138
The poetic language
37
that occurs in this episode and the elaborate expression in 157, all create very vivid descriptions of the fish.
157 K
original EQUAT fish truly fish EE ‘Just like before he was truly a fish.’ [Fish 141]
Fourteen speech acts occur in this episode, six of which have no quote formula. The speech acts that are highly confrontational make the addressee explicit. Example
158 gives the quote formula before the older sister relates to her mother what she has seen Jii-Mlii doing. She also asks her mother if she knows the person with whom Jii-Mlii
has had encounters, or from where he comes. The thrust of her speech is to try and get Jii- Mlii in trouble, but the mother responds that whoever or whatever he is, she does not
mind. 158
+ +
+ HHHH
DET sis.old 3S.POSS DEM3 former tell to DET mother 3S.POSS
‘Her older sister had told her mother...’ [Fish 191]
8.2.5 Pre-peak 3 Developing conflict 2—clauses 201-246
This episode begins with the adverbial phrase, + ‘after that’. Most of this
episode consists of long stretches of quoted speech. Quote formulas precede 4 out of the 6 speech acts 67. Two of these quote formulas make the addressee explicit. The first
example occurs when Jii-Mpoon relates Jii-Mlii’s activities to the uncles. The second
37
I do not include examples of the poetic language as it is difficult for a non-native speaker to translate.
139
instance occurs when Jii-Mpoon is addressing Jii-Mlii and she uses her younger sister’s proper name 159.
159 K +
2222 tell
to Jii-Mlii
‘Jii-Mpoon told Jii-Mlii...’ [Fish 229]
Jii-Mlii is referenced with her proper name only in this instance when the two sisters are both on-stage. It is an example of over-coding because the more expected
referring expression would be the kinship term, + ‘younger sibling’. Because of this
over-coding for Jii-Mlii and because Jii-Mpoon controls the events and is the more central participant in this episode, I categorize Jii-Mpoon as having a higher rank than her
younger sister. The last clause of this episode adds vividness to the scene by describing Jii-Mlii’s
bracelets rolling down her arm as she is pounding fermentation 160. Because the bracelets are new information, they are introduced postverbally. An expressive word
describes the sound they make. 160
+ arrive middle pounding TSM roll bracelet roll necklace ONOM simply
‘In the middle of the pounding, her brass bracelets simply rolled down her arm, clink, clank.’ [Fish 246]
8.2.6 Peak Climax—clauses 247-394
While the peak begins like many of the other episodes with + ‘after that’, it
contains several peak-marking features—rhetorical underlining, thematic salience
140
markers, marked word order, fronted negators, a narrator intrusion, reporting of Jii-Mlii’s internal thoughts, and six explicit addressees in the quote formulas.
The peak event within this peak episode covers 12 clauses and begins with the uncles seeing the fish jump out of the water. After they shoot it, they see it float and carry
it back to the house where they divide it up between them and Jii-Mpoon and then cook it. Within these 12 clauses, there are six instances of the thematic salience marker—four
marking the fish, one marking Nhot, and one marking Jii-Mpoon. Rhetorical underlining slows down this highly salient event of not only killing the fish, but sharing it between
them to eat, adding insult to injury. The clause in example 161 is an example of rhetorical underlining. This clause is repeated two more times with little variation.
161 + K
after that RECP share fish 3S.POSS TSM
‘After that they divided up her fish.’ [Fish 301]
The event of the fish’s demise ends with example 162 which contains several prominence marking devices.
162 + +
+ +
+ 2222
+ ++
+ after that DET sis.old Jii-Mlii CTR TSM former boil fish 3S.POSS TSM
‘After that Jii-Mlii’s older sister had cooked her fish.’ [Fish 304]
The clause above has two thematic salience markers and the reference to the older sister is the most heavily coded referring expression in the entire story. It evokes Jii-
Mlii’s proper name and uses the contrastive particle, . The use of a proper name
possessor ‘Jii-Mlii’s older sister’ makes the reference more direct, highly specified, and confrontational. This particular referring expression for the older sister only occurs once.
141
Two clauses in this episode have fronted elements—a direct object and a negator. In example 163, the younger sister, who has just killed herself, is fronted.
163 + +
+ ++
+ after cook.rice after cook.food DEM3 DET sib.young 3S.POSS
K L
+ NEG see
awake at.all ‘After cooking rice and making food, her younger sister, Jii-Mpoon did not see
her wake up at all.’ [Fish 346]
Another example of fronting occurs in 164 where the negator occurs before the subject rather than before the verb phrase. This construction makes the meaning a much
stronger vehement, negative force. 164 L
LLL K
+ NEG 3S want eat.rice want eat
NEG2 ‘No way did she Jii-Mlii want to eat rice or eat the fish.’
[Fish 310] Only the peak episode contains a narrator intrusion. No quote formula precedes it;
rather, it begins with a rhetorical question which the narrator answers 165. 165 + K +
+ why
still awake ‘Why is Jii-Mlii still not awake?’
K +
stab body from here ‘Jii-Mlii stabbed her body here.’
[Fish 347 349] Finally, this episode contains 19 speech acts, 13 of which are introduced with
quote formulas. Out of the 13 quote formulas given, six make the addressee explicit. One of the explicit addressees is to bring a participant back on-stage. In four of Jii-Mpoon’s
142
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
