159
instance of the kinship term +
‘her younger sister’. In four other references to Jii-Mlii, the referring expression is a pronoun. Example 194 illustrates Jii-Mlii is
referred to in the first clause with a pronoun followed by her older sister referred to with a kinship term anchored to Jii-Mlii.
194 + after that 3S
DEM3 return ‘After that she Jii-Mlii returned home.’
+ +
+ +
+ ++
+ +
DET sis.old 3S.POSS DEM3 former walk.behind steal from behind ‘Her older sister walked behind.’ [Fish 142-3]
8.3.6 Boundary marking B
The discourse operation Boundary marking looks at referring expressions of participants at episode boundaries. In all but one instance, the referring expressions are
explicit and more heavily coded, even if in the last clause of the previous episode the participant was already activated. Whether this is a listener- or speaker-oriented strategy,
Clancy 1980:172 states that, “the speaker has learned that such shifts from inexplicit to explicit forms of reference can be used as narrative devices to indicate these structural
boundaries.” The referring expression in the Cow story at these boundaries is interesting. In
half of the examples 36, a pronoun + relative clause is used and in the other half 36, a kinship term + relative clause is used. While both the referring expressions are explicit,
I would categorize the kinship term + relative clause as a heavier coded referring expression. There is only one other instance of this expression being used by the narrator
160
and that is in the peak episode in a presentational construction. All of the clauses at boundary breaks begin with a time adverbial phrase or
+ ‘after that’. Example 195
illustrates the kinship term + relative clause at an episode boundary. 195 +
after that uncle REL graze cow male
look.for elder ‘After that the uncle who grazed the bull looked for an elder.’ [Cow 65]
In the Fish story, the common adverbial phrase +
‘after that’ begins all but one episode cf. §8.2.4. Boundary breaks usually have a change of participant or change
of event, so a more explicit referring expression is necessary, as shown in the next example.
196 + +
+ +
+ K ++
after that DET sis.old 3S.POSS covet EVID
‘After that her older sister coveted the fish, for real’ [Fish 201]
In the final episode, Jii-Mlii and Smelt-fish are active from the previous episode; however, there is a change of event the couple becomes husband and wife and Smelt-
fish’s mother, who was active in the previous episode, is not a part of this final episode. The opening clauses of this episode are given in 197 and it is clear that the couple are
the subject referents. And yet, at a boundary, a more explicit referring expression is expected. I hypothesize that a zero is used because the relational status of this formerly
unmarried couple is changing, so kinship or relational terminology is awkward when the opening clauses of this episode establish their new status. While proper names could have
been used, they are heavily coded referring expressions that are ultimately unnecessary
161
given the identifiability of the referents from the context and the pragmatic arguments for the verbs.
197 + K
K K
K after that
live truly like.that ‘After that Jii-Mlii and Smelt-fish just lived like that.’
K K
K K
F + E
B +3 + E
F.C ND E+ ARR2RU,
8.3.7 Evaluation by narrator E
