18e. na
inji yo O tushulushe
and other that
we.should.sell 18f.
--- tulyangangalele
mashida etu. we.should.resolve
problems our. This was so we could catch one, kill it, get it out of the trap, divide up the meat, and some of the meat we’d
sell, so that we could deal with our various issues. In the example below from 04 Elephant and Nightjar, Elephant is boasting to Nightjar that he is the
biggest animal in the bush and therefore it is below his dignity to be careful about treading on her eggs. This is an interesting example as, although nangu ‘me’ operates as a topic frame and -ngw- ‘me’ is also the
object infix of the verb clearly acting grammatically as the direct object, there is also a secondary object kutumbula aku ‘this size’. Preposing the object ‘me’ as a topic frame allows the verb to take both nouns as
direct objects. Note, however, that in Makonde object infixes are only employed for nouns in classes 1 and 2—the ‘human’ classes—and so kutumbula aku ‘this size’, class 15, would not be represented in the
verb in any case.
04 Elephant and Nightjar preposed object acting as topic frame in sentence with secondary object
11. Da
nangu O -
haunangwona shinu kutumbula aku?
Question-word me
you.don’t.see.me not bigness this?
Look at me; can’t you see the size I am?
6.3 Argument focus focus-presupposition; identificational
This sentence articulation occurs less frequently than predicate focus; that is, the domain of the focus is only one argument or constituent of the sentence—subject, object, adjunct. The rest of the sentence,
including the verb, is presupposed or established information or information accessible from the context. Such sentences are also called ‘identificational’—they identify the information missing from a
proposition. Sometimes they are answers to explicit questions, and at other times the material in focus answers an implicit question.
The focus of a sentence turns a presupposition into an assertion, but it is not always new information; in fact, at times it is the focus in order to add emotion or contrast; i.e., the ‘missing
information’ to established information. In Makonde argument focus sentences are always distinguished by marked word order. There are
several different structures used for argument focus: • postposed subjects;
• conjoint verb structures; and • ni structures.
6.3.1 Postposed subjects in argument focus
It is worth noting that, although object preposing as mentioned above, is not in itself an argument focus device in Makonde, it occurs quite frequently together with postposed subject marking in argument focus
constructions. This is because, although the language allows a subject plus a preposed object or vice versa before the verb, it does not allow both an object and a postposed subject after the verb. This means
that postposing the subject forces any object into a preposed position.
In clause 16c of 03 Hyena and Pied Crow below, Hyena tells his wife to prepare food, while nimwene he himself postposed subject will deal with the imbogwa ‘stew’ preposed object. It is necessary to
understand some cultural assumptions in order to see what the presupposition is. These are spelt out in the vocabulary. Thus, shakulya, often translated simply ‘food’, actually refers to the staple, a stiff
porridge usually made of maize flour. Imbogwa is ‘stew’; that is, whatever protein the staple is served
with, as in any preparation of beans, leaves, meat, fish etc. Eating this staple without any ‘stew’ is seen as a starvation diet and would not be assumed, unless specifically instructed. So here the presupposition
is that, if the wife has to cook a staple, she should be cooking a stew as well; and that she needs to know what stew to prepare. This clause presents that new information as a contrast: I not you am the one
who knows about the stew.
03 Hyena and Pied Crow postposed subject and preposed object in argument focus construction
16a. Paukile
ndawika kukaja ---
kumwaulila ndyagwe
do: When.he.went and.arrived
at.home told.her
his.wife thus,
16b. Ndyangu
taleka shakulya
“My.wife cook
food.staple 16c.
imbogwa O namanya
nimwene S.
sauce I.will.know
I.myself.” When he got home, he told his wife, “Get some food ready for me, wife—but as for the meat sauce, I’ll deal with
that.” The example below from 05 Fisherman is interesting, as the three clauses are: IO: V–O; O: V–S;
IO:V–O. In this case the parallelism of the constructions is probably more interesting than the fact that there are two ditransitive object constructions and one OVS with a postposed subject. All three are
argument focus structures with the presupposed information coming first: the fisherman catches three fish each day, information which is asserted in sentence 02. And the fact that he uses these either to eat
or to buy things will be accessible from the context. What is being identified here is exactly what he did with each of the three fish.
05 The fisherman argument focus construction using parallelism, preposed objects and a postposed
subject 3a.
Yomba jumo IO akannipe
udeni O Fish one
he.would.pay.it debt,
3b. junji aju O
akanniele mwene na ndyagwe S
fish this he.would.eat.it. with staple
the.same and his.wife 3c.
junji aju IO akannipe
mwene ingalava O other this
he.would.pay.him the.owner boat.
With one fish he would pay his debts, another fish he and his wife would eat, and the third he used to pay the owner of the boat.
In clauses 35a–b of 09 Ákalimanya below the villagers, who helped dig the pit trap for the elephant and kill it when it fell in, have been told by Ákalimanya not to touch any of the meat; it’s all
his. They respond indignantly, tuvanu tuvoe ‘we many people’ killed it, why is he treating us like this? The fact that they were all involved in killing the elephant is entirely established information. What the
speakers are doing is confirming that many of them killed it that answers the unspoken question, “who?” And, by drawing a contrast, they reject what Ákalimanya has said; namely, that the meat is for him
alone.
09 Ákalimanya argument focus construction with postposed subject
35a.
[AFTER VERB]
Tumyee tuvanu tuvoe S
We.killed.it we.people we.many
35b. mwaa shani
atutenda doni?
reason which he.does.us
thus? “Didn’t we all go and kill it—why is he treating us like this?”
In another example from 09 Ákalimanya below, there is a very unusual sentence in Makonde where we have S V S
1
. The first subject in default position is munu aju ‘this person’, and the postposed marked subject is mwene ‘he-himself’. Without mwene, S
1
, this would be a topic-comment sentence: ‘…this man will go one of these days’. But it is already discourse-established information that the protagonist
Ákalimanya will have to leave the village. The question is whether he needs to be thrown out or not, so the elders respond, “no,” leave him alone, “He will go one of these days ‘he himself’,” i.e., of his own
accord.
09 Ákalimanya
37a. Vanangolo
kupakanila Old.ones
agreed.together 37b.
kushidoni said. thus,
37c. mene
nneke
“no, leave.him
37d. ila
munu aju andauka
mwene S repeat liduva linji lyo
only person this
he.will.leave he.himself
day other that But the elders got together and said, “No, leave him alone; one of these days he’ll decide to go of his own
accord…
6.3.2 Conjoint verbs in argument focus
