04 Elephant and Nightjar use of past imperfective for scene-setting activity in inciting episode
4a. Napanelo
muliduva limo
Nnembo aju ashinapita
PAST IMPF
Now on.day one
Elephant this he.was.passing
4b. alya
PRES PART
mumwitu amu he.eating
in.bush this. Now one day Elephant was going along in the bush, eating.
The past imperfective is also used negatively in a stative sense. In the example below, the protagonist Ákalimanya, a hunter, runs out of ammunition; there ‘was nothing that he could see to do’.
This is his ongoing condition until in clause 7d he gets an idea of how to resolve the problem.
09 Ákalimanya use of past imperfective negative in a stative
7c. nae,
--- hashipali
PAST IMPF NEG
shagwene
he ---
there.was.not of.he.should see …he couldn’t think what to do…
5.1.4 Anterior -ndi-
As with the past perfective tense the anterior tense-aspect refers to past events with perfective aspect, but in the case of the anterior the reference is to the present effect of those past events.
35
In discourse terms, the anterior has two roles.
The first and primary role of the anterior, used in both background and foreground, is to describe the present result of a past action, where in narrative the ‘present’ means the time on the event-line. This
frequently follows a verb such as ‘saw’ or ‘found’ and describes situations that participants meet, the situation being the result of an action prior to the event line. As can be seen in 02 Lion and Hamerkop
below, what the hamerkop found is that the lion’s eyes are all red with pain ‘they have reddened’ and the bone is still stuck in his throat ‘the bone has stuck-him at his throat’.
02 Lion and hamerkop use of anterior on event-line to describe situation a participant meets
10a. Akawike
apalá nankodya
PURPOSIVE
nangolo When.he.arrived
there and.met.him
elder 10b.
mevo aninkunduvalila
ANTERIOR
eyes they.have.reddened
10c. ligwanga S
pangulo O lindimwikala
ANTERIOR
bone at.throat
has.stuck.him Well, Hamerkop turned up there and found Lion in a dreadful state—his eyes red with pain, the bone stuck in
his throat…
35
Leach MB 2010 in describing this distinction draws a distinction between projected and non-projected aspect, which distinguishes both the past and anterior tenses with the tense-aspect prefix ndi as well as present and future
tenses with the tense-aspect prefix nda; see T5.2.9 the verb matrix.
Another interesting example of the anterior used to describe the present result of a past action is in 09 Ákalimanya. In this case the present result is in ‘real’ time; that is, it refers to the ongoing result at the
time of narration of the past action described in the story. This occurs in the conclusion of the story and is all in the narrator’s voice: he says that the protagonist Ákalimanya no longer lives in that village, he
went away anterior: implication: and is still gone, and the narrator to this day i.e., the time of narration of the story does not know where he is.
09 Ákalimanya use of anterior in conclusion to describe ongoing situation resulting from events in
narrative 47a.
Aijá nangolo Ákalimanya S
mpaka nelo ata po
paludeya apalá
hanapagwa shinu
PRESENT PROGRESSIVE NEG
That old.one Ákalimanya
until today even that
at.village that he.is.not not,
47b. anditumuka
ANTERIOR
he.went.away 47c.
ata pavele
nelo hangunamanya shinu
PRESENT PROGRESSIVE NEG
even where.he.is today
I.do.not.know not And to this very day, old Ákalimanya is no longer in that village; he went away and I have no idea where he is
today… The second role of the anterior is cataphoric, and is found only in foreground material: it is looking
forward to a pivotal event, and heightens tension and expectation. Clause 6a in 07 Mother and child is a good example of this role: the soldiers have arrived in the village, their job is to kill people, what’s going
to happen?
07 Mother and Child cataphoric use of the anterior on the event-line heightening sense of expectation
5b. na
vamadodo vapita
PRES PART
pai. and
footsoldiers they.passing
ground. 6a.
Napanelo vandiwika
ANTERIOR
palikaja lyavaikalénge vanu
Now they.arrived
at.village where.they.were. staying
people 5 …and the infantry went over the ground below.
6 Then they came to a village where there were still people… The cataphoric use of the anterior can also be seen in the following example from 03 Hyena and Pied
Crow, where it is stated that Pied Crow, distrusting his carnivorous friend, ‘puts Hyena to the test’. Tension is raised as the listener wonders how this will be done, and what will be the result?
03 Hyena and Pied Crow cataphoric use of the anterior on the event-line heightening sense of
expectation 7.
Kanji muliduva limo
Nashove aninninga
ANTERIOR
Litunu. But
on.day one Pied Crow
he.tests.him Hyena.
5.1.5 Present participle subject prefix + stem
