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Textual Structure and Discourse Prominence in Yapese Narrative

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Textual Structure and Discourse Prominence in Yapese Narrative UNlVERS1TY TEXTUAL STRUCTURE AND DISCOURSE PROMINENCE IN YAPESE NARRATIVE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI"I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS AUGUST 2005 By Keira Gebbie Ballantyne Dissertation Committee: Benjamin Bergen, Chairperson Michael Forman Yuko Otsuka Kenneth Rehg Joseph O'Mealy ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due first to Jake Mcintyre for patience, lessons in American English, and deep and abiding friendship. To my teachers, Josephine Giltug, Stella Kolinski, Angela Y. Kenrad and Sherri Manna', kamgar, ka mu ri magar. Thanks are also extended to Mr. Walter Chieng and the interviewee in Dapael for their time and assistance on this matter and for their permission to make these materials available to the community, and to Mr. Leo Pugrum at YapSEED for his generous help with this project. Written Yapese materials are included with the kind permission ofPREL (pacific Resources for Education and Learning). Miriam Meyerhoffguided the early conceptualization ofthis work and introduced me to the idea ofthinking ofmorphosyntax as variation. She is an invaluable role model as a teacher and a researcher. Thanks are due to Dr. Roderick Jacobs for his assistance in fmding funding for field research in Honolulu. Dr. Ben Bergen oversaw the fmal stages ofthe project, and his guidance on contemporary work in cognitive science informs much ofthe theoretical analysis. I thank John Henderson for introducing me to Yapese, and Sheldon Harrison for guiding me through the Honours thesis. Ken Rehg provided much valuable advice on fieldwork in Micronesia. Thanks are due also to Byron Bender, Michael Forman and Bob Blust for sharing their experience as fieldworkers. William O'Grady, Yuko Otsuka and the late Stanley Starosta all sharpened my thinking in critical ways. The administrative support of Wendy Onishi and Jennifer Kanda went above and beyond the call ofduty. I thank the following agencies for partial funding ofthe field research and data collection: Department ofLinguistics, University ofHawai'i at Manoa; Arts and Sciences Advisory Council, University ofHawai'i at Manoa; Mildred Towle Scholarship for International Students. Chapter 4 is based on a revised version ofBallantyne (2004) which appeared in Oceanic Linguistics 43(1). Thanks are due to the anonymous reviewers ofthat work, who offered many helpful suggestions. III ABSTRACT This work shows that morphosyntactic variation in the form oftense-mood-aspect (TMA) and referring expressions in Yapese narrative act in concert to give rise to an enhancement in the imagined storyworld at high points ofnarrative action. Drawing on accessibility theory, typological work in the textlinguistic tradition, and a perceptually grounded version ofthe situation model framework, the dissertation argues that representations ofthe most highly salient entities and clauses in narrative tend to exploit semantic resources which work to create a rich simulacra ofperceptual experience. The work takes the form ofa case study, examining a corpus ofnarrative and non­ narrative text in Yapese, a language ofMicronesia. It is found that a foregrounding distinction conditions the split between independent pronoun TMA markers and clitic pronoun TMA markers. Highly foregrounded clauses in Yapese narrative may be zero­ marked, they may take the inceptive nga, or they may be in the perfect non-present ka quo Nga invokes a semantics ofgoal-satisfaction or effect, event types which have been shown to enhance the processing ofconnected clauses in laboratory studies. Ka qu is an instance offrame-breaking pragmatic reversal. The Yapese system ofreference is analyzed with respect to cognitive status. Particular attention is paid to the pronoun, determiner, and deictic systems. Yapese has a definite and two indefinite articles, and contrasts speaker proximal, hearer proximal, and distal demonstratives. It is argued that the higher the minimal cognitive status required for a referring expression, the more elaborate and constrained the representation ofthe referent. Highly elaborate and constrained representations have properties in common with highly salient objects in perception. The high accessibility ofhearer proximal demonstratives is analyzed as a combination ofspatial and social distance effects. Highly elaborated subjects tend to correlate with highly foregrounded clauses. Variation in both the TMA and reference systems is manipulated by narrators to more deeply immerse the audience in the narrative at key points. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .iii Abstract .iv List ofTables viii List ofFigures xi Abbreviations xii 1.. INTRODUCTION 1 1. Textlinguistics and Pragmatics 3 2. Situation Models and Perceptual Symbols 6 3. Textual Structure and Discourse Prominence in Yapese Narrative 14 4. Motivations for the Case Study : 17 2.· YAPESE: A BRIEF SKETCH 20 1. Yapese: History and Current Status 20 2. Previous Linguistic Scholarship 25 3. The Corpus 28 4. Thumbnail Sketch ofYapese Grammar .32 4.1. Phonology and Orthography 32 4.2. Selected Aspects ofClause Structure and Morphosyntax 34 5. Concluding Remarks 39 3. EVENTS IN NARRATIVE: TEXTLINGUISTIC AND PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES 41 1. Textlinguistic Perspectives on the Structure ofNarrative .43 2. Events in the Situation ModeL .49 3. Iconicity and Stronglconicity 53 3.1. Iconicity and Situation Models 54 3.2. Iconicity in Text 59 4.lconicity Augmented: Studies in Tense and AspeCt 65 4.1. Ongoing Versus Completed Events: Laboratory Studies 65 4.2. Tense and Aspect in the Text 71 5. Causality and Intentionality 80 5.1. Causality 81 5.2. Intentionality 87 6. Conclusion 91 4. FOREGROUNDING AND BACKGROUNDING IN YAPESE NARRATIVE 94 1. Two Additional Theoretical Notions 96 1.1. Deictic Center 96 1.2. Evaluation 97 2. Data 97 3. Tense, Mood and Aspect in Yapese 100 4. Textual Structure 103 4.1. Abstract and Orientation 103 4.1.1. Habitual Activities 104 4.1.2. Scene-setting Activities 105 4.1.3. Presentative Clauses 106 v 4.2. Background Material Embedded in the Complicating Action 107 4.2.1. Ba 'stative' and Stative Verbs 107 4.2.2. Qu 'non-present' 108 4.2.3. Ka 'perfect' 112 4.3. Narrative Clauses in the Complicating Action 113 4.3.1. Zero-marking in the Narrative Foreground 115 4.3.2. Nga 'inceptive' 117 4.3.3. Ka qu 'non-present perfect' 123 4.4. Summary ofTMA Marking ofTextual Structure 128 5. Evaluation 130 5.1. Comparators 130 5.1.1. Negatives 131 5.1.2. Irrealis 133 5.2. Quotation 134 6. Conclusion 138 5. OBJECTS IN TEXT AND REPRESENTATION 140 1. Introduction 140 2. Theories ofAccessibility 142 3. Spatial Distance and Situation Models 149 3.1. Accessibility and Deixis in Language 152 4. Tracking Non-Spatial Information about Objects & Characters in the Situation 159 4.1. Tracking Information About Protagonists 160 4.2. Definite and Indefinite Reference in Perceptual Symbol Systems 163 5. Conclusion 168 6. REFERRING EXPRESSIONS AND THE SITUATION MODEL IN YAPESE171 1. Introduction 171 2. Theoretical and Methodological Preliminaries 172 3. Pronouns 179 3.1. Clitic Pronouns 181 3.2. Independent Pronouns 187 4. Determiners 192 4.1. Fa: Familiar 192 4.2. Ba: Referential 195 4.3. Ea: Type Identifiable 198 4.4. Inalienably Possessed Nouns 202 5. The Yapese Determiners and Perceptual Symbolism .203 5.1. Ea 'indefinite' 204 5.2. Ba 'indefInite' 206 5.3. Fa 'definite' 207 6. Implications ofthis Analysis 209 7• SPATIAL DEIXISIN Y.APESE 214 1. Restrictors and Classifiers 218 1.1. Restrictors Modifying Lexical Nouns 218 1.2. Classifiers Modifying Lexical Nouns 220 1.3. Restrictors and Classifiers as Proforms 220 VI 2. Accessibility: Number Markers, Alienable Possessive Markers, and Classifiers 222 3. Accessibility and Deictic Demonstratives 224 4. The Locative Qer in Narrative 227 4.1. Locative Uses 227 4.2. Spatial or Temporal Shifts in the Deictic Center 228 4.3. At Episodic Boundaries 229 4.4. Evaluative Functions 231 4.5. Combined Evaluative-Textual Functions 232 5. Summary ofMinimal Cognitive Statuses Required for Selected Noun Phrase Forms .....................................................................................................................................233 6. Conclusion 234 8. REFERRING EXPRESSIONS AND NARRATIVE FOREGROUNDING 236 1. Previous Proposals Connecting Reference Marking and Tense-Aspect.. 239 2. Methodology 242 3. Results 246 3.1. Subject Accessibility Distinctions Between Independent and Suffixing TMA Markers 246 3.2. Subject Accessibility Distinctions Within Narrative 249 3.3. Subject Accessibility Distinctions in Non-narrative Text 256 4. Foregrounding and Object Accessibility 259 5. Accessibility, TMA Marking and Deictics 261 6. Conclusion 262 9. CONCLUSION: THE TEXTURE OF TEXT 264 APPENDIX: PRONOUNS AND AGREEMENT MARKERS 276 NOTES 277 Notes to Chapter 1 277 Notes to Chapter 2 : 277 Notes to Chapter 3 277 Notes to Chapter 4 278 Notes to Chapter 5 279 Notes to Chapter 6 280 Notes to Chapter 8 281 REFERENCES 282 Vll LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Summary ofCorpus Materials 30 Table 2.2: Yapese Consonants 32 Table 2.3: Yapese Vowels and Approximate IPA Values 33 Table 2.4: Independent Pronouns 37 Table 2.5: Clitic Subjects 37 Table 2.6: Subject Number Agreement .37 Table 2.7: Clitic Objects 37 Table 2.8: Dative Pronouns 37 Table 2.9: Genitive Pronouns for Alienable Possession .37 Table 3.1: Grounding in Kickapoo Narrative .47 Table 4.1: TMA Markers in Yapese 102 Table 4.2: TMA Markers Fused with the Third Person Singular Clitic Pronoun 102
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