Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

speakers use -ite to structure information, manipulating the question under discussion. Relevance
is particularly clear in orientation scenes. In using -ite with verbs in introducing
characters, narrators communicate that the particular attributes or situations described are
relevant for the story to come. Orientation examples are shown in (375) and (376) above.
Other -ite uses also show relevance effects. For example (381), repeated from (379a),
introduces a character who will serve as a foil. The old hag’s spying will prove the undoing
of the main character in his deceit, and is thus introduced as important for the ensuing
action.
(381) Nàkó àkàchèmbèlè kàlìmúbwènè
nako
akachembele ka-li-mu-bwene
com.cl12.dem cl12.old.hag cl12-pres.stat-3sg-see.stat
‘And that old hag saw him [was watching him]’ (ZT2009NarrB3.CN Sinjoli
naChacha)
-ite also appears frequently in quoted speech in narrative, much as it appears in everyday
discourse. In (382), for example, -ite seems to be used because the speaker is making an
observation that is very relevant to the current context, explaining the problems of the
speaker’s child. In general, -lowa ‘bewitch, do witchcraft against’, occurs more commonly in
a non-ite form. The statement with -ite is a claim about the character and actions of her
interlocutor, and the act of witchcraft becomes an attribution, rather than just an activity.
It is relevant to answering several discourse questions: first, ‘what is responsible for my
children’s problems?’ and second, ‘what accounts for my judgment of your character (and
ensuing actions)?’
(382) “Kántì íwè ndìwé ùlówètè yôyù mwáànángù íwè!”
“kanti iwe ndi-iwe u-low-ete yoyu mwaana-angu
kanti
iwe!”
2sg.pron cop-2sg.pron 2sg-witch(v)-stat cl1.dem child-1poss
2sg.pron
“‘What?! You, it was you, you were the one who was witching my child, you!”’
(ZT2009NarrB3.CN Sinjoli naChacha)
In contrast, in (383), -ikuta ‘become full’ is not used in its stativized -ite version (-ikusi),
although such a use might be acceptable in that temporal context. There are at least
two reasons why -ite may not have been chosen, one temporal and one relevance based.
Temporally, this sentence seems to emphasize the change of state rather than the current
state: the speakers have not yet become full (the point of nuclear completion in the predicate
-ikuta ‘become full’). The relevance-based motivation for this temporal representation may
be that the food (and its inadequacy), and not just the speakers’ state, is what is under
discussion, and question about whether the friend is hungry does not directly represent the
285