Marked initial subjects that are not points of departure

2.3 Referential points of departure

A referential point of departure relates to topic or participants; these are rare in Makonde. The default position of a subject in a SVO order language—if there is no connective or other initial element—will be sentence-initial. In order to analyze an initial noun phrase as a referential point of departure, therefore, it is necessary to establish that there is a clear discontinuity, and preferably an intonational pause, a spacer, and a trace later in the nucleus of the sentence that refers back to the point of departure. 11 The example below from 01 Horned Animals 14 fits these criteria: the noun phrase is nangolo mwene ave ashamile shikukulu aju ‘the old-one owner who was the one who called the party this-one’. Here there is a clear discontinuity as the story has been focussing on the protagonist Rabbit, and now returns after something of a gap to the antagonist, the leader of the horned animals who has called a party that Rabbit gate-crashes. This is a critical sentence in which the old-one owner sees Rabbit—exposed as hornless after his wax horns have melted and fallen off—and immediately orders that Rabbit should be killed. There is an intonational pause after aju, the relative clause ashamíle shikukulu acts as a spacer, and aju ‘this one’ referring to the antagonist operates as a trace. Note that the full noun phrase referring to the antagonist, the leader of the horned animals, is nangolo mwene ave ashamíle shikukulu aju ‘the old-one owner who was the one who called the party this-one’, with the proximal demonstrative aju ‘this-one’ wrapping up the long description and maintaining its cohesiveness. 01 Horned Animals 14a. Napane nangolo mwene ave Now elder himself being 14b. ashamíle shikukulu who.had.called feast 14c. aju kumwona this saw.him 14d. shingula aijá dimembe dindigwanga. rabbit that horns have.fallen. Then the leader of the horned animals, the one who was giving the party, saw Rabbit dancing away without any horns.

2.3.1 Marked initial subjects that are not points of departure

However, all sentence-initial subjects in Makonde need to be handled with care. Many sentence-initial noun phrases are heavily marked, and as it is not always necessary to mark the subject at all in Makonde and other Bantu languages, it is tempting to start analysing virtually all initial noun phrases, pronouns and demonstratives as referential points of departure pod. But a heavily marked noun phrase at the beginning of a sentence alone is not enough; a referential pod requires a discontinuity and marked word order, provided by a pause, a spacer andor a trace. The two examples below show marked subjects, but not as referential pods. There is no discontinuity, and the noun phrase is followed immediately by the finite verb—with no pause, no spacer, and no trace. In 01 Horned Animals 10 below, the sentence-initial nae shingula ‘he rabbit’ may look like a point of departure, as it is sentence-initial and heavily marked. However, the noun phrase is not preposed, being in the default subject position before the ni copula. In addition, the heavy marking of independent 11 See ‘Analysis of Narrative Texts’ by Stephen H. Levinsohn, 2003 SIL International, section 3.1. pronoun nae + noun is due to this being the beginning of developmental episode 2 see section 4.2.2.2.1. 01 Horned Animals 10a. Mwiu nae shingula ni kutwala upula aulá True he rabbit it.is to.take beeswax that 10b. --- kuumbaumbanga to.arrange 10c. kutwala --- kulinamatidya mmuti amulá then to.stick on.head that 10d. nae kutwala mwanda he to.take journey 10e. kuka akulá kushikukulu. to.go there to.feast. And so Rabbit took some beeswax, made himself some horns and stuck them on his head; then off he went to the party. The example below might also look like a referential pod, but perhaps a better analysis would be to say that the locative phrase kukwaka ‘at the hunt’ has been left-dislocated in order to raise the prominence of the temporal phrase kila mo mwaushwela ‘every single dawn’, which is now in sentence- final position. As a result, the independent pronoun nae ‘he’ has also been left-dislocated. Grammatically the subject concord marker on the verb now operates as the subject within the nucleus. 05 Fisherman 5. Nae S kukwaka hashishalegwa kila mo mwaushwela He at.hunt he.did.not.be.absent every when of.it.was.dawning. Not a day dawned when he failed to go fishing. One of the most interesting examples of something that looks like—but is not—a referential point of departure pod is 03 Hyena and Pied Crow 01, where the sentence starts ‘Litunu namu Nashove, vanu ava… Hyena and Pied Crow, these people…’. This looks at first like a referential pod with its pause, and noun + demonstrative operating, as a trace. However, it cannot be analyzed as a point of departure for the very good reason that it is the first sentence in the whole narrative and therefore cannot be marking a discontinuity or presenting already established information. One possible analysis of this is as a much abbreviated thetic presentation of the main participants simply in a noun phrase, with the common post-introduction proximal demonstrative dem1 ava immediately following. 03 Hyena and Pied Crow 1a. Litunu namu Nashove vanu ava kudyavalananga Hyena and Pied Crow people these were.friends Hyena and Pied Crow were great friends…

2.4 Topic frames