Beyond Time - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

“a new reference frame is opened for a new series of events that might only loosely be
connected plotwise to the preceding major episode” (Seidel 2008:385).
4. Introduce important episodes: Resumptive use of the P-Anterior may be found at the
beginning of major episodes, summarizing the action before it occurs. Seidel analyzes
this use as a stylistic device, breaking the respective episodes from previous events
and emphasizing their importance. Resumptive P-Anterior use often accompanies a
“major shift in narrative style”, as well (Seidel 2008:382).
Thus, it appears that in Yeyi, the H-Anterior indicates a kind of psychological nearness,
while the P-Anterior creates psychological distance from the situation described, consonant
with its temporal function of indicating a more distant past.
Finally, it should be noted that temporal-distance distinctions may be different and even
somewhat neutralized in narratives. Kamba (E.50) (Whiteley & Muli 1962, discussed in Dahl
1985:121-122) distinguishes three pasts: a Hodiernal/Immediate past, a Hesternal/Recent
(up to “a week previously”) Past, and a Distant Past. In narratives, however, two different
past tenses are used, and the difference between them is “vaguer”: Narrative II “ ‘connotes
a rather less remote time in the past’ ” than Narrative I (Whiteley & Muli 1962 in Dahl
1985:122).
Kamba and other cases lead Dahl to posit the following generalization:
If narrative and non-narrative contexts differ with respect to the marking of
temporal distance, it will be the non-narrative contexts that exhibit the largest
number of distinctions (Dahl 1985:127)
By way of explanation, Dahl posits that since topic time is “by definition” determined by a
narrative’s context, “any further indication of its location in time will be redundant” (Dahl
1985:127). Also, narratives may avoid the hodiernal past when it could be conflated with
the perfect (anterior) (Dahl 1985:127).
1.2.6 Motivations for the study of tense and aspect pragmatics in
Totela narrative
Bantu languages provide a near ideal source for both synchronic and diachronic studies of
tense, aspect, and mood, their grammaticalization, and their pragmatics. A typical Bantu
language will have an extremely developed and nuanced system for marking tense and aspect
distinctions, leading Dahl to characterize them as having “the most complex TMA systems in
general” (Dahl 1985:185). For example, Bantu languages are known for expressing multiple
degrees of past and future reference. Nurse (2008:20-25) lists other Bantu “innovations”,
such as the “itive” (‘go and X’), multiple patterns of negation, a disjunctive/conjunctive
focus opposition, a persistive (‘still’) aspect, and narrative tense.
Furthermore, the approximately 550 Bantu varieties spoken today (Maho 2003, cited in
Nurse 2008:2) are both sufficiently similar and sufficiently different to make comparison valuable.
For example, most have approximately the same aspect “set”, including “perfective,
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