In addition, the skilled handling of tense and aspect can link actions together, create tension, indicate to the audience which are the most significant events, and add vividness to a text.
This section is a description of how tense and aspect is used in Makonde for discourse purposes, i.e., in what ways each verb structure contributes to the story. Apart from very brief descriptions, the
structure of the different tenses is not discussed. For a study of how the different verb structures are formed and how they inter-relate within a coherent tense-aspect matrix see Leach MB 2010.
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5.1 Description of the use of tense and aspect in Makonde narrative
This section examines the use in narrative texts of eight Makonde tenses: the default narrative, the past perfective, the past imperfective, the anterior or ‘perfect’ tense, the -ka- consecutive, the present
participle, the purposive and the present progressive.
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These tenses have been chosen for study because they are highly important in narrative discourse and most have at least one discourse role that is not
necessarily transparent, given their grammatical function. Sections 5.1.1–5.1.8 below describe the discourse uses of the Makonde tenses listed above. The
primary examples cited come from 07 Mother and child. These examples have been copied for ease of reference into the relevant section, but can also be seen in context in section 5.2, where the whole text of
07 Mother and child is shown with the tenseaspect of the verbs highlighted. Where 07 Mother and child does not display all the possible uses of a tense, or for amplification or confirmation of the usage in
‘Mother and child’, examples from other texts in the text corpus are also quoted.
5.1.1 Default narrative ku- + verb stem
This tense is a highly ‘stripped-down’ Bantu narrative tense,
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it is used only in non-speech narrative text, where its primary function is to carry the main propositions on the event line. In structure, it is identical
to the infinitive, formed with the noun class 15
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prefix ku- plus the verb stem. It therefore shows no tenseaspect markers and no subject concord markers, although it does take object infixes in classes 1
and 2. These can be seen in the two examples from 07 Mother and child below; also in clauses 6e–f, 7, 8b etc. In this study we find that the default narrative describes a sequential verb on the event-line, with no
special prominence in comparison with other events. The -ka- consecutive, in contrast, gives prominence to following events see section 5.1.6 below.
07 Mother and Child use of default narrative
5a. Bai
ndege S kushanya
kwomba
DEF NARR
So aeroplane
above bombed
5b. na
vamadodo vapita
PRES PART
pai. and
footsoldiers they.passing
ground. So an aeroplane went overhead dropping bombs, and the infantry went over the ground below.
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Leach, M.B. 2010, Chapter 5 The structure of the verbal system with particular reference to the core tense-aspect matrix in section 5.7.
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For a description of the conjoint verb structures in Makonde see section 6.3.2, and for the ni copula see section 6.3.3.
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Bantu studies can refer to narrative tenses as consecutive, subsecutive andor sequential. Rose et al. 2003 state that, …in narratives containing a string of events or actions, subsequent actions are indicated by the use of various
morphemes. In these narrative verbs, the time frame is established in one of several ways: either 1 explicitly in the first clause of the utterance, or 2 in some previous utterance, or 3 is understood by the participants. Across
Bantu, both -ka- and Ø are common to indicate consecutivesubsecutive... p. 19. Makonde has both, the default narrative indicated by Ø and the -ka- consecutive see section 5.1.6 marked with -ka-.
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Noun class 15 contains verb-nouns, which in Makonde take the noun class prefix ku-.
07 Mother and Child use of default narrative with object infix
6b. vanu avalá S
pavaanjenge kutukutanga
bai kutwa vana O
kuvajanga
DEF NARR
popo people those
when.they. began to.flee,
so then children
abandoned.them right.there,
…the villagers began to flee and abandoned their children right there… Although the default narrative frequently occurs with other tenses in the same sentence, sentences
do exist with all verbs in the default narrative, either singly or in verb chains. It is often used with the connective kutwala or the reduced form kutwa, which is derived from the verb kutwala ‘to take’ but
used in narrative contexts to mean ‘then, so’. In chains of default narrative verbs, kutwala may introduce the chain; it is also sometimes used to highlight the most significant verb within the chain. Kutwala is not
used in this way with any other tense. The example below shows default narrative chains and the use of kutwala.
02 Lion and hamerkop default narrative chain with ‘kutwala’
12. Mwiu
nae S kutwa
kujama.
DEF NARR
True he
Then opened.mouth.
13a. Shengo
kujela
DEF NARR
lundomo lwake Hamerkop
stuck beak his
13b. kutwala
--- kupamba
DEF NARR
ligwangwa alilá then
to.grab bone that
13c. ---
kusha.
DEF NARR
removed. And Lion did open his mouth.
Hamerkop stuck his beak in, grabbed hold of the bone, and pulled it out. Although complex locatives and temporals can follow a default narrative, by far the majority of the
constituents that occur post-default narrative are direct objects. Another tense is often used where a more complex amount of information is going to be given.
The default narrative can also occur off the event-line in the orientation, the denouement and conclusion, which can bee seen in the example from 07 Mother and child below. However, it is not used
on any occasion for backgrounded material while the event-line is activated.
07 Mother and Child use of default narrative in denouement for recapitulated material
16a. Namwiu
Anímwambola
PAST
aijá mwanagwe And.true
she.saved.him that her.child
16b. kumwidanavo
DEF NARR
brought.him.with And indeed she rescued her child, and ran back carrying him…
It is possible to tell a story in Makonde using almost no other tense apart from the default narrative once the event line has been activated, as can be seen in the charted text of 03 Hyena and Pied Crow,
where no other tense is used from clauses 15b to 27, the end of the story—seventeen uses of the default narrative without a break. However, a skilled narrator will use other tenses as well for specific discourse
purposes, which are examined below.
5.1.2 Past perfective -ndí-
