Relative clauses introducing major participants and songs Relative clauses identifying participants

Similar temporal points of departure involving the class 16 relative marker pho- occur in lines 2.16a, 2.19a, 2.23b, 2.24a, 2.25a, 2.26, 2.29a, and 2.33a. After the main clause 2.6d-e kpwa hivyo achiona baha amuolage... therefore she thought it best to kill... 2.27c-d ili ammanyise ise kala... in order to show his father that... 2.28b kpwendaiha ayae phamwenga na mchewe to go and tell his companions and his wife 2.28c edze alole garigo hiko dibwani ichikala ni kpweli so they should come and see if the things there in the pit were true 2.29b-c mana asikira sauti... because they heard voices... From these lists, we see that most of the adverbial clauses which occur at the beginning of a sentence, before the independent clause, function as temporal or spatial points of departure. In 2.3a and 2.3b we also find clauses which express the conditions which determine the situation in the main clause. The adverbial clauses that occur at the end of the sentence, following the independent clause, express mannertemporal overlap 4.5a, reason with mana ‘for’ 4.5b, 4.8c, 4.15, 2.29b, resultreason with kpwa hivyo ‘therefore’ 2.6d, purpose with ili ‘so that’ 4.17b, 4.25, 2.27c, purpose with an infinitive 2.28b and purpose with a subjunctive verb form 2.28c. Adverbial clauses introduced by kpwa followed by an infinitive verb form starting with ku- occur both before the main clause 4.18b and after 4.9 and express reason.

7.2 Relative clauses

Relative clauses are dependent clauses which describe or identify a noun phrase. In Digo, relative clauses take two forms: one involving a relative marker which is prefixed to the verb and another involving the independent relative marker amba-; both forms can modify noun phrases in subject, object and oblique positions. Details of the structure of relative clauses in Digo can be found in Nicolle 2012a section 7.3, but here we will only be concerned with the functions of relative clauses in narrative texts. Four functions of relative clauses can be found in these two texts: to introduce major participants or songs, to identify a participant, to describe a participant, and to summarize events as part of an identificational sentence articulation.

7.2.1 Relative clauses introducing major participants and songs

Relative clauses are common when major participants are introduced. The relative clause may simply identify the participant, as in 2.1: 2.1 mvulana m-mwenga ye-ih-w-a Mwiya 1.boy 1-one 1. REL -call- PAS - FV NAME ‘one boy who was called Mwiya’ Often, however, the relative clause describes an important characteristic of the participant, as in 4.8, or it may prefigure the theme of the narrative as a whole, as in 4.1 which indicates the theme of the story, which involves a hunting trip see also section 1.3.1: 4.8b m-mwenga amba-ye kala a=na kani 1-one R EL -1. REL PST 3 SG = COM 9.stubbornness ‘one who was stubborn’ 4.1 atu amba-o kala a-na-kuluphir-a windza kpwa chakurya chao 2.people REL -2. REL 3 PL - CONT - depend- FV 14.hunting for 7.food 7.food 3. PL . POS ‘people who depended on hunting for their food’ In Text 2, a relative clause is used to introduce a song see also section 1.3.7: 2.17 wira wenye a-ri-o-u-imb-a 14.song 14.self 3 SG - PST -14. REL -14-sing- FV ‘the actual song which he sang’

7.2.2 Relative clauses identifying participants

Once we leave the orientation sections of these narrative texts, the most common function of relative clauses is to identify participants. These are all restrictive relative clauses. Line 2.4a is the first time that the name “Mwazewe” has been used, and the relative clause identifies this person as Mwiya’s father, who has already been introduced: 2.4a mzee Mwazewe, amba-ye kala ni ise wa Mwiya 1.elder name REL -1. REL PST COP 1a.father 1. ASS NAME ‘elder Mwaziwe, who was the father of Mwiya’ Similarly, in line 2.27b a relative clause identifies the person with whom the father can hear singing, but without naming him since from the father’s perspective, the identity of this person is as yet unknown: 2.27b yuya a-ri-ye-kal-a dibwa-ni 1. DEM _ DIST 3 SG - PAST -1. REL -be- FV 5.pit- LOC ‘the one who was in the pit’ A few lines later, a relative clause is used to identify the protagonist at a crucial point in the story, near the end of the peak episode; in the relative clause she is identified as the person who had committed the crime that has just been discovered: 2.30a Hiye mchetu a-ri-ye-m-tiy-a yuya mwanache dibwa-ni 1. DEM _ NP 1.woman 3 SG - PST -1. REL -3 SG -put- FV 1. DEM _ DIST 1.child 5.pit_ LOC ‘That woman who had put the child in the pit’ In Text 4, a relative clause is used to identify the protagonist at the point at which he first acts independently in the story: 4.7 yuya mutu, amba-ye kala ka-many-w-a vi-nono ni hara aya-e 1. DEM _ DIST 1.person REL -1. REL PST 3 SG . NEG -know- PAS - FV 8-good by 2. DEM _ DIST 2.his_fellows ‘that person who was not known well by his companions’ Both texts also use relative clauses to make negative statements about impossible situations. In 4.18c the stubborn man thinks that “there is no one who can drink all the water in the lake”, and in 2.21b the elder wife denies that her son could have heard his younger brother singing in the pit: 2.21b Ta-ku=na a-fw-a-ye a-ka-uy-a NEG -17= COM 3 SG -die- FV -1. REL 3 SG - SEQ -return- FV ‘There is no-one who has died and has returned’

7.2.3 Relative clauses describing participants