A darker line in the charts represents the end of a sentence and a thick black line the end of a paragraph. Independent clauses are shown in black, dependent clauses in blue, song clauses in purple
and speech clauses in green and underlined. Constituents that have been preposed or postposed are shown in red, and two red chevrons
or are placed in the column from which they have been
moved. Clause place holders are shown in blue, purple or green square brackets according to whether they point to a dependent clause, song clause or a speech clause, respectively. Table 2 lists the chart
labels used.
Table 2. Abbreviations
Label Description
Label Description
Noun class number
FV
Final vowel 1
P
First person plural
HAB
Habitual aspect 1
S
First person singular
INDPN
Independent pronoun 2
P
Second person plural
INF
Infinitive 2
S
Second person singular
LOC
Locative 3
P
Third person plural
MANN
Manner aspect 3
S
Third person singular
NARR
Narrative
APP
Applicative
NC
Noun class
ASSOC
Associative
NEG
Negative
CAUS
Causative
P
Plural
COMPL
Completive
P
1 Near past
COND
Conditional
P
2 Intermediate past
CONJ
Conjunction
P
3 Far past
COP
Copula
PER
Persistive
DEM
1 Proximal demonstrative
POSS
Possessive
DEM
2 Referential demonstrative
PRES
Present
DEM
3 Distal demonstrative
PSTANT
Past Anterior
EMPHPN
Emphatic pronoun
S
Singular
FUT
1 Near future
SUBJ
Subjunctive
FUT
3 Distant future
TAM
Tense Aspect Modality
TEMP
Temporal marker
1 Constituent elements of narrative texts
The following section examines the constituent elements of narrative texts.
1.1 Types of narrative texts
Seven of the texts are fictional H1, H2, H3, H4, H6, H7 and H8 and three are true stories S2, S3 and S4. All of the true stories are told from the first person perspective. All of the fictional narratives are
told from the third person perspective. Table 3 summarizes each of the texts.
Table 3. Story summaries of the texts
Text Summary of text
H1 A sister goes on a journey to visit her brother. She is supposed to wear certain clothes, but is
tricked on the way to change clothes, so her brother doesn’t recognize her when she arrives. Eventually, she is revealed to be his sister.
H2 A man has a beautiful daughter. He tests suitors to find the best husband for her.
H3 A hare babysits the eggs of his friend, the crocodile. The hare eats all but one of the eggs.
H4 A man is teaching his son to trap and spear animals. The son lets an animal go after being
trapped, and the animal later returns the favor when the son is trapped. H6
A mother-in-law puts her son-in-law in a trap in the water. He sings and those drawing water hear him. Finally, the father hears him and rescues him, but not before his eyes and bones have
been damaged. H7
Boys go out to herd their cows but lose them while swimming. They then have to search for them and return them.
H8 The hare collects some water. He then gives it to some blacksmiths and gets knives. He gives
the knives to some sorghum farmers and gets sorghum. He gives the sorghum to a chicken and gets an egg.
S2 A woman recounts a time when she fell asleep while herding her father’s cows and they ate
another man’s cassava plants. The father beat her and then explained that he depends on her as the oldest daughter.
S3 A personal narrative of the different villagestowns that he lived in and why he moved between
the different locations. S4
A woman recounts a time she went to church, and it was a difficult journey to get there. She met trials along the way, including a man with a machete. But, in the end God helped her to be
able to arrive at church.
Seven can be described as ‘climactic’ H1, H2, H3, H4, H6, H7 and S4. Two of the texts are ‘episodic’ H8 and S3, and one S2 is a climatic narrative with a long hortatory portion.
1.2 Structure of narrative texts
