86 84a
Gyuyoq saolhyuq yul niq
hhaq savqdol
wul lazy.man
thief that
two HCL
embarrased VOL
ssaq leil
mol taoqngaoq xil-meil
eil miq: ? QUO
see DM
this-MAN say
TRAN
‘Since [the] lazy man saw that those two thieves were embarrassed, he said this:’
84b ‘“We’ve been busy all night, we’re all definitely hungry. You two bring up some bamboo from the creek down there; let’s use bamboo tubes to
cook rice to eat.”’ 84c
Saolhyuq niq hhaq ngeeljil meil meivq
al, thief
two HCL trully
MAN hungry
CRS
‘[The] two thieves were truly hungry ...’
Not Just Me 27-29 In 84a-b, the lazy man is the local VIP, but in 84c, the center of attention turns to the
thieves and what they do next. Following this point, the thieves remain the center of attention for the duration of their presence in the narrative, and the demonstrative is not
used again with reference to them. The effect of the use of the demonstrative is to allow non-VIPs to interact with a
VIP without turning attention away from that VIP. This system is remarkably similar to that of Cerma Gur, Burkina Faso, as described in Levinsohn 2008:138.
4.4.2.3 Yul in reactivations
Consider 85: 85
Hal hyuq
laq e
yul dyul gyuyoq qaq
all steal
PERF LNK
that DPL
lazy.man one:CL
sol hha
zaq e liq
... only
got DUR
LNK also,
‘Although one lazy man alone got all those things that had been stolen ...’
Not Just Me 36
87 In 85, the fact that things were stolen is known from earlier in the story, but the stolen
items have been only peripheral to the narrative. When they are re-activated at this point, the use of the deictic instructs the listener to relate the referent to what he already knows.
Because the center of attention is not the stolen items, but the lazy man, the distal demonstrative is chosen.
4.4.2.4 Yul in selection
The use of the demonstrative yul is normal when there is a definite referent of a restrictive relative clause:
86 ...
gyuyoq xeiv
dov laq
e pyultul tulma
eq lazy.man
run into
PERF LNK
basket AUG
carry e saolhyuq
yul hhaq
eil: ... LNK
thief that
HCL say
‘... that thief who was carrying the [basket] into which [the] lazy man had run said: ...’
Not Just Me 19 Here, the listener is already aware that there are two thieves who are carrying baskets,
and that the lazy man is in one of the two baskets. Therefore, the function of 86 is to point out one of these two men as a topic of further discussion.
40
4.4.2.5 Yul at points of departure
Yul is also used to mark points of departure as worthy of special attention, as in the following passage, where God wants his son, Aqpyuq Haossul, to come home, and
sends two servants to go get him. The servants know that God’s son is very old, but aren’t sure what he looks like:
40
Levinsohn personal communication considers the lazy man to be the local VIP here, so that the reference to “that thief” also fits the use of the distal demonstrative as “away from center of attention.”
88 87a ‘These two servants of God descended and arrived at Aqpyuq Haossul’s
house,’ 87b
laqhyul yul yaol hholqei,
house that
CL inside
‘inside that house,’
87c ‘there were ten old grandfathers who all looked alike, with silver beards and white hair; each of the ten old people was holding a smoking pipe;
they were there smoking in a thick cloud of tobacco smoke; it was impossible to tell which one was Aqpyuq Haossul. So, God’s two servants
returned to report to god that they couldn’t select which one [he] was and therefore couldn’t bring [him].’
The Story of Aqpyuq Haossul 35-36. The marking of the house in 87b with a demonstrative indicates that something
important will be said in reference to the house. In this case, the servants of God had assumed that Aqpyuq Haossul, being an old man, would be easy to identify. The
presence of many old men raises a new problem for the servants, and the rest of the episode centers on solving this problem. The choice of yul rather than xil is appropriate
because the house is other than the center of attention. The “stage” of the story does not shift to the house but rather immediately returns to heaven.
4.5 The unmarked NP
The unmarked NP is used in a variety of reference situations, including when the speaker wishes to:
1 refer to the members of a certain class in general 2 refer to an entity that is not salient in the discourse
3 refer to an already-activated VIP The fact that the same form is used for several unrelated functions provides
evidence for my claim that the unmarked NP is, in fact, the default encoding.
