In Text 2, we find the itive marker enda- which occurs with a tense or aspect marker used in 2.12c, 2.14c, 2.19b and 2.28b. These itive markers indicate changes in the location of events whilst
backgrounding the actual movement from one place to another that is, the events described by the verbs are more important than the movement which precedes them.
2.14a A-ri-pho-on-a hivyo,
a-pig-a mbiru
3
PL
-
PST
-16.
REL
-see-
FV
8.
DEM
_
NP
3
PL
.
PST
-hit-
FV
9.horn 2.14b a-chi-ih-a
atu osi
hipho lalo-ni
3
PL
-
CONS
-call-
FV
2.people 2.all 16.
DEM
_
NP
9.area-
LOC
2.14c na a-ch-enda-mu-endz-a
hiko weru-ni.
COM
3
PL
-
CONS
-
ITIVE
-3
SG
-search-
FV
17.
DEM
_
NP
11.bush-
LOC
‘When they saw that, they blew a horn and called all the people from that area and they went to search for him in the bush.’
5.5 Summary
There is a considerable variety of tense and aspect marking in background material, whereas in foreground material the past and consecutive tenses predominate. Typically, the first foreground clause
in each paragraph uses the past tense, and subsequent clauses on the event line use the consecutive tense when these clauses describe events that follow in sequence. The past tense may be used for a number of
reasons: to resume the event line after a long speech or internal monologue, after the anterior has been used used as a linking device, to mark clauses that elaborate on an event that has just been mentioned,
to indicate events that are repeated over a period of time, occasionally with the verb amba say to introduce speech, and in the peak episode. In Text 6 and some other texts, some foreground clauses are
marked as presentcontinuous with the verb amba say to introduce speech, to describe closely related events, and in the peak episode.
6 Information structure
Information structure concerns the ways in which narrators help hearersreaders to identify new information in a sentence and to combine it with information that they already have in order to arrive at
a coherent interpretation. Information structure in Digo is primarily concerned with the relative order of subject, verb, object and oblique constituents in a sentence.
6.1 Fundamental concepts in information structure
A sentence typically provides information about something; that something is called the topic. Usually, a topic is something which has been mentioned explicitly in a previous clause, but this is not always the
case. In any communication event there is always a speaker and an addressee, and so they are both available as potential topics even if they haven’t been explicitly mentioned already. A topic can also be a
member of a group which has been previously mentioned, or something that is automatically associated with something or someone that has already been mentioned. For example, at the beginning of Text 6,
the woman who did not eat ugali is introduced, but in line 6.2a her husband is the topic of the sentence even though he has not been previously mentioned; it is just assumed that the woman has a husband.
In a narrative, the topic of one sentence may continue to be the topic in the following sentence, in
which case it is called a continued topic. Alternatively, the topic may change, in which case it is called a switch topic. It is important to know whether a topic is a continued topic or a switch topic, as this can
affect where it occurs in the sentence and the way in which it is referred. Typically, a continued topic is expressed by an incorporated subject pronoun only, whereas a switch topic is expressed using a noun
andor demonstrative before the verb.
The information-bearing part of the sentence that is, the new information about the topic is called
the focus. The focus may be expressed by a noun phrase termed argument focus or by a verb and optionally its complements, or a copula construction both of which are termed predicate focus. In
some cases, such as in the orientation section of a narrative, there is no topic and so a whole sentence may contain only new information this is termed sentence focus.
Topic and focus can be represented in various ways within a sentence, following certain templates
or generalized constructions known as sentence articulations. There are three primary sentence articulations: presentational, topic-comment, and identificational. ‘Presentational’ articulation uses
sentence focus to introduce a new participant into a narrative without reference to any existing topic or presupposed proposition. ‘Topic-comment’ articulation consists of a lexical usually nominal topic plus
predicate focus; that is, the ‘comment’ is predicate focus which occurs after the topic. ‘Identificational’ articulation uses argument focus to identify an unknown argument in a proposition; it is typically found
in answer to so-called wh-questions. In Digo, it is possible to draw attention to a focused element through the use of the focus marker che, and this will be discussed in section 9.4 below.
6.2 Overview of information structure in text 5
