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speech acts, the addressee is explicit. Two of these instances occur when she relates the news of her sister’s death to her parents and then her uncles. Overall, the explicit
addressees heighten the relevance of the speech acts for this peak episode.
8.2.7 Post-peak Denouement—clauses 395-476
The post-peak episode begins with the adverbial phrase, + ‘after that’. In this
episode, because the referring expressions for Jii-Mlii ‘his fiancée’ and Smelt-fish’s mother ‘his mother’ are both anchored to Smelt-fish, Smelt-fish appears to be the highest
ranking participant. Also, he is the most central participant in this episode, as all the speech acts revolve around him. The episode mainly consists of ten speech acts, and only
half 510 contain a quote formula. Interestingly, Smelt-fish’s three speech acts are not preceded by a quote formula.
One prominence-marking device found in this episode is the fronted negator shown in example 166. It communicates the strength of his resolve of not wanting to
look at, go see, or acknowledge his fiancée who he believes is responsible for killing the fish-shirt he threw out of the water.
166 L LLL
+ NEG 3S want go
at.all ‘No way did he want to go to Jii-Mlii at all.’ [Fish 419]
8.2.8 Closure Final suspense—clauses 477-572
The closure begins with the adverbial phrase, + ‘after that’ and then
statements about Jii-Mlii and Smelt-fish becoming husband and wife. The description of the preparations to visit Jii-Mlii’s parents contrasts greatly with Jii-Mlii’s poverty
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described in the opening scene of the story. The story begins in her parents’ house and ends there, bringing the story full circle. This ‘Cinderella’ theme of a poor, unfairly
treated person having a reversal of fortune is common in many Bunong folk tales. Outside of the narration about the couple’s preparations and Jii-Mlii’s parents and
relatives making simultaneous preparations for the seventh day ‘scaring the ghost’ ceremony, the episode consists mainly of quoted speech. There are a total of 20 speech
acts, 13 out of 20 65 include a quote formula. Jii-Mlii initiates most of the speech acts, 10 of the 20, and is the most thematically central and the highest ranked participant
in this last episode. While higher ranking participants usually have less coding on their referring expression, due to social constraints, she is referred to as ‘wife of Bachelor
Smelt-fish’ since this is now the most salient feature of her identity. When only she and Smelt-fish are on-stage there is a quote formula which under-codes a referring expression
for Jii-Mlii 167, demonstrating she is of higher rank than Smelt-fish cf. §7.2.2. 167
K K
3S EMPH
‘She said to Smelt-fish...’ [Fish 481] One other significant event in this final episode is given in 168. The object is
fronted and also contains a thematic salience marker and an expressive describing a large commotion of people eating.
168 ++++
+ ++
+ K
water.buffalo REL past slash TSM former eat ONOM
‘The water buffalo that had been killed prior, they all ate it.’ [Fish 569]
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In Bunong culture, a water buffalo constitutes one of the largest animals for sacrifice, mirroring the importance of an event. Eating this animal connotes a huge
celebration.
38
This water buffalo that originally was prepared for a death ritual, is now eaten in celebration. This demonstrates once again the reversal of fortune in Jii-Mlii’s
circumstances.
8.2.9 Summary of grammatical features in the Fish story
