128
Realizing that he cannot win an argument, the cow owner tells the bull owner that they should each find an elder to help arbitrate their conflict. The episode ends with a
short dialogue between them where they both agree to find an elder and meet back together at a certain time and place.
8.1.6 Pre-peak 4 Developing conflict—clauses 65-107
The next episode describes the two cattle owners finding their elders. The paragraph begins with
+ ‘after that’ and the narrator states that the bull owner finds an elder first. The remainder of this episode describes how the cow owner finds his elder,
Uncle Rabbit. When the cow owner is startled by Rabbit, the narrator uses an expressive and rhetorical underlining for vivid effect 144.
144 + K
go arrive to road DEM3 meet with uncle rabbit run
‘Arriving at the road the cow owner met up with Uncle Rabbit running.’ K
K +
++ +
startled.by ONOM spin
‘The cow owner was startled by Rabbit—yikes—spun around’ K
startled.by rabbit DEM3
’The cow owner was startled by that rabbit.’ [Cow 71-3] The rest of the paragraph is a dialogue between the cow owner and Rabbit. The
cow owner speaks five times, two of which are not preceded by a quote formula. Rabbit speaks seven times, three of which are not introduced by a quote formula. At the end of
the dialogue, Rabbit agrees to help arbitrate the cow owner’s dilemma in exchange for a bunch of bananas.
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8.1.7 Peak Climax—clauses 108-152
There is a change of location and participants in the peak episode which opens with
+ ‘after that’. In this episode, all the participants are brought ‘on-stage’, beginning with the cow owner as he goes to the place where the elders have gathered.
After this initial statement about the cow owner, he is not mentioned again, except within quoted speech by Rabbit. For this reason and the referring expressions used for the bull
owner and Rabbit in this episode, I categorize the bull owner as the highest ranking participant followed by Rabbit.
Both the Rabbit and the bull owner are brought on-stage with motion presentational clauses 145 and 146. Motion presentational clauses make their entrance
more dramatic. 145 +
after DEM3 arrive rabbit ‘After that Rabbit arrived.’
[Cow 111] 146 V0
approach uncle REL graze cow male
‘Uncle who grazed the bull approached.’ [Cow 113]
Another peak marking feature is the use of an expressive phrase to describe the elders’ reaction to Rabbit’s story 147.
147 2 +L+
+ group PL
3S ONOM ONOM ‘The group, they were incredulous, shocked.’ [Cow 126]
This episode consists mainly of dialogue, totaling 15 speech acts. Of the 15 speech acts, 8 out of 15 53 do not have a quote formula, allowing the dialogue to
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occur more rapidly. Rabbit speaks eight times, six of which have no quote formula; the bull owner speaks four times, two of which have no quote formula; and the elders speak
once. Finally, two speech acts have a zero subject and it is ambiguous who the speaker is. Both of these instances represent anonymous comments from the group of elders. This
may be an intentional device to keep the main speakers as topics, while the less important comments from the group have a zero referring expression.
The peak episode contains two references to the bull owner that occur only in this episode. One reference uses the third person pronoun with the thematic salience marker,
‘3S TSM’. This reference is the speech introducer for the bull owner’s question to Rabbit 148. This begins Rabbit’s clever story that will eventually trap the bull owner
in his own words. 148
3S TSM ask further
‘He asked further...’ [Cow 118]
Another reference to the bull owner only found in this peak episode consists of a pronoun + relative clause + distal demonstrative,
‘he who grazed the bull’ 149. The addition of the distal demonstrative lengthens the referring
expression, while placing more focus on this participant and creating a heightened sense of expectation regarding the ensuing speech act. This reference to the bull owner
introduces a highly confrontational speech where he strongly denies ever hearing people talk about a man giving birth to a child. Rabbit then uses this same logic against the bull
owner—he has never heard of a bull giving birth to a calf.
131 149
3S REL graze cow male
DEM3 argue 1S NEG
+ V0
+ +
hear ever customarily say people CLF male.people have child NEG ‘The one who grazed the bull argued, “I’ve never heard people say that a man gave
birth to a child” ’ [Cow 136-7]
8.1.8 Closure Conclusion—clauses 153-156
