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Grammatical structucture in Siona discourse
Liqpa 19 ( 1967) 6&77, Q Nc-wth-_?ollandPublishing Co., At&dam Nat to be reproducedby photoprint or microfilm without written permissian from the publisher
GRAMMATICAL
STRWCTURE
IN
SICklWi 3ISCOrJ’RSE~) ALVA
J.
WHEE.I,ER
INTRODWCTI~N This
paper presems a phase of the descriptive grammar of the Siona Indian languz; = 2) of Mombia, South America, the data 3) for which has been g~hered under the sponsorship of the Summer Instftute of Linq~wltics of Sar,ta Ana, California. In my description of this grammar I have pkted structure on the discourse leve’14) in order to explain the fluctuation in occurrence ‘j A shghtly +Sreviated form of ::his paper was read befort_ the Linguistic iety of Amertc’a dmeeting, Decem?ler 29, 1965, in Chicago. Siona 1s spoken by abcul; 200 people who inhabit the banks of the Puiumayo River between the mouth of the Cuhembf and the mouth 0: the Prfiufia Blanca Rrvers, along the border between Colombia and Ecuador, %uth America. Stevrard classifies Siona as Western Tucanoan in the Hundbook of Soz.cA Amxcarc In&am, BAE-B 142, Vol. 3, pp. 737-41, 2 s does ,$fason m the same publication, Vol. 6, pp. 157-317. See also Alva and Margaret Wheeler ‘Siona (‘JVestern Tucanoan) Phonemics’ in Studies in EcPcaQovian idzan Languages: I, Unive i3it.l '+ of Oklahoma Publications in I_tm~uistics,*GCJ .7, Norman, 1962, pp_ 96 i 11 ; and Alva Wheeler ‘-4 Morpiiol< An,- !yc.rs of a Siona Text’, &id., pp. 24868. For convemcnce of a lrzat on some changes from the 196 ? phonemics article have been made m thrs p&per. IJalues are zj follows: p t, k, kw (fortes stops) ; b, d, g, gw (lenis ste;tps,which are glottal&d) ; s, C (fortes Gbilants) ; z (lenis sibilant, which is ~~~t~l~z~d~, w, yp m, n, ‘n, h W, 7 ; i, I, u (high vowels) ; e, a, o (low vowels) ; msdizzhon (y;I>, and stress (v). All syiiztbles preceding the first writing of stress on a word ar? stressed, even though stress Isn’t written. 1 and r are syrnb~ls t;wd only &iicertain cases of Spa.nish loan wo:Fds. a! Th? grammatical analysrs 1hzs been facilitated by use of a concordance ~,f the Siona text material compiled on the IBM 1410 computer at the Umversaty of Oklahoma by the Linguistic Information Retrieval Project of Safm*mer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Oklahoma rch Imtitute, and sponsored by Grant G-270 of the National Science F~~n~t~~. 3 For a fufier tratient of discourse analysis within the tagmexnic
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
IN
LCIONA
DISCOURSE
61
of certain grammatical elements of the sentence, the correlation of some of’ these grammatical eleml:nts with the attitudes of the speaker, and the relationship of sentences to each other. I have taken this position because of the failure of a descriptive grammar based only on sentence structure co generate a body of language easily intelligible to the native speakers of Siona. In this paper I shall describe: (1) how a set of enclitics, which occur with nominal elements of a sentence to mark their relationship to ihe predicate, depend for their selection on the degree of focus 5) attributed to them as elements in the discourse structure; (2) how the occurrence of various mood and tense suffixes are determined by the viewpoint of the speaker; and (3) how certain arrangements of morphemes in clause structure function primarily as signals of the role relationship of various discourse elements to each other within the +o+nl L Ld~i iscourse structure. 2.
Focus
Early in the snalysis of Siona grammar, I isolated a set of enclitics, which rnark the relationship of various nominal elements to the predicate, namely: -bi ‘source’, -de “referent’, -ni ‘motion toward - animate’, -ng ‘motion toward - inanimate’. These definitions serve as identifying labels but are quite generalized. In order to present a concise explanation of the pattern further exemplification is necessary. -bi occurs with noun phrases to denote various senses within a broad semantic range, which I label ‘SOUIce’ In cases where the head noun of the phrase is animate, -bz invariably marks the noun phrases as gra.mmatical subject (source of action) : duisbi dafii ‘Louis is coming.’ Louis come
model, see articles by Kenneth L. Pike: ‘Beyond the Sentence’, College COW@xztion and Co~rvtunzcatimz 15, 129-35 October 1964; ‘Discourse Analysis m Tagmeme Matrices’, Oceanic Lznguistics 3, 5-25; and James Lauriot ‘Shiplbo Discourse Analysis’, The Bible Translator, American Bible %clety, New York, July 1957. 5) This idea of focus is somewhat parallel to that of a number of Philippine languages. See, for example, Howard McKaughn, The znflectzon and syntax of mwatiao verbs, Institute of National Language, Manila, 1958.
62
ALVA
WHEELER
yaf wa?gUi go?gohi dog creature bark
‘The dog is barking.’
hqmr$bi n@bi
‘An armadillo
6)
became trapped.’
~$4 dih$ se?eg&bi &de kWa?kugo
food cook ‘My wife only is cocking the food.’
my wife only n@ ?uktiye>ne who drink
‘Who will drink it 7
When the head noun of the phrase is inanimate the application of -bi is broader. Context is the prime signal of the: specific sense. Grammatical subject is one possibility, howelrer this interpretation is restricted to intransitive and stative type clauses 7’,:
vi?i
J-
-c)
Pi t=;bi bi ha’,_sihi
my stomach yogubi hi yi bi awi$bz gah&i
hurt
Very commonly function instru~tient wa’ t fbi
‘My stomach hurts.’ ‘The canoe split.’ ‘The airplane descended.’ the
enclitic
-bi designates
the
grammatical
*) :
w&i3
‘He killed it with a machete.’
zuhibobi sukide k%bi
axe
tree
‘He fell the tree with an axe.’
fall
gay&la?wid#G hui?i only (shells) shoot
‘I shot him with the only shells I had left.’
~nt~n~~bi ha%de ge$hi ya?ibi leaf tie vine ‘Antonio is tying the leaf with the vine.’ 6) The 4% suffix to the verb is homo;>honous to the noun phrase enclitic and signals tird person singular, masculine, immediate past, definite involvement. ?t
treatment of Siona clause types is presented in my fzthcomijag doctoral dissertation at the Univer&y of
A ZZQYC 43t?tfwgH
locative source and tew@wal source occur in all active in stative types.
GRAMMATICAL
Another instrument
STRUCTURE
grammatical is means 8) :
function
ma> @i saf si? ko? i% trail gone-ones-they-are
IN
akin
SIONA
to but
63
DISCOURSE
in contrast
with
‘They have gone by trail
’
zihyabi mQt6 yogubi ti>$wi motor canoe arrive river ‘I arrived via thf: river, by motor canoe.’ ‘They are dying sf measles.’ sar$mpiGbi hu?iyj hu?f gohebi ay&bi wear hole put-in yqmb
‘He put it in through the sleeve of the garment. ‘We drifted (downriver) by night.’
me&4
I ocative source 8) occurs only with predications oi; movement :
indicating
motion
yi?i wkgi wiUbi
et&ii saPi my in-law house exit go ‘1 went out of my in-la.w’s house and left.’ zi&yabi mini wXnq kakawi river ascend house enter ‘I ascended from the river and entered the house.’ go?goti bi daisi?koGbi wa?ide yowl yodi bi upriver come-ones fish catch net ‘The ones who had come 4Fromupriver were fishing with a net.’ nqs6 huisi?dubi sai bi?d&wi monkey shoot-place go begin ‘We began to leave the place where he had shot the monkeys.’ Teq5oral
sotiyce 8) occurs with active but not stative type verbs:
ha’+ qm(igus6bi wahi bi?dkbi that day get-well begin ‘Since that day he began to get well’. y9i ha?yl hu?jsi?dibi ikode ukumq/?i my brother die-time drug not-drink ‘From the time my older brother died I haven’t drunk the drug.’ h@jdjbi sa& that-time go
i
P’hen we went.’
hoi ba?fdj bi to8wibi h%hi?i sudden be-time gun explode
‘All of a sudden the gun fired.’
ALVA
64
WHEELER
Because of the varierd use of the rnarker -bl: some sentences appear to be ambiguous. However, the speakers of Siona do not react to them as such, probably because the ambiguity is resollved in the context of discourse or social situation. y6gubi m&hi ‘The canoe is drifting/He is drifting in a canoe’, and to&wibi et&bi ‘It came out of the gun/The gun came out’ are examples of such ambiguous sentences. -de - 42 *) generally designates a noun phrase as object of the verb but may also designate bcative referent depending on the class of verb involved in the predication. Object is indicated in the following 6~xamples : duthni d&wi manisc pull-up b+Cg ‘They pulled up the maniac and brought ‘I filed the machete.’ wa2tide g9t6wi i wa%-r&G$$-tii ‘We saw the people.’ ‘ He split some firewood.’ G$;ide hQlt$bi
h&6&
i
wa%.G Mgini isfwi outi miaat him give e
only
it in.’
‘I gave some 2gouti meat to him.’
bring
‘That one only I brought.’
Esz&a/e referent is indiczlted by the following examples: ‘He is in (alj the house.’ I$+bi 5t ki k&bite’ tuihi tree limb percii
‘The bird is perched on the tree limb.’
@@deggsAyate’ ba8yi here palm-creek be ‘Now we are living here at Palm Creek.’ referent’
is indi-
‘HE will come on the day indicated
by him.’
In clause types of restricted cated :
-q
occurrence
passive
13;c.UrrfSKzof tine alfr31moq?h-f_dis conditroned by aoxwtress on the
able. The same conditioning prevails for homophonous verb $383ffixes -& ry -84, indicating dependent predication of a special kind.
GRAM:M,?TICAL
STRUCTURE
qO gdhi yi?#de it-hungers me
IN
SIONA
DISCOURSE
65
‘I am hungry.’
yi?l ga?niwItd gu% wan$hi ‘My body EC& bad.’ my body bad feels -pl.i10) occurs only with noun phrases of which the head noun is animate and indicates object or goal. It implies a more forceful direction of activity or motion toward the nominal element than in the case of -de: wahi wi?wigina biigini wai?i
alive
run
him
kill
wekini jy@i hui?I tapir see shoot
.
‘As he ran still alive, I killed him.’ ‘1
saw the tapir and shot him.’
ya?6 @bibi sirnini m&wj peccary intestines fish catch ‘With peccary intestines I caught the catfish.’ i koktide bagini Uwi ‘I spoke these words to him.’ these words him speak h@$de yi?i mq?yini sa6wi that my brother send b&go b&zi iy$hi sai?i her people see go
‘I sent that to my older brother.’ ‘We went to see her people.’
-nq 11) occurs primarily with noun phrases functionLlg as goal, of which the head noun is inanimate. When thfBlxad noun is animate, strong emphasis is indicated : t6do wa?gide khani kod@& wi% hobonq dani bull creature get colony house group bring kuy&zq bend%h~~) whi te-n1a.n sell ‘Go get the bull, bring him to the settlement and sell him to the white vnan .’ lo) Homophonous to verb suffix -~j, marking one of a sequence of predications. x1) Homophonous to verb suffix -rtq, signaling that the following verb has a change of subject. In Sims Gmwruta~ I apply the term ‘switc.h reference’ to this phenomenon, a label introduced by William Jacobson ‘SZO&~ reference in Hokan-Coahuiltecan, in press, The Hague, Mouton.
.ALVA
66
wa?ginq aOde a$hi;i youth creature food feed
WHEELER
b~si
‘Feet t!ze pmng man some food.’
yo waWde yua wiUn@ n&hi?i canoe paddle now house take-up ‘Now take the canoe paddle up to the house.’ kt! ti Wnq he?$hi ‘He is crossing to the other side.’ yonder bank cross gohbde n@$bi ylhbzq hole dig ground
‘He dug a hole in the ground.’
In addition to the enclitics mentioned above -ga %&so, even’ has certain occurrences which figure along with these in the overall pattern under discussion here. It cccurs either with the object or with the subje.L -when the subject invoives an animate noun head, the sense is emphasis on the nominal element: ya% wa?ide?ga isfwi kobedite peccary meat give compadre ‘I gave my compadre some peccary meat as well.’ yekI &$a t+wi other field plant ‘I planted another field, too.’ ba? fgi m i?iea
be
you
‘And you, are yozc theit?’
yi?i dfh$?ga zibde n@o my wife field undertake ‘Indeed my wife has unc”ertaken (to cultivate) bagi ?ga m&hi ‘He’s the one who knows.’ The enclitics -de, -ni and -nq have a further designating degree 9f intensity of emotion: do&e ofgo ‘She do&t’ oigo ‘She dca&q oigo ‘She yi?i rna~y& do?t&yi yE; : rn@yisi do? tG.yi yPi mq?yinq do?tayi
{greeting)
a field.’
application
in
is concerned ahoul Rosa.* is compassionate toward Rosh.’ is fervently comp;lssionate towa ,d Rosa.’ ‘I am thinking about my older brother.’ ‘I confide in my older brother.’ ‘I place .bsolute trust in my older brother.’
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
IN
SIONA
DISCOURSE
67
Where instrwncnt, means, Locativesoacrce, temj5ord 9w~ce, locative refereBb and passive referent are involved the occm-rence cf -bi or -de is obligatory. In cases of subject and object their occurrexe or nonoccurrence is equally elicitable, with no apparent distinction in mea-ling : hggc’i tiQni tihiwi yi?i ha& ite’ ti$ni tihfwi y?i
‘I finished weaving a hammock.’
46 $ni tihini yi?i yo?o sawi qjdc $ni tihfni yi?4 yo%de s&wi ‘I finished eating food and took up my work.’ yikina wab) yoguti! t@tohaiG yiklna wa?nz&bi y6gutt5 tt$t6hai?i ‘We (exl) set out to hew a canoe ’
hq?#= yo?byey4g@h
‘I am going to the woods.’
si dfbi me++ downriver drift There seemed at first to be no con iming factors for determining the presence or absence of these enclitic markers. The speaker could leave them off or put them on the noun phrases functioning as scrbject or object and the communication would still result. Problems arose in translation, however, when the informants would insist some of the time on using a marker and insist at other times on not using it. They would even insist on either -pi, -de, or no marker at all for the animate object. In early stages of Scripture translation I would privately write out a tentative translation of a passage (from the Gospel of Mark), in which I marked every noun phrase with one of the enclitics depending on its grammatical relation to the predicate. I would then read the translation to an informant and ask him to tell it back to
68
ALVA
WHEELER
me. In retelling the passage he would omit the enclitic markers in a number of cases. If later, P attempted to add the enclitic anywhere he had omitted it, he would insist on leaving it off. Elsewhere, if 1 suggested leaving the marker off, he would insist on including it. Except for a very few cases, which I attr:bute to idiosyncracies of the informants, the arrangement 05 enclitic marking remained consistent in any passage relating sequences of physical events regardless of what informant retold it. Such marking of nominal elements became less consistent between informants and even with the same informant at different times when a passage involved discussion of moral issues: the Sabbath (Mk 2 : 27-28, 3 : l-6), explanation of leaven (Mk 8 : 14-21) and 01Lers. It turned out that the informav+c _.-,sLould f not mark nominal elsments with any degree of certainty if they did not have a fairly clear understanding of the subject matter. I began to check the informants on enclitic marking of text mat&al which they had narrated, and found that they would not vary that arrangement, ei :her (although they would allow variation if I extracted any of the single sentences from the context of the story) * At the same time I noticed that the occurrence of these markers with nominal elements in dialogue would often be accompanied by certain non-linguistic behavior by the speaker, such as focus of vision or pointing with puckered lips at the item talked about. I had further noted that it was not always clear by occurrence of the particular marker alone whether the element patterned as object or goal, since even the goal would occasionally be marked with -de, the normal marker for object. There was definitely a fixed or64 _.ti ui preference as to the use or 1,ti& ~-~~-usc ui pariicuiar markers on the nominal elements of the narration or dialogue in order to make the discourse acceptable. There were no clues within the sentence for determining this preference, but an investigation of the enclitic occurrence (or non-occurrence) with each grammatical element of a dis:ourse correlated with the grammatical function of the element in a clause yielded an jnteresting arrangement as follows :
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
Emphatic focus Animate * Subject Object Goal Inanimate : Subject Object Goal
-ga -nl -na X X X
IN
-
SIONA
DISCOURSE
Normal focus
,hJon focus
-bi -de -ni
c3
-bi -de -nq
b9
0
-de 0
@ -de
Note that emphatic focus is not a category in the inanimate class, and it occurs twice in succession with the same nominal element in the animate class only in very lively discourse. The main theme of the narrative, and the importance of particular elements in the narrative are signaled by the enclitic markers selected within the framework of a grammatical category, either ~zcbject, object or goal. The grammatical category functions as a clause level element, but the degree of focus signaled by the enclitic marker relates to whether the nominal element has a central or peripheral role in the discourse. As each discourse element is traced through the narrative as a central or peripheral participant 12) a definite pattern of enclitic occurrence emerges, depending on the grammatical function of the element in a clause (e.g., subject, object, god). The elements which are central to the narrative occur with enchtic markers as shown in columns 1 and 2 of the above chart. T cse are the same as the nominal elements marked for focus and correlated with nonlinguistic behavior in dialogue. The elements which occur without enclitic markers pattern as setting to the main theme of the narrative and are considered peripheral thereto. They function to provide the background for the main plot of the story. The markers do function to indicate the relationship of the nominal element to the prerlicate, but this function is only second:Lry. The relationship is dist’nguishable on semantic grounds within -__I
12) At the Linguistic Society of America winter meeting in 1965, just before this paper -7.-1s read, I learned from conversation with H. A. Gleason, Ir thdk he had been working toward correlating discourse participants and &eir roles to tactics on the semantic stratum of the stratificational model.
73
ALVA
WHEELER
f ocial and cultural context, as particular lexical collscations of rb occur. The primary function of the enclitic markers te the role of the element within the discourse. This f the role relationship is borne out by the fact that the se element (at particular person or object in the nararked for focus every time it YWTS, with certain exrole ceptions where red dancy is a factor-. If its grar:;matical thin the clause c nges (say from goal to wbject), the enclitic ,rrkcr conforming to the proper grammatical category is selected, he primary semantic content of focus is maintained. erc may be more tha.n one discourse element ill focus at the but the distinction is made thro_rghout the narrative hr*twek;n the elements central to and those peripheral to the narr3tive. e note also that the nominal elements of embedded clauses (noun to the main theme of arrative and arc not lmarked for focus. a first person narrative, the narrator generally places himself cus. The objects oE his experiences arC the central elements ne of the nominal s indicated bq prendix will rev.-A *he markers under discussion. In sen f : 1: t 1; (‘sister-in-law’ and emantic elements, vary, recur under lder-sister’, which s ‘sister-in-law’ in sentence 1, occu.-s marked ce 3 shows ‘wife’, nce 4, the occurrence of the lexernb: ‘she’ arker, but the elenent of r focus has the g sentence, the latter when no other role intervenes. In
GRAMMATICAL
STRWCTIJRE
IN
SIONA
DISCOURSE
71
focus marker -ut&The subject of sentence 6, ‘having-gone-Fcrson’, referring to ‘wife’, is marked with -bi for focus. The goa same sentence, ‘that-place’ J referring to where the sister-in-law resided, is marked with -nq jfor focus. In sentence 7, ‘remainingperson’ J meaning ‘wife’ J is marked with - bi for focus; and a /new element is introduced, that is, ‘the children’, market?, with -ni for emphatic focus. At this point the attention of the story shifts from the sister-in-law to a concern ffor the childjren. In sentence 8, all the nominal elements are out of focus including tht: goal ‘me’, since it is marked with -de instead of -ni. The elements introduced in sentence 9, labeled ‘message’ and ‘the white-man coming by-outboardmotor, called Esperidi6n’ J are out of focus. These elements pattern as setting or b*:ckground to thasstory and are not central to the plot. Note that the same element ‘white-man’ is not marked for focus in sentence It. Neither is ‘message’ in the same sentence. In sentence 12, ‘sun’ is incidental to the plot and is not marked for focus. Sentence 11 marks a shift of attention from the wife’s activities to those of the husband. Since the husband’s role is that of narrator, he does not focus on himself, but centers his attention on the objects and eve’lts of his experience throughout the rtmainder of the narratior . 3.
VIEWPOINT
The next phase of this, paper deals with the mood and tense categories of the language, determined e viewpoint of the narrator or speaker and represented erent types of constructions to the independent verb. The basic types of mood are (1) definite invohement, indicating that the speaker associates himself with the circun?stances UC! is aware of their occurrence ; (2) irtdefin& i+avobvement 13)’ indicating thai Ihe speaker associates himself with the circumstances, but due tl) his participation in other activity he is not aware of the time these events take place; and (3) indefhzite detachment, indicating that the speaker considers himself detache from the circumstances and not responsible for their occurrence. The basic types of tense are (1) ~~~~e~~~~e 14)J indicating that the im*ediaa
dejilaite ~~u~~~~~e~~ occurs as a grammaficall category only PPIthe past. Dis8arrbpast forms have not been elicitable nor do they occur
in text material. 14) The iwmedicrta tense is further classified into @esend and +zsb, with contrasting constructions associated with each sub-category.
72
A,LVA
WHEELER
events have a bearing on present circumstances, and (2) distant (past), indicating that the events have no application to the present and are merely history or ‘water under the bridge’. This construction is a modification of the immediate constructions and is formed by nasalization of the stem vowels and addition of stem final glottal stop, plus some variation in the person-number suffixation. Examples in the following chart all mean ‘he went downriver’, but each is distinguished by tense and/or viewpoint: Distant
Iwmediate
Definite involvement
1. si dibinq s&hi%
Indefinite involvement
2. si dibi na saimqki
Indefinite detachment
3. ,sidfbina
saki
yq
4. sidibina
s@hj
5. sidfblnq s@kiyq
These tense-viewpoint distinctions are more easily analyzable from text material than the focus markers are. However, the basis for setting up a hypothesis about the system came mostly from observing linguistic behavior in social context. Some situations are worthy of comment. CLe man reported that his wife had gone (sakoya indefinite detachment) when he had arscovered her not at home. He didn’t know where she was. Another man said his wife had gone (sak&i defkite involvement), but it was known that he had helped her plan a trip to visit the settlement with their son-in-law. Sona women talk about their own children’s behavior using the definite involvement construction and switch to the indefinite detachment in referring to an outsider’s children. Gossip sessions have d heavy occurrence of the indefinite detachment coil>truULk3n. Orie man told his recent experiences to another, who ii: turn t Jld the same story to a third i’erjon. The first narration consi? ied predominantly of the definite involvement verb constructions but the second narrator shifted viewpoint to the indefinite detachrlent. A fresh scrutiny of text material brought attention to tht fact that the definite involvement and indefinite detachment sonseructions each enter into Tao other construction types: tl lose pointed out a& Oove as immedkzte and distant (reflecting past, rr?t
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
IN SIONA
DISCOURSE
73
future). The immediate constructions apply to events which have recently happened, very seldom longer than three weeks previous. The distant constrxtions may be applied to events as recent as a week, but generally longer, so that some overlapping in time i; evident. The main factor involved is the speaker or narrator’s viewpoint of the event, whether it is pertinent to present circumstances or no longer of any significant application. Another construction, which is more frequent in narrative than in dialogue is that labeled indefinite involvement, which enters into immediate tense constructions only. The main connotation is that the speaker has an interest in the circumstance but is not aware of certain factors about it. A man telling of his trip upriver with his farnil!; used the indefinite involvement construction in relating events which took place while he was asleep in the canoe. A switch to the definite involvement indicated that he had awakened and was conscious of the events. Another man gave permission to his young sons to keep 2’.night watch for turtles on the sandbar. In relating the success of thl: boy: venture he used the indefinite involvement. He was indefinite’ about the time the boys actually went to the sandbar, but was involved from the st&hdpoint of granting them permission and afterward eating the turtle meat and turtle eggs they brought back. In translating Scripture I presented the general narrativtb in the definite involvement mood. The informants retold it in the indefinite detachment mood, as they would tc 1 Cm old-folks’ tale or a myth. When I became aware of the significance of these moods I insisted to them that it was actually God Who told the story even though He had men write it down, and I continued to translate using the definite involvement construction. Most Sionas even to this day continue to retell the Scripture passages in the indefinite detachment mood, but a few have. accepted the Scripture as God’s personal communication to them and narrate it to others in the definite involvement mood lb). As illustrated in the text, the point of view reflected in the 15) The indefznite detachent mood is applicable m several instances m Scripture, e.g., the remark of the chief priests and scribes, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself’. (Mk 15: 3 1).
ALVA
74
WHEEI.ER
opening sentence of the narration is basic to the whole discourse. be intermediate sI3.s in The viewpoint from time to whatever viewpoint prevails determines which moodstruction occurs with the main verb of each sentence n that span of viewpoint. Double slant lines (/I) mark the oints in the text (Appendix) where mood-tense constructions occur. Sentence I sets the basic viewpoint oi the narrative, as r&Pcted by the definite involvement construction, since the narad a part in sending his wife on the trip. A shift to the raior rinite detachment mood occurs in sentence 7, since the narrator art in the illness of the children. The indefinite involvement sentences 8 to 10 indicates the narrator’s involvement as ssage and at the same time his unawareness of was sent. As the viewpoint of the narrator revwts to his own activities in sentence 11, the definite involverrent from there to the end of the d&course. &tAMMATICAL
ROLE
iscourse structure aiso includes a system of indicating the minal element plays in the total discourse, and within ~;-srem senterzces in sequence relate grammatically to each ts of the whole discourse. ,4s a number of dependent ndent clause occur in a sequence to make up ex sentence, the relationship each clause bears to the
Jupposes
a
GRAMMATICAL
STRJCTURE
IN SIONA
DISCOURSE
75
with its grammatical function represented in either of three ways: First, as predicate of the initial dependent clause. In sentence 2, sat@ ‘send’ is a repeat of the final verb of sentence 1. kdga’utg ‘say’ is a repeat ol’ kdwi of sentence 2. In sentence 8, q&o ‘having them get sick’ is a repeat of w& part of the main verb complex of sentence 7. This is the most common pattern of tying sentences tagether in the narrative and continues throughout the discourse. Second a part or all of the main verb complex is repeated as nominalized subject of the initial clause of the following sentence, as per examples in sentence 4. kasi?ko ‘she having said’ rtrpeates ?:~%,cr;o of sentence 3., In sentence 6, sais?kobi ‘she who had gone’ repeats sakd% of sentence 5. In sentence 7, ti%$ni Wigobi ‘arriving-r-cmainmg one’ repeats ti’$ni ha7igoJbi it sentence 6. Third, the entire verb complex and construction recurs as the independent verb together with an expansion or adMion of other clause elements as components of a single independent clause comprising a simple sentence (compare sentences 4 and 5, and 8, 9, and 10). Within the framework of these interlocking relationships of clauses to each other and sentenes to each other, the nominal elements of discourse’ especially those which function as b;i ckground to the plot have their grammatical relationships to ciLch other indicated. In this way it is clearly communicated who 1s j~forming what event, even wher; none of the nominal element:* occur as grammatical features of the sentence. 5.
CONCLUSION
The features of Siona grammar presented in tl is paper under the labels focus J viewpoid an d role relationship all I epresent different semantic categories of the language. Each feature is represented at a particular level of syntactic structure. Focus occurs rn a phrase level construction. Viewpoint occurs in a clause level construction, and the discourse feattire of role relationship IS indicated by the presence or absence of the -nq veo-b suffix on a word level construction. At the same time the occurrence of each feature presupposes variations in syntactic or morphological structure on a different The level J as it has teen shown in the preceding presentation. pcsiting of granimz&ical structure on a leve beyond the sentence,
76
ALVA WXEELBR
that is, the discourse level, is very fruitful in accounting for these variations and in predicting the types of sentences and their interrelationship within the total frmework of discourse and to generate a body of language acceptable to the native speakers of Siona.
of
Wni3ekty
Berkeley
Cdifomia,
APPENDIX Text by Luciano i.
yi?i,
I
y9i wAgoni my sister-inlajN-;lbou+
2. sa&i], Sending,
kA.wi//, I-said,
3. k&$nq], Sayir+g,
yi‘z4
oigi]
iy$.hqihi?i ‘Go-see
iY&P
6. sai_$ k6bi Having-goneper Don
yuddga now
to-see
7. ti’$nj Arriving
ba%gobi remainin ;person sarqmpi$ nqk6nj. measles with.
L hq+ka *hU§
wf$go], having-themget-sick,
narration is a new line.
) The
a
ha4 X ‘OK.’
k@o/l, she-said, si Anj] , being,
5. mq~y6n~ Older-sl st er
k&w+// yi ?I. I-said T.
ha?y6de, older-sis ier, ’
bQobi she
kMk6 having-saidperson
16)
yi?i dih@ni saciwi//. my wife I-sent.
,
being-compassionate
my
4. hzQ$ka Thus
Piaguaje
b&go she
sakOi//. she-went.
sak66 /I. she-went. h#duutq that-place
ba?igo?bi. she-remained.
tiJ$ni] arriving
rnqrnzj wa~n&z~ w& child ones have-getsick
yi ;)ide me-to
daq mes:;age
bi?d&goyq//, she-began,
Cdciun&lG
:jhe-Sent
I’/*
.
running text. For ease of reference, each sentence
GRAMMATICAL
nqkonj wi kh
9. kuya White-man k&i calledperson 10.
STRUCTURE
nakon i with
IN
mQt6 by-outl-z-dmotor daomako//. she-sent-it.
SIBNA
vieme Friday
Esperidion
sarampi6 measles daomqko//. she-sent.
kuya daogonq] J yi? i white-man she-sentme and ti?@i//. yrntifzu55 &sQ message it-ar lived. day
kago saying
12. ti?&rna] J It-arrived-and m#inq]J
as-it-rose-up,
sabado SaJ Ijril-.duuy sai?i//. I-went.
um&-ust5, day . . .
77
Esperidi fi
da@, comingperson
kSkaihi?i yi pL b&Se mqm$koWz ‘The-childrer~ ‘Go-tell my he, kago, Wiyi l/t n&i], sayin,;, are-drying,’ they-caughtand
11. h@$ka Thus
DISCOURSE
Yrr6 isl$ now sun
ki&glng] he-toldand
h&& standing
J
GRAMMATICAL
STRWCTURE
IN
SICklWi 3ISCOrJ’RSE~) ALVA
J.
WHEE.I,ER
INTRODWCTI~N This
paper presems a phase of the descriptive grammar of the Siona Indian languz; = 2) of Mombia, South America, the data 3) for which has been g~hered under the sponsorship of the Summer Instftute of Linq~wltics of Sar,ta Ana, California. In my description of this grammar I have pkted structure on the discourse leve’14) in order to explain the fluctuation in occurrence ‘j A shghtly +Sreviated form of ::his paper was read befort_ the Linguistic iety of Amertc’a dmeeting, Decem?ler 29, 1965, in Chicago. Siona 1s spoken by abcul; 200 people who inhabit the banks of the Puiumayo River between the mouth of the Cuhembf and the mouth 0: the Prfiufia Blanca Rrvers, along the border between Colombia and Ecuador, %uth America. Stevrard classifies Siona as Western Tucanoan in the Hundbook of Soz.cA Amxcarc In&am, BAE-B 142, Vol. 3, pp. 737-41, 2 s does ,$fason m the same publication, Vol. 6, pp. 157-317. See also Alva and Margaret Wheeler ‘Siona (‘JVestern Tucanoan) Phonemics’ in Studies in EcPcaQovian idzan Languages: I, Unive i3it.l '+ of Oklahoma Publications in I_tm~uistics,*GCJ .7, Norman, 1962, pp_ 96 i 11 ; and Alva Wheeler ‘-4 Morpiiol< An,- !yc.rs of a Siona Text’, &id., pp. 24868. For convemcnce of a lrzat on some changes from the 196 ? phonemics article have been made m thrs p&per. IJalues are zj follows: p t, k, kw (fortes stops) ; b, d, g, gw (lenis ste;tps,which are glottal&d) ; s, C (fortes Gbilants) ; z (lenis sibilant, which is ~~~t~l~z~d~, w, yp m, n, ‘n, h W, 7 ; i, I, u (high vowels) ; e, a, o (low vowels) ; msdizzhon (y;I>, and stress (v). All syiiztbles preceding the first writing of stress on a word ar? stressed, even though stress Isn’t written. 1 and r are syrnb~ls t;wd only &iicertain cases of Spa.nish loan wo:Fds. a! Th? grammatical analysrs 1hzs been facilitated by use of a concordance ~,f the Siona text material compiled on the IBM 1410 computer at the Umversaty of Oklahoma by the Linguistic Information Retrieval Project of Safm*mer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Oklahoma rch Imtitute, and sponsored by Grant G-270 of the National Science F~~n~t~~. 3 For a fufier tratient of discourse analysis within the tagmexnic
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
IN
LCIONA
DISCOURSE
61
of certain grammatical elements of the sentence, the correlation of some of’ these grammatical eleml:nts with the attitudes of the speaker, and the relationship of sentences to each other. I have taken this position because of the failure of a descriptive grammar based only on sentence structure co generate a body of language easily intelligible to the native speakers of Siona. In this paper I shall describe: (1) how a set of enclitics, which occur with nominal elements of a sentence to mark their relationship to ihe predicate, depend for their selection on the degree of focus 5) attributed to them as elements in the discourse structure; (2) how the occurrence of various mood and tense suffixes are determined by the viewpoint of the speaker; and (3) how certain arrangements of morphemes in clause structure function primarily as signals of the role relationship of various discourse elements to each other within the +o+nl L Ld~i iscourse structure. 2.
Focus
Early in the snalysis of Siona grammar, I isolated a set of enclitics, which rnark the relationship of various nominal elements to the predicate, namely: -bi ‘source’, -de “referent’, -ni ‘motion toward - animate’, -ng ‘motion toward - inanimate’. These definitions serve as identifying labels but are quite generalized. In order to present a concise explanation of the pattern further exemplification is necessary. -bi occurs with noun phrases to denote various senses within a broad semantic range, which I label ‘SOUIce’ In cases where the head noun of the phrase is animate, -bz invariably marks the noun phrases as gra.mmatical subject (source of action) : duisbi dafii ‘Louis is coming.’ Louis come
model, see articles by Kenneth L. Pike: ‘Beyond the Sentence’, College COW@xztion and Co~rvtunzcatimz 15, 129-35 October 1964; ‘Discourse Analysis m Tagmeme Matrices’, Oceanic Lznguistics 3, 5-25; and James Lauriot ‘Shiplbo Discourse Analysis’, The Bible Translator, American Bible %clety, New York, July 1957. 5) This idea of focus is somewhat parallel to that of a number of Philippine languages. See, for example, Howard McKaughn, The znflectzon and syntax of mwatiao verbs, Institute of National Language, Manila, 1958.
62
ALVA
WHEELER
yaf wa?gUi go?gohi dog creature bark
‘The dog is barking.’
hqmr$bi n@bi
‘An armadillo
6)
became trapped.’
~$4 dih$ se?eg&bi &de kWa?kugo
food cook ‘My wife only is cocking the food.’
my wife only n@ ?uktiye>ne who drink
‘Who will drink it 7
When the head noun of the phrase is inanimate the application of -bi is broader. Context is the prime signal of the: specific sense. Grammatical subject is one possibility, howelrer this interpretation is restricted to intransitive and stative type clauses 7’,:
vi?i
J-
-c)
Pi t=;bi bi ha’,_sihi
my stomach yogubi hi yi bi awi$bz gah&i
hurt
Very commonly function instru~tient wa’ t fbi
‘My stomach hurts.’ ‘The canoe split.’ ‘The airplane descended.’ the
enclitic
-bi designates
the
grammatical
*) :
w&i3
‘He killed it with a machete.’
zuhibobi sukide k%bi
axe
tree
‘He fell the tree with an axe.’
fall
gay&la?wid#G hui?i only (shells) shoot
‘I shot him with the only shells I had left.’
~nt~n~~bi ha%de ge$hi ya?ibi leaf tie vine ‘Antonio is tying the leaf with the vine.’ 6) The 4% suffix to the verb is homo;>honous to the noun phrase enclitic and signals tird person singular, masculine, immediate past, definite involvement. ?t
treatment of Siona clause types is presented in my fzthcomijag doctoral dissertation at the Univer&y of
A ZZQYC 43t?tfwgH
locative source and tew@wal source occur in all active in stative types.
GRAMMATICAL
Another instrument
STRUCTURE
grammatical is means 8) :
function
ma> @i saf si? ko? i% trail gone-ones-they-are
IN
akin
SIONA
to but
63
DISCOURSE
in contrast
with
‘They have gone by trail
’
zihyabi mQt6 yogubi ti>$wi motor canoe arrive river ‘I arrived via thf: river, by motor canoe.’ ‘They are dying sf measles.’ sar$mpiGbi hu?iyj hu?f gohebi ay&bi wear hole put-in yqmb
‘He put it in through the sleeve of the garment. ‘We drifted (downriver) by night.’
me&4
I ocative source 8) occurs only with predications oi; movement :
indicating
motion
yi?i wkgi wiUbi
et&ii saPi my in-law house exit go ‘1 went out of my in-la.w’s house and left.’ zi&yabi mini wXnq kakawi river ascend house enter ‘I ascended from the river and entered the house.’ go?goti bi daisi?koGbi wa?ide yowl yodi bi upriver come-ones fish catch net ‘The ones who had come 4Fromupriver were fishing with a net.’ nqs6 huisi?dubi sai bi?d&wi monkey shoot-place go begin ‘We began to leave the place where he had shot the monkeys.’ Teq5oral
sotiyce 8) occurs with active but not stative type verbs:
ha’+ qm(igus6bi wahi bi?dkbi that day get-well begin ‘Since that day he began to get well’. y9i ha?yl hu?jsi?dibi ikode ukumq/?i my brother die-time drug not-drink ‘From the time my older brother died I haven’t drunk the drug.’ h@jdjbi sa& that-time go
i
P’hen we went.’
hoi ba?fdj bi to8wibi h%hi?i sudden be-time gun explode
‘All of a sudden the gun fired.’
ALVA
64
WHEELER
Because of the varierd use of the rnarker -bl: some sentences appear to be ambiguous. However, the speakers of Siona do not react to them as such, probably because the ambiguity is resollved in the context of discourse or social situation. y6gubi m&hi ‘The canoe is drifting/He is drifting in a canoe’, and to&wibi et&bi ‘It came out of the gun/The gun came out’ are examples of such ambiguous sentences. -de - 42 *) generally designates a noun phrase as object of the verb but may also designate bcative referent depending on the class of verb involved in the predication. Object is indicated in the following 6~xamples : duthni d&wi manisc pull-up b+Cg ‘They pulled up the maniac and brought ‘I filed the machete.’ wa2tide g9t6wi i wa%-r&G$$-tii ‘We saw the people.’ ‘ He split some firewood.’ G$;ide hQlt$bi
h&6&
i
wa%.G Mgini isfwi outi miaat him give e
only
it in.’
‘I gave some 2gouti meat to him.’
bring
‘That one only I brought.’
Esz&a/e referent is indiczlted by the following examples: ‘He is in (alj the house.’ I$+bi 5t ki k&bite’ tuihi tree limb percii
‘The bird is perched on the tree limb.’
@@deggsAyate’ ba8yi here palm-creek be ‘Now we are living here at Palm Creek.’ referent’
is indi-
‘HE will come on the day indicated
by him.’
In clause types of restricted cated :
-q
occurrence
passive
13;c.UrrfSKzof tine alfr31moq?h-f_dis conditroned by aoxwtress on the
able. The same conditioning prevails for homophonous verb $383ffixes -& ry -84, indicating dependent predication of a special kind.
GRAM:M,?TICAL
STRUCTURE
qO gdhi yi?#de it-hungers me
IN
SIONA
DISCOURSE
65
‘I am hungry.’
yi?l ga?niwItd gu% wan$hi ‘My body EC& bad.’ my body bad feels -pl.i10) occurs only with noun phrases of which the head noun is animate and indicates object or goal. It implies a more forceful direction of activity or motion toward the nominal element than in the case of -de: wahi wi?wigina biigini wai?i
alive
run
him
kill
wekini jy@i hui?I tapir see shoot
.
‘As he ran still alive, I killed him.’ ‘1
saw the tapir and shot him.’
ya?6 @bibi sirnini m&wj peccary intestines fish catch ‘With peccary intestines I caught the catfish.’ i koktide bagini Uwi ‘I spoke these words to him.’ these words him speak h@$de yi?i mq?yini sa6wi that my brother send b&go b&zi iy$hi sai?i her people see go
‘I sent that to my older brother.’ ‘We went to see her people.’
-nq 11) occurs primarily with noun phrases functionLlg as goal, of which the head noun is inanimate. When thfBlxad noun is animate, strong emphasis is indicated : t6do wa?gide khani kod@& wi% hobonq dani bull creature get colony house group bring kuy&zq bend%h~~) whi te-n1a.n sell ‘Go get the bull, bring him to the settlement and sell him to the white vnan .’ lo) Homophonous to verb suffix -~j, marking one of a sequence of predications. x1) Homophonous to verb suffix -rtq, signaling that the following verb has a change of subject. In Sims Gmwruta~ I apply the term ‘switc.h reference’ to this phenomenon, a label introduced by William Jacobson ‘SZO&~ reference in Hokan-Coahuiltecan, in press, The Hague, Mouton.
.ALVA
66
wa?ginq aOde a$hi;i youth creature food feed
WHEELER
b~si
‘Feet t!ze pmng man some food.’
yo waWde yua wiUn@ n&hi?i canoe paddle now house take-up ‘Now take the canoe paddle up to the house.’ kt! ti Wnq he?$hi ‘He is crossing to the other side.’ yonder bank cross gohbde n@$bi ylhbzq hole dig ground
‘He dug a hole in the ground.’
In addition to the enclitics mentioned above -ga %&so, even’ has certain occurrences which figure along with these in the overall pattern under discussion here. It cccurs either with the object or with the subje.L -when the subject invoives an animate noun head, the sense is emphasis on the nominal element: ya% wa?ide?ga isfwi kobedite peccary meat give compadre ‘I gave my compadre some peccary meat as well.’ yekI &$a t+wi other field plant ‘I planted another field, too.’ ba? fgi m i?iea
be
you
‘And you, are yozc theit?’
yi?i dfh$?ga zibde n@o my wife field undertake ‘Indeed my wife has unc”ertaken (to cultivate) bagi ?ga m&hi ‘He’s the one who knows.’ The enclitics -de, -ni and -nq have a further designating degree 9f intensity of emotion: do&e ofgo ‘She do&t’ oigo ‘She dca&q oigo ‘She yi?i rna~y& do?t&yi yE; : rn@yisi do? tG.yi yPi mq?yinq do?tayi
{greeting)
a field.’
application
in
is concerned ahoul Rosa.* is compassionate toward Rosh.’ is fervently comp;lssionate towa ,d Rosa.’ ‘I am thinking about my older brother.’ ‘I confide in my older brother.’ ‘I place .bsolute trust in my older brother.’
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
IN
SIONA
DISCOURSE
67
Where instrwncnt, means, Locativesoacrce, temj5ord 9w~ce, locative refereBb and passive referent are involved the occm-rence cf -bi or -de is obligatory. In cases of subject and object their occurrexe or nonoccurrence is equally elicitable, with no apparent distinction in mea-ling : hggc’i tiQni tihiwi yi?i ha& ite’ ti$ni tihfwi y?i
‘I finished weaving a hammock.’
46 $ni tihini yi?i yo?o sawi qjdc $ni tihfni yi?4 yo%de s&wi ‘I finished eating food and took up my work.’ yikina wab) yoguti! t@tohaiG yiklna wa?nz&bi y6gutt5 tt$t6hai?i ‘We (exl) set out to hew a canoe ’
hq?#= yo?byey4g@h
‘I am going to the woods.’
si dfbi me++ downriver drift There seemed at first to be no con iming factors for determining the presence or absence of these enclitic markers. The speaker could leave them off or put them on the noun phrases functioning as scrbject or object and the communication would still result. Problems arose in translation, however, when the informants would insist some of the time on using a marker and insist at other times on not using it. They would even insist on either -pi, -de, or no marker at all for the animate object. In early stages of Scripture translation I would privately write out a tentative translation of a passage (from the Gospel of Mark), in which I marked every noun phrase with one of the enclitics depending on its grammatical relation to the predicate. I would then read the translation to an informant and ask him to tell it back to
68
ALVA
WHEELER
me. In retelling the passage he would omit the enclitic markers in a number of cases. If later, P attempted to add the enclitic anywhere he had omitted it, he would insist on leaving it off. Elsewhere, if 1 suggested leaving the marker off, he would insist on including it. Except for a very few cases, which I attr:bute to idiosyncracies of the informants, the arrangement 05 enclitic marking remained consistent in any passage relating sequences of physical events regardless of what informant retold it. Such marking of nominal elements became less consistent between informants and even with the same informant at different times when a passage involved discussion of moral issues: the Sabbath (Mk 2 : 27-28, 3 : l-6), explanation of leaven (Mk 8 : 14-21) and 01Lers. It turned out that the informav+c _.-,sLould f not mark nominal elsments with any degree of certainty if they did not have a fairly clear understanding of the subject matter. I began to check the informants on enclitic marking of text mat&al which they had narrated, and found that they would not vary that arrangement, ei :her (although they would allow variation if I extracted any of the single sentences from the context of the story) * At the same time I noticed that the occurrence of these markers with nominal elements in dialogue would often be accompanied by certain non-linguistic behavior by the speaker, such as focus of vision or pointing with puckered lips at the item talked about. I had further noted that it was not always clear by occurrence of the particular marker alone whether the element patterned as object or goal, since even the goal would occasionally be marked with -de, the normal marker for object. There was definitely a fixed or64 _.ti ui preference as to the use or 1,ti& ~-~~-usc ui pariicuiar markers on the nominal elements of the narration or dialogue in order to make the discourse acceptable. There were no clues within the sentence for determining this preference, but an investigation of the enclitic occurrence (or non-occurrence) with each grammatical element of a dis:ourse correlated with the grammatical function of the element in a clause yielded an jnteresting arrangement as follows :
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
Emphatic focus Animate * Subject Object Goal Inanimate : Subject Object Goal
-ga -nl -na X X X
IN
-
SIONA
DISCOURSE
Normal focus
,hJon focus
-bi -de -ni
c3
-bi -de -nq
b9
0
-de 0
@ -de
Note that emphatic focus is not a category in the inanimate class, and it occurs twice in succession with the same nominal element in the animate class only in very lively discourse. The main theme of the narrative, and the importance of particular elements in the narrative are signaled by the enclitic markers selected within the framework of a grammatical category, either ~zcbject, object or goal. The grammatical category functions as a clause level element, but the degree of focus signaled by the enclitic marker relates to whether the nominal element has a central or peripheral role in the discourse. As each discourse element is traced through the narrative as a central or peripheral participant 12) a definite pattern of enclitic occurrence emerges, depending on the grammatical function of the element in a clause (e.g., subject, object, god). The elements which are central to the narrative occur with enchtic markers as shown in columns 1 and 2 of the above chart. T cse are the same as the nominal elements marked for focus and correlated with nonlinguistic behavior in dialogue. The elements which occur without enclitic markers pattern as setting to the main theme of the narrative and are considered peripheral thereto. They function to provide the background for the main plot of the story. The markers do function to indicate the relationship of the nominal element to the prerlicate, but this function is only second:Lry. The relationship is dist’nguishable on semantic grounds within -__I
12) At the Linguistic Society of America winter meeting in 1965, just before this paper -7.-1s read, I learned from conversation with H. A. Gleason, Ir thdk he had been working toward correlating discourse participants and &eir roles to tactics on the semantic stratum of the stratificational model.
73
ALVA
WHEELER
f ocial and cultural context, as particular lexical collscations of rb occur. The primary function of the enclitic markers te the role of the element within the discourse. This f the role relationship is borne out by the fact that the se element (at particular person or object in the nararked for focus every time it YWTS, with certain exrole ceptions where red dancy is a factor-. If its grar:;matical thin the clause c nges (say from goal to wbject), the enclitic ,rrkcr conforming to the proper grammatical category is selected, he primary semantic content of focus is maintained. erc may be more tha.n one discourse element ill focus at the but the distinction is made thro_rghout the narrative hr*twek;n the elements central to and those peripheral to the narr3tive. e note also that the nominal elements of embedded clauses (noun to the main theme of arrative and arc not lmarked for focus. a first person narrative, the narrator generally places himself cus. The objects oE his experiences arC the central elements ne of the nominal s indicated bq prendix will rev.-A *he markers under discussion. In sen f : 1: t 1; (‘sister-in-law’ and emantic elements, vary, recur under lder-sister’, which s ‘sister-in-law’ in sentence 1, occu.-s marked ce 3 shows ‘wife’, nce 4, the occurrence of the lexernb: ‘she’ arker, but the elenent of r focus has the g sentence, the latter when no other role intervenes. In
GRAMMATICAL
STRWCTIJRE
IN
SIONA
DISCOURSE
71
focus marker -ut&The subject of sentence 6, ‘having-gone-Fcrson’, referring to ‘wife’, is marked with -bi for focus. The goa same sentence, ‘that-place’ J referring to where the sister-in-law resided, is marked with -nq jfor focus. In sentence 7, ‘remainingperson’ J meaning ‘wife’ J is marked with - bi for focus; and a /new element is introduced, that is, ‘the children’, market?, with -ni for emphatic focus. At this point the attention of the story shifts from the sister-in-law to a concern ffor the childjren. In sentence 8, all the nominal elements are out of focus including tht: goal ‘me’, since it is marked with -de instead of -ni. The elements introduced in sentence 9, labeled ‘message’ and ‘the white-man coming by-outboardmotor, called Esperidi6n’ J are out of focus. These elements pattern as setting or b*:ckground to thasstory and are not central to the plot. Note that the same element ‘white-man’ is not marked for focus in sentence It. Neither is ‘message’ in the same sentence. In sentence 12, ‘sun’ is incidental to the plot and is not marked for focus. Sentence 11 marks a shift of attention from the wife’s activities to those of the husband. Since the husband’s role is that of narrator, he does not focus on himself, but centers his attention on the objects and eve’lts of his experience throughout the rtmainder of the narratior . 3.
VIEWPOINT
The next phase of this, paper deals with the mood and tense categories of the language, determined e viewpoint of the narrator or speaker and represented erent types of constructions to the independent verb. The basic types of mood are (1) definite invohement, indicating that the speaker associates himself with the circun?stances UC! is aware of their occurrence ; (2) irtdefin& i+avobvement 13)’ indicating thai Ihe speaker associates himself with the circumstances, but due tl) his participation in other activity he is not aware of the time these events take place; and (3) indefhzite detachment, indicating that the speaker considers himself detache from the circumstances and not responsible for their occurrence. The basic types of tense are (1) ~~~~e~~~~e 14)J indicating that the im*ediaa
dejilaite ~~u~~~~~e~~ occurs as a grammaficall category only PPIthe past. Dis8arrbpast forms have not been elicitable nor do they occur
in text material. 14) The iwmedicrta tense is further classified into @esend and +zsb, with contrasting constructions associated with each sub-category.
72
A,LVA
WHEELER
events have a bearing on present circumstances, and (2) distant (past), indicating that the events have no application to the present and are merely history or ‘water under the bridge’. This construction is a modification of the immediate constructions and is formed by nasalization of the stem vowels and addition of stem final glottal stop, plus some variation in the person-number suffixation. Examples in the following chart all mean ‘he went downriver’, but each is distinguished by tense and/or viewpoint: Distant
Iwmediate
Definite involvement
1. si dibinq s&hi%
Indefinite involvement
2. si dibi na saimqki
Indefinite detachment
3. ,sidfbina
saki
yq
4. sidibina
s@hj
5. sidfblnq s@kiyq
These tense-viewpoint distinctions are more easily analyzable from text material than the focus markers are. However, the basis for setting up a hypothesis about the system came mostly from observing linguistic behavior in social context. Some situations are worthy of comment. CLe man reported that his wife had gone (sakoya indefinite detachment) when he had arscovered her not at home. He didn’t know where she was. Another man said his wife had gone (sak&i defkite involvement), but it was known that he had helped her plan a trip to visit the settlement with their son-in-law. Sona women talk about their own children’s behavior using the definite involvement construction and switch to the indefinite detachment in referring to an outsider’s children. Gossip sessions have d heavy occurrence of the indefinite detachment coil>truULk3n. Orie man told his recent experiences to another, who ii: turn t Jld the same story to a third i’erjon. The first narration consi? ied predominantly of the definite involvement verb constructions but the second narrator shifted viewpoint to the indefinite detachrlent. A fresh scrutiny of text material brought attention to tht fact that the definite involvement and indefinite detachment sonseructions each enter into Tao other construction types: tl lose pointed out a& Oove as immedkzte and distant (reflecting past, rr?t
GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
IN SIONA
DISCOURSE
73
future). The immediate constructions apply to events which have recently happened, very seldom longer than three weeks previous. The distant constrxtions may be applied to events as recent as a week, but generally longer, so that some overlapping in time i; evident. The main factor involved is the speaker or narrator’s viewpoint of the event, whether it is pertinent to present circumstances or no longer of any significant application. Another construction, which is more frequent in narrative than in dialogue is that labeled indefinite involvement, which enters into immediate tense constructions only. The main connotation is that the speaker has an interest in the circumstance but is not aware of certain factors about it. A man telling of his trip upriver with his farnil!; used the indefinite involvement construction in relating events which took place while he was asleep in the canoe. A switch to the definite involvement indicated that he had awakened and was conscious of the events. Another man gave permission to his young sons to keep 2’.night watch for turtles on the sandbar. In relating the success of thl: boy: venture he used the indefinite involvement. He was indefinite’ about the time the boys actually went to the sandbar, but was involved from the st&hdpoint of granting them permission and afterward eating the turtle meat and turtle eggs they brought back. In translating Scripture I presented the general narrativtb in the definite involvement mood. The informants retold it in the indefinite detachment mood, as they would tc 1 Cm old-folks’ tale or a myth. When I became aware of the significance of these moods I insisted to them that it was actually God Who told the story even though He had men write it down, and I continued to translate using the definite involvement construction. Most Sionas even to this day continue to retell the Scripture passages in the indefinite detachment mood, but a few have. accepted the Scripture as God’s personal communication to them and narrate it to others in the definite involvement mood lb). As illustrated in the text, the point of view reflected in the 15) The indefznite detachent mood is applicable m several instances m Scripture, e.g., the remark of the chief priests and scribes, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself’. (Mk 15: 3 1).
ALVA
74
WHEEI.ER
opening sentence of the narration is basic to the whole discourse. be intermediate sI3.s in The viewpoint from time to whatever viewpoint prevails determines which moodstruction occurs with the main verb of each sentence n that span of viewpoint. Double slant lines (/I) mark the oints in the text (Appendix) where mood-tense constructions occur. Sentence I sets the basic viewpoint oi the narrative, as r&Pcted by the definite involvement construction, since the narad a part in sending his wife on the trip. A shift to the raior rinite detachment mood occurs in sentence 7, since the narrator art in the illness of the children. The indefinite involvement sentences 8 to 10 indicates the narrator’s involvement as ssage and at the same time his unawareness of was sent. As the viewpoint of the narrator revwts to his own activities in sentence 11, the definite involverrent from there to the end of the d&course. &tAMMATICAL
ROLE
iscourse structure aiso includes a system of indicating the minal element plays in the total discourse, and within ~;-srem senterzces in sequence relate grammatically to each ts of the whole discourse. ,4s a number of dependent ndent clause occur in a sequence to make up ex sentence, the relationship each clause bears to the
Jupposes
a
GRAMMATICAL
STRJCTURE
IN SIONA
DISCOURSE
75
with its grammatical function represented in either of three ways: First, as predicate of the initial dependent clause. In sentence 2, sat@ ‘send’ is a repeat of the final verb of sentence 1. kdga’utg ‘say’ is a repeat ol’ kdwi of sentence 2. In sentence 8, q&o ‘having them get sick’ is a repeat of w& part of the main verb complex of sentence 7. This is the most common pattern of tying sentences tagether in the narrative and continues throughout the discourse. Second a part or all of the main verb complex is repeated as nominalized subject of the initial clause of the following sentence, as per examples in sentence 4. kasi?ko ‘she having said’ rtrpeates ?:~%,cr;o of sentence 3., In sentence 6, sais?kobi ‘she who had gone’ repeats sakd% of sentence 5. In sentence 7, ti%$ni Wigobi ‘arriving-r-cmainmg one’ repeats ti’$ni ha7igoJbi it sentence 6. Third, the entire verb complex and construction recurs as the independent verb together with an expansion or adMion of other clause elements as components of a single independent clause comprising a simple sentence (compare sentences 4 and 5, and 8, 9, and 10). Within the framework of these interlocking relationships of clauses to each other and sentenes to each other, the nominal elements of discourse’ especially those which function as b;i ckground to the plot have their grammatical relationships to ciLch other indicated. In this way it is clearly communicated who 1s j~forming what event, even wher; none of the nominal element:* occur as grammatical features of the sentence. 5.
CONCLUSION
The features of Siona grammar presented in tl is paper under the labels focus J viewpoid an d role relationship all I epresent different semantic categories of the language. Each feature is represented at a particular level of syntactic structure. Focus occurs rn a phrase level construction. Viewpoint occurs in a clause level construction, and the discourse feattire of role relationship IS indicated by the presence or absence of the -nq veo-b suffix on a word level construction. At the same time the occurrence of each feature presupposes variations in syntactic or morphological structure on a different The level J as it has teen shown in the preceding presentation. pcsiting of granimz&ical structure on a leve beyond the sentence,
76
ALVA WXEELBR
that is, the discourse level, is very fruitful in accounting for these variations and in predicting the types of sentences and their interrelationship within the total frmework of discourse and to generate a body of language acceptable to the native speakers of Siona.
of
Wni3ekty
Berkeley
Cdifomia,
APPENDIX Text by Luciano i.
yi?i,
I
y9i wAgoni my sister-inlajN-;lbou+
2. sa&i], Sending,
kA.wi//, I-said,
3. k&$nq], Sayir+g,
yi‘z4
oigi]
iy$.hqihi?i ‘Go-see
iY&P
6. sai_$ k6bi Having-goneper Don
yuddga now
to-see
7. ti’$nj Arriving
ba%gobi remainin ;person sarqmpi$ nqk6nj. measles with.
L hq+ka *hU§
wf$go], having-themget-sick,
narration is a new line.
) The
a
ha4 X ‘OK.’
k@o/l, she-said, si Anj] , being,
5. mq~y6n~ Older-sl st er
k&w+// yi ?I. I-said T.
ha?y6de, older-sis ier, ’
bQobi she
kMk6 having-saidperson
16)
yi?i dih@ni saciwi//. my wife I-sent.
,
being-compassionate
my
4. hzQ$ka Thus
Piaguaje
b&go she
sakOi//. she-went.
sak66 /I. she-went. h#duutq that-place
ba?igo?bi. she-remained.
tiJ$ni] arriving
rnqrnzj wa~n&z~ w& child ones have-getsick
yi ;)ide me-to
daq mes:;age
bi?d&goyq//, she-began,
Cdciun&lG
:jhe-Sent
I’/*
.
running text. For ease of reference, each sentence
GRAMMATICAL
nqkonj wi kh
9. kuya White-man k&i calledperson 10.
STRUCTURE
nakon i with
IN
mQt6 by-outl-z-dmotor daomako//. she-sent-it.
SIBNA
vieme Friday
Esperidion
sarampi6 measles daomqko//. she-sent.
kuya daogonq] J yi? i white-man she-sentme and ti?@i//. yrntifzu55 &sQ message it-ar lived. day
kago saying
12. ti?&rna] J It-arrived-and m#inq]J
as-it-rose-up,
sabado SaJ Ijril-.duuy sai?i//. I-went.
um&-ust5, day . . .
77
Esperidi fi
da@, comingperson
kSkaihi?i yi pL b&Se mqm$koWz ‘The-childrer~ ‘Go-tell my he, kago, Wiyi l/t n&i], sayin,;, are-drying,’ they-caughtand
11. h@$ka Thus
DISCOURSE
Yrr6 isl$ now sun
ki&glng] he-toldand
h&& standing
J