. First, it is not sentence-initial since it is preceded by Rusiku rumwi ‘One day’. Second, the reason it has been fronted is to leave obhuregesi ‘wedding’ in the sentence-final focus position see §6.2;
the point is that there was a wedding, not that the wedding took place in their land. In the second sentence, mu-bhuregesi eyo ‘in that wedding’ has been fronted, not to indicate a new paragraph, but so
that the verb phrases jing’oma nijirira ‘drums they cried’ and orukuri nirukongoja ‘flute it soothed’ occur in the sentence-final focus position.
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As Helen Eaton has pointed out p.c. 270913, ‘one day’ in narrative texts need not refer to a particular day or to a specific day Monday, market day, etc. and so its function is solely at the discourse level.
Jita Pyle and Robinson 2015:13 13 Rusiku rumwi mu-chaaro cheebhwe omwo nibhubha-mo obhuregesi.
day one
in-land their
there it.was-there wedding Mbe mu-bhuregesi eyo
jingʼoma nijirira, orukuri nirukongoja. so in-wedding there drums they.cried flute
it.soothed ‘On day there in their land, there was a wedding. So in the wedding there, the drums cried, the flute
soothed.’
2.3.2 Referential Points of Departure