249 Taha
Java-nro wa-kisi-ka
osa-BIA. far.away
Java-toward we-try-PRES.PERF
go-FUT.IMPF ‘We tried to go all the way to the village of Java.’
All the events following this sentence, up to the breakdown of the bus, are covered by the word ‘go’ to which the -bia is attached. The second occurrence of this suffix is just before
the return home:
250 Ken
wa-sifoda-NBIA-the. and
we-turn.around-FUT.IMPF-BACK ‘And we started back.’
Again, the events following this sentence represent a spelling out in detail of the going back. Similarly, in the Jaguar Story, the sentence introducing the sequence concerned with
the successful killing of the jaguar is as follows:
251 Ken
l-osy-NBIA li
bikhidoliathi. and
he-go-FUT.IMPF the
young.man ‘And the young man set off.’
The whole of the hunting sequence that follows may be subsumed under this sentence.
5.2.3 Tension in a Narrative and TenseAspect
As has already been implied, the various types of information are not evenly distributed in a discourse. Thus, one obvious statement that could be made is that, in a narrative, one
would typically expect to find more setting information near the beginning of the narrative as a whole, or near the beginning of major sections in the narrative, than in the middle of
the heat of the action. The distribution of other types of information is not as obvious. Nevertheless, there are consistent patterns which emerge. For example, Labov and
Waletsky 1967 discuss the occurrence of what they call “evaluative” statements at the suspension point in English between the complication part of a narrative and the resolu-
tion. One way to describe parts of a narrative and the distribution of various types of information in them is in terms of plot structure.
A number of authors have dealt with plot structure. Perhaps one of the first to do a close analysis was Propp 1928 who dealt with the structure of folk or fairy tales. More re-
cently, others such as Grimes 1975 and Longacre 1976, 1983 have dealt with plot on a rather abstract level, and yet others e.g. various articles in Longacre 1984 have published
studies about, and relating to, plot structure in specific languages.
Longacre 1976:197ff. and 1983:20ff. posits the existence of both “surface struc- ture” and “deep structure” plots and a mapping of the one to the other. The deep
structure plot is viewed in some sense as a language universal for narrative dis- course.
5
The specifics of the surface structure plot may have language-particular characteristics, and may also show variation from narrative to narrative. In the fol-
lowing discussion, I assume an analysis of plot essentially like Longacre’s. 110
Aspectual Particles and the Contribution of Discourse to Arawak Syntax
5
This is not to exclude other discourse genres. “Something like plot characterizes other forms of discourse than narrative” Longacre 1976:212.
For example, he mentions: “There are plot-like elements in procedural discourse. We may think of the whole procedural discourse as reflecting a struggle to accomplish the goal of
discourse, to carry through an activity, or to produce a product” Longacre 1983:38.
One of the most universally mentioned and commented-upon features of a plot is the pro- gressive sometimes steady, sometimes episodic building toward a climax or peak. The char-
acteristics of this peak have been well documented for a number of languages and include things such as heightened vividness, changes of pace, changes in average sentence length, con-
centration of participants, and shifts in tense or person orientation e.g. Longacre 1976, 1984; Grimes 1975. The building toward the peak is characterized by Longacre and others e.g.
Jones and Jones 1984; Walrod 1984 as a “knotting up” or “building of tension.” What is meant by these terms is a combination of rather psychological-sounding factors such as excite-
ment, complication, anticipation, and puzzlement. Although these sound ephemeral, Arawak speakers use several concrete devices to bring them about.
One of these devices is to use contrastive constructions or constructions which denote breaks in expectancy chains cf. Longacre 1976:150ff. For example, note the use of balhin
‘although’ and ma ‘but’ in the following passage taken from the Bus Story. 252 a. Wakhaja-›
kho w-osy-n
atynoa khona
BALHIN. bad-PAST.PERF
not we-go-SUB
at.first on
although ‘Compared to what would happen, we did travel well at first.’
b. MA to
wa-tatonoa-n-BO khi,
thy-boado-fa to
but the
we-be.far.away-SUB-PRES.IMPF thusly
it-break-FUT.PERF the
falhetho-dalhidi-koana w-abo.
white.man-run-thing us-with ‘But when we were getting far away from home, it broke down, the bus, on us.’
In the Jaguar Story, when the author is asked for his gun, but on that particular day just happened to have left it at home, the reader is even alerted to the fact that this was not his
usual practice. Another tension-building device used is to highlight what might have been or should
have been or would be with negative statements and statements implying something other than the apparent situation. This corresponds well to Grimes’ 1975:64ff collateral infor-
mation. Thus in the Bomb Story, the author tells of playing with the bomb in blissful un- awareness of the danger:
253 a. Ma we
kho etha-bo
amaha-n-da no.
but we
not know-PRES.IMPF
be.what-SUB it
‘But we didn’t know what it was.’ b. ... sa
thiake th-a-bo
wa-myn. good seemingly
it-dummy-PRES.IMPF us-BEN
‘... it seemed good to us.’ Later in the story, he relates returning to the bomb and playing with it again:
254 W-eitha-na
kho odaha khona
to wa-birabirady-n-bo.
we-know-UNEXP not death
on the
we-play.around-SUB-PRES.IMPF ‘We didn’t know but should have that we were playing around with death.’
In all these tension-building passages, in addition to the negatives, counter expectation particles and suffixes, etc., one also finds a similarity in aspect. That is, all the passages
5.2 TenseAspect in Narrative Discourse 111
