Chapter 18 TOPIC in Warao

Chapter 18

TOPIC in Warao: The sequel

1. IntroductionIn this chapter, we examine a second Warao narrative, Bure kuare Warao

‘The Buzzard and the Warao’. There are several motivations for looking at aanother text. First, given Romero-Figueroa’s (1997) descriptive claims aboutWarao FOCUS, we need to increase the data base from which to develop ourown perspective of Warao grammar. Second, analyzing a second textsearching for TOPIC provides an opportunity to check our previousconclusions based on Waira-Joyo. Third, a second narrative provides theopportunity to discover stylistic variation, especially in the use of TOPIC, butalso in other ways. Romero-Figueroa (1997) claims that Warao folk narrativesare characterized by the presence of a form yama to which he ascribes thesense of ‘hearsay’, a form almost entirely absent from the first Warao text, butheavily present in this one. The contrast between the two narratives should beinstructive.

2. The TextAs with Waira-Joyo, in the presentation of the Bure kuare Warao text,

there are several changes from the original form. While maintainingVaquero’s distinct utterances so marked by punctuation, I have labeled theseparate utterances within Vaquero’s fifty numbered segments using (a), (b),etc., and I have added a line of grammatical glosses and an Englishtranslation.1

Stylistically, the language of Bure kuare Warao ‘The Buzzard and theWarao’ seems — impressionistically — to be more elaborate than that ofWaira-Joyo.2 There are utterances which have more than one finite verb.Sentence (4a), for example, is presented by Vaquero as one punctuatedutterance, but it contains two finite verbs:

(4) (a) Tai warao ja-kotai dijisa-ne, uruya-ja[that Warao be-REL hide-GER slow-be

1 There are a couple of minor irregularities in Bure kuare Warao. For some reason, Vaqueroskips from (16) to (18) in his numbering scheme; (17) is completely omitted. The last fourWarao utterances in (25) have no gloss into Spanish.

2 I cannot determine from Vaquero (1965) whether the stories were told by one narrator ortwo.

2 SYNTAX & SEMANTICS

aba-nae, jobaji araya yaji-neput.down-PRET ground on -GER

naru-ae yama.walk-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Then the Warao, hiding, slowly got down (on his handsand knees) and crawled forward on the ground.’

‘Entonces el indio, a escondidas y despacito,arrastrándose sobre la tierra, comenzó a avanzar ...’

By my count, there are 9 examples like this: (2a), (4a), (8c), (12c), (20b),(24b), (33d), (43c), & (46a). They appear to be instances of clauses beingjuxtaposed.3 While there are 163 punctuated utterances in the text, there are172 independent clauses. I shall use the latter number in tallying any statistics.

Bure kuare Warao also differs from Waira-Joyo in having morecomplexity in the use of non-finite, dependent clauses. Often, the sentencesare just longer.

(44) (a) Tai warao ja-kotai, tai bure[that Waraobe-REL that buzzard

auka-tida a rima mi-kitaneoffspring-woman POSS father see-INF

nau-kore, nokabuka bure acome-when buzzard POSS

sinoto isaka nisa-itane, joaikashirt one take-GER

3 The criterion I have used in identifying these 9 is the presence of two finite Verbs.Sometimes there is no marker between the two clauses, as in (4a). Sometimes there may be aform kuare ‘and’, as in (8c), or a form such as tiji ‘because’, as in (46a):

(46) (a) Ama sike tai bure auka-tida[that.yonder actually that buzzard offspring-woman

ja-kotai warao eyamo dubuida-ja nanaka-ya tijibe-REL Warao behind quick-be descend-PRES because

daima-ja-bitu nanaka-nae yama.-be-most descend-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Because the daughter of the buzzard was quickly descending behind theWarao, she came down like an arrow.’

‘La hija del zamuro que bajaba como una flecha le venía mordiendo lostalones.’

Regardless of the presence of a marker (or not), I have lumped these 9 together. As it willturn out, nothing of importance turns on this decision.

TOPIC in Warao II 3

nanaka-nae dubuida-ja.descend-PRET quick-be]

While the daughter of the buzzard chief was going to seeher father, the Warao, taking a buzzard’s shirt,quickly descended.’

‘Pero aquel warao, mientras la hija del zamuro marchó aver a su padre cogió un chaleco del zamuro y se lanzórápidamente, en picada, para abajo.’

Although 57 of the 163 utterances are words from the mouths of thecharacters, the Narrator’s introduction of that speech is oftentimes elaborate.In Waira-Joyo, the most common verb describing quoted speech, dibu ‘say’,occurs alone with an elided subject or only with the subject named.4 In Burekuare Warao, these utterances are more complex. Sentence (8b) contains thefirst occurrence of dibu:

(8) (b) Tuatane waniku isaka jaka-kore[in.the.same.waymonth one run.away-when

seke tai bure auka-tidaactually that buzzard offspring-woman

ja-kotai a nibora-maisía dibu-nae:be-REL POSS man- to say-PRET]

‘When a month had passed like this, the buzzard girlspoke to her man.’

‘Cuando transcurrió un mes en esta forma, la zamura ledijo: ...’

Compare that with the first occurrence of dibu in Waira-Joyo:

(7) (b) Tai dibu-nae: — Ma tatu, ¿Ojio[that.one say-PRET my woman landing

kasaba-ra?where-INTER]

‘He said, ‘My good lady, where has he gotten to?’‘... dijo: —Mujer mía ¿a dónde queda el

desembarcadero?’

4 There are 33 occurrences of dibu, and the only material that accompanies it (other than asubject) are 7 examples of Narrative Linkage.


This is a rather stark, but consistent, stylistic contrast between the two texts,and it has impacted how I have presented the text here. Sentence (7b) inWaira-Joyo contains the introductory words of the Narrator as well as thewords of the character. In Bure kuare Warao, I have separated the two.Sentence (8b) contains only the lengthy introduction by the Narrator. Thecharacter’s words will follow in (8c).

3. The StoryBoth Waira-Joyo and Bure kuare Warao are set in a time near the world’s

origin. Waira-Joyo tells about the first Warao, Mayakoto, and his offspring,the Jaburis. Bure kuare Warao is set at the beginning of time: Awajabara-bitu.Awajabara is glossed as ‘before’ and it is affixed by bitu, a superlativemarker. But in contrast with Waira-Joyo, in Bure kuare Warao, none of thecharacters have proper names. The one Warao participant is identifiedprimarily as a Warao, sometimes warao isaka ‘one Warao’, tai warao ‘thatWarao’, or warao jakotai ‘the one who is Warao’. Otherwise, he is nibora‘husband’ to the buzzard-girl. The Warao’s buzzard wife also has no propername. In Waira-Joyo, all characters except Mayakoto’s two wives havenames.

The plot of Bure kuare Warao is this. The Warao was fishing one day,when a flock of buzzards fly over and land. He sneaks up on them and spiesan attractive female among them. He is attracted to her. He grabs her andmakes her his wife. After spending some time on earth, the buzzard-girl wantsthe Warao to join her with her kind in the sky. She gives him a buzzard shirt,which allows him to fly.5 They fly upward, circling, until they finally reachthe home of the buzzards. The Warao wants to meet the buzzard-girl’s father,the chief of the buzzards, but he pleads a headache and refuses. The buzzard-girl then sends her Warao husband for firewood, which he brings. Then shesends him for water. She gives him a container, and he leaves on his errand.He cannot fill the pot, until an old woman comes along. She volunteers to fillthe pot after telling him to face the other way. The Warao returns with thewater, only to be told by his wife to go make a boat. She gives him an axe andsends him off down the road. The Warao sees no trees, but only erect stones.

5 Akawaio is a Carib language spoken primarily in west central Guyana. In that language,there is a story (told by Dr. Desrey Fox) that has themes reminiscent of Bure kuare Warao. Inthe Akawaio, a turtle wants desperately to fly and to join the birds in their home in the sky.The birds finally relent and pluck some of their feathers attaching them to the turtle thusallowing him to fly with them to their home. The turtle enjoys himself too well and sings toobadly, and the birds finally pluck him of his feathers and heave him out. He falls to earth andcracks his shell.

TOPIC in Warao II 5

He returns to tell her, but she replies that the stones are really trees. TheWarao goes off again, but his axe will not cut the supposed trees. While he isstanding and pondering his problem, a middle-aged man passes. He hears theWarao’s plight and offers to cut the tree if the Warao will turn and look theother way. He then offers to make the boat while the Warao goes for a drinkof water. When the Warao returns, the boat is finished so he goes to tell hiswife. She in turn goes to tell her father, who will go to see the boat. In themeantime the Warao returns to the place where the boat is and hides. Whenthe buzzard chief arrives, the Warao emerges and strikes the buzzard chief inthe head, killing him. The Warao returns to the buzzard village. His wife askswhether he has seen her father. He says ‘No’. She accuses her busband ofkilling her father and she leaves to find out. While she is gone, the Warao putson a buzzard shirt, and begins his descent homeward. The buzzard-girlpursues, but the Warao lands safely in the jungle before she can catch him. Ina final conversation between the two, she promises that whenever a buzzardfinds a dead Warao, the buzzard will eat him. As in Waira-Joyo, Bure kuareWarao has a motivation in explaining a fact of nature. As Waira-Joyoexplained how the large boulder came to be in the river, Bure kuare Waraoexplains why buzzards eat the dead.6

4. Warao TOPICIn describing the presence of TOPIC in Bure kuare Warao, we will first

determine how much of the text employs the grammar of Warao TOPIC that isalready familiar to us. We will then identify the new ways in which Burekuare Warao manages TOPIC. Like Waira-Joyo, this text contains a largenumber of utterances representing the direct speech of the characters(33.1%)7.

4.1 Narrative Linkage in Bure kuare Warao8

Both texts begin using the finite Verb marked with the PRESENT -ya.Waira-Joyo had the first 11 sentences thus inflected and treated asintroductory. This text has only the first 3 so marked.

6 The Akawaio story explains why the surfaces of turtles’ shells have the patterns they do.

7 The percentage in Waira-Joyo was 40.95%.

8 Cf. Chapter 17 for an explanation for “Narrative Linkage”.


4.1.1 The familiar marks of Narrative LinkageThere are 38 instances of Narrative Linkage overall in Bure kuare Warao,

a percentage of 22.5%.9 All but 2 appear in the speech of the Narrator. Thisasymmetry confirms a conjecture in the preceding chapter that the meaning ofNarrative Linkage should be less appropriate to the back-and-forth exchangeof conversational usage than to the continued speech of narration. Within theNarrator’s speech, Narrative Linkage appears in 33.6% of his/her clauses.10

As in the previous Warao text, the most frequent marker of Narrative Linkageis -kore. It appears 21 times.11 The GERUND -itane occurs 7 times; -yaja ‘as’ isused once; the GERUND -ne is present once, and the INFINITIVE once. There isa new marker of Narrative Linkage which is used seven times.12 All these addup to 38 occurrences of Narrative Linkage.

Twenty-one of the thirty-eight instances of Narrative Linkage are thenormal ones based on literal repetition of the EVENT from the precedingutterance:13 Sentence (2b) is typical:

9 Sentences (14f) and (35g) are the examples from the speech of a character. The number ofrelevant clauses is now 172 minus the first three introductory ones in the PRESENT. Overall,Waira-Joyo had 28.5% of its utterances invoking Narrative Linkage.

10 The Narrator has 110 clauses (172 minus 57 belonging to the characters, and minus 5 ofthe examples of clausal juxtaposition which also belong to the characters). Furthersubtracting the initial 3 of the story brings to 107, the number which would be eligible forNarrative Linkage. The Narrator’s speech in Waira-Joyo ultimately had Narrative Linkage in35.5%.

11 Utterance (49b) contains a sentence initial dependent clause based on kuare, but it seemsactually to be just what it appears to be, a conditional clause, ‘From now on, when we seeyou dead ...’ and not an instance of Narrative Linkage:

(49) (b) Ama oko tamatika-mo yatu waba-ja mi-kore,[now we here-from you die-be see-when

oko yatu najoro-ne ja-tewe you eat-PRET be-FUT.INDEF]

‘From now on, when we see you dead, we will eat you.’‘Desde hoy, nosotros, siempre que os veamos muertos, comeremos

vuestras carnes.’

12 -kore is in these clauses: (3a), (4d), (6b), (8b), (11a), (12b), (14f), (15b), (15c), (23a),(26a), (27a), (31d), (35b), (35c), (36c), (40b), (43b), (44a), (45a), and (45b). -itane is in(20a), (28b), (29b), (35g), (38b), (41b), and (45c). -yaja appears in (2b), -ne in (22a), and -kitane in (36a). The missing seven introduce a new expression, takore, in (4c), (5b), (21a),(23b), (32b), (40a), and (41c). We will turn to takore below.

13 They occur in (2b), (3a), (4d), (6b), (11a), (12b), (15b), (15c), (26a), (27a), (28b), (29b),(31d), (35c), (36a), (38b), (41b), (45a), (45b), and (45c). Since it will turn out that one of the

TOPIC in Warao II 7

(2) (a) Warao ja-kotai mate tata soro-nakatane,[Warao be-REL still there look-NEG thus

kuarika ojiba-ya yama.more -PRES HEARSAY]

‘The Warao didn’t look at them; he kept on fishing.’‘Aquel indio no se preocupó de mirar y siguió pescando.’

(b) Ojiaba-yaja takore, warao ja-kotay ama[ -as when Warao be-REL now

seke a inabe soro-naeactually POSS jungle look-PRET]

‘But as he was fishing, the Warao looked into the jungle.’‘Cuando terminó la pesquería se puso a mirar por entre la

selva.’

The Narrative Linkage in (45c) is a literal one, although the literal point ofconnection two clauses back. In (44a) - (45c), the action of descent is presentthroughout, but it is overlaid by a second action in (45a) & (45b). In (44a), theWarao begins his descent from the sky. The descent continues in (45a), as hesimultaneously looks back to see if he is being followed; as he is descending,he looks back.. In (45b), he is looking back as he is descending. In (45c) —the example at issue — nanaka ‘descend’ repeats literally from (45a), not(45b). Although descent is present throughout, it is not explicit in (45b); it isthere, and (45c) connects with it.14 The other nineteen literal uses do not need

uses of the new marker of Narrative Linkage, takore, in (5b) is also a literal one, I add it nowto the others to make the total, 21.

The two examples within quoted speech are also literal usage. They are in (14f) & (35g).Only (14f) will be discussed below.

14 The second use of Narrative Linkage in quoted speech is of this disjointed sort:

(14) (c) —Ma tida, ¿kasa-bukasia nabaka-te?[me woman where- to arrive-FUT.INDEF]‘Where are we coming to, my wife?’‘—Pero mujer, ¿a dónde vamos a llegar?’

(d) Ama sike diboto dibu-nae:[that.yonderactually in.front.of say-PRET]‘She answered him.’‘Y ella contestó:’

(e) ‘—Mate ma denoko-naka.[still me ask-NEG]‘Don’t ask me again.’


to be discussed further. Continuing a strategy that was found in Waira-Joyo, some of the uses of

Narrative Linkage, however, are not based on literal repetitions but dependupon other semantic similarity between the connected points. The 9 instancesof non-literal Narrative Linkages here are in (8b), (20a), (22a), (23a), (35b),(36c), (40b), (43b), and (44a). In place of literally repeating material from thepreceding utterance(s), sentence (8b) summarizes their content, thus connect-ing with them:






The form tuatane ‘in the same way’ indexes the description of activity in thepreceding utterance(s) somewhat in the manner of a pronoun indexing a moreexplicit nominal naming. It is the same content, just presented differently.Sentence (20a) connects the EVENT ejobo-itane ‘having come back’ withnaru-ya ‘went off’ in the precding (19f). Sentence (35b) pairs weru-kore‘having fallen (of a tree)’ with kab-é ‘cut (or fell a tree)’ in (35a). Sentence(23a) connects nabaka-kore ‘having got there’ with naru-ae ‘left’ in thepreceding. Sentence (40b), similarly, pairs nabaka-kore ‘when he got there’with nao-yaja ‘was coming’. Sentence (43b) pairs nau-kore ‘when she gotthere’ with natu-í ‘she left’ in (43a). Sentence (44a) combines nau-kore‘having arrived’ with baji-né ‘she returned’ in the preceding (43c). These —

‘—No me preguntes más.’

(f) Oko tata nabaka-kore, ine ji sabadibu-te.’[we there arrive-when I you to say-FUT.INDEF]‘When we arrive there, I’ll tell you.’‘Cuando lleguemos yo te lo diré.’

Narrative Linkage in the quotation of (14f) ignores the Narrator’s speech in (14d), as itshould, but it also ignores the Buzzard-girl’s negative imperative, a prelude to her answer,which has the linkage.

TOPIC in Warao II 9

(23a), (40b), (43b) & (44a) — are all non-literal uses of Narrative Linkage ofthe kind we found in Waira-Joyo, and they need no further discussion. Thenon-literal example in (36c), however, deserves more comment:

(36) (a) Warao ja-kotai a janoko ata[Warao be-REL POSS house to

jobi-kitane naru-é ama.drink-INF walk-PRET now]

‘The Warao walked off to his house to get a drink.’‘Y el warao marchó a casa a beber agua.’

(b) Araisa ja-kotai, tai warao nokabuka,[another be-REL that Waraobehind

dubujida-ja gúa kab-é ama.quick-be boat cut-PRET now]

‘The other person, in the absence of the Warao, quicklymade the boat.’

‘El otro, en ausencia del indio, cobó rápidamente lacanoa.’

(c) Warao nabaka-kore, diana tai gúa[Warao arrive-when now that boat

kaba-ya kotai kototuka yiwara-nae tíacut-PRES REL finish-PRET then

yama.HEARSAY]

‘When the Warao came back, the boat was made.’‘Cuando regresó el warao ya el otro había terminado por

completo su embarcarción.’

The non-literal pairing between nabaka-kore & naru-é is not the interestingthing. These two EVENTS, in fact, occur in the Narrative Linkage between(23a) & (22d). The wrinkle here lies in the presence of (36b). Somewhat in themanner of the sequence of (44a) - (45c) above, there is a continuum of actionin (36). The Warao is going to get a drink and coming back. Interposed in themiddle of that one action is the rapid (almost instantaneous) construction ofthe boa: Voilà, the boat is made.. The nabaka-kore of (36c) simply reachesaround the short presence of kab-é to reach naru-é in (36a), as if kab-éweren’t there. The duration of kab-é is so short that it fails to interrupt the


Warao’s trip for a drink of water.

4.1.2 A new mark of Narrative LinkageWe now turn to the new form that seems to signal Narrative Linkage:

takore. In (5b), we find that it can work in a literal fashion as do the othermarkers of Narrative Linkage:

(5) (a) Ama seke warao ja-kotai tai [that.yonder actually Warao be-REL that

bure tida isía yakara-ja dibubuzzard woman to -be word

mo-ae yama.give-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Then the Warao began to sweet talk the buzzard girl.’‘Ensequida comenzó a decir palabras lisonjeras a la

zamurita.’

(b) Tai dibu yakaraja-mo-ana yawara-takore,[that say -give- finish-when

isiko waiku nabaka-nae yama.with far leave-PRET HEARSAY]

‘When he had finished, he went far away with her.’‘Terminando el coloquio amoroso se embarcó con ella en

la curiara.’

The ‘giving of sweet talk’ in (5a) is the ‘finishing of sweet talk’ in (5b).Really, the only notable thing about (5b) is the presence of takore, in place ofkore, for example.

Takore recurs in (4c) and (41c) in what appears also to be a function ofNarrative Linkage. Consider (4c):

(4) (a) Tai warao ja-kotai dijisa-ne, uruya-ja[that Waraobe-REL hide-GER slow-be




TOPIC in Warao II 11


(b) Uruya abane ...[slowly ...]‘... little by little.’‘...con mucho cuidado.’

(c) Awere-witu naka-e takore, Warao ja-kotai[near-very become-PRET when Warao be-REL

ama sike tai bure tidanow actually that buzzard woman

autu-ya maja-nae.in.the.middle.of- hug-PRET]

‘When he got very close, the Warao grabbed the buzzardgirl around the waist.’

‘Cuando estuvo muy cerca se abalanzó y abrazó a lazumura por la cintura.’

Although not a literal repetition, the awere-witu naka-e ‘He got very close’ of(4c) appears to complete yaji-ne naru-ae ‘crawled forward’ in (4a).15

Sentence (41c) is almost an exact duplication of the use in (4c):

(41) (b) Aji-tane seke tai warao ja-kotai,[strike-when actually that Waraobe-RELslow

uruya abane,omunoko ekuya naru-íslow footprint inside walk-PRET

yama.HEARSAY]

‘Having struck him, the Warao quietly walked along thepath.

‘Después de cortárselas el warao salió sin hacer ruido porel camino.’

(c) Janoko awere takore tai bure[house near when that buzzard

15 Although Vaquero, with his punctuation, assigns Uruya abane ... ‘Slowly’ a status asindependent utterance, it has no verb and functions a dependent adverbial. Note also his useof ellipsis following it. For all intents and purposes (4c) follows directly upon (4a).


auka-tida ja-kotai a nibora-maoffspring-womanbe-REL POSS man-

dibu-nae ama:say-PRET now]

‘When he neared the house, the buzzard chief’s daughterspoke to her husband.’

‘Cuando estaba llegando a la casa la hija del zamuro ledijo al hombre:’

The sense of moving toward a destination and reaching the destination areagain two complementary portions of a single happening.

The notion of a larger occurrence, which may have two componentelements recurs in another use of takore, in what seems to be a formulaicexpression: Kuare masabukau takore. The expression, which is always placedsentence-initially, is used five times in (20a), (21a), (23b), (32b), and (40a).Vaquero glosses it successively as ‘al poco rato’, ‘después de un rato’, ‘enesto’, ‘al poco tiempo’, and ‘y al poco tiempo’. The two composing events aretaken as two because of a short intervening time, but they are otherwiseinterlocked as two pieces of a puzzle. The application of takore seems toachieve linkage by taking two components and forging the two aspects into asingle whole.

(19) (f) Naru-ya diana[walk-PRES now]‘And she went off.’‘Y marchó’

(20) (a) Kuare masabukau takore atae tata-mo[and when again there-from

ejobo-itane, a nibora-maisíawalk.out-GER POSS man- to

dibu-ne ama:say-PRET now]

‘And when she had come back from there, she spoke toher husband.’

‘Al poco rato volvió de allá y le dijo al marido:’ ‘Went off’ and thereupon (al poco rato) ‘came back’. And


(20) (b) —Dima dibu-ya mi-kitane obona-naja.[father say-PRES see-INF want-NEG]‘Father says he does not want to see you.’‘—Mi padre dice que no quiere verte.’

(21) (a) Kuare masabukau takore, tai bure[and when that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai a nibora-maisía offspring.woman be-REL POSS man- to

dibu-nae:say-PRET]

‘After a while, the buzzard girl spoke to her husband.’‘Después de un rato la hija del zamuro le dijo al hombre:’

The buzzard-daughter’s words, then (después de un rato) the ‘buzzard girlspoke’ again. And:

(23) (a) Ama sike jo ata nabaka-kore,[that.yonder actually water to arrive-when

warao ja-kotai jo oa-komoniWaraobe-REL water hold.onto-impossible

ta-nae.be-PRET]

‘When he got to where the water was, the Warao couldnot get water.’

‘Pero cuando quiso sacar el agua le era imposible con elmapire.’

(b) Kuare masabukau takore tida aidamo[and when woman old

nabaka-nae ama.arrive-PRET now]

‘And then an old woman arrived.’‘En esto llegó por allí una vieja.’

‘He could not get water’, whereupon (en esto) ‘an old woman turned up’. And

(32) (a) Tatuka warao ja-kotai ama seke[there Warao be-REL now actually


obonobu-ne kanamu-nae tía yama.think-GER stand-PRETthen HEARSAY]

‘Then the Warao stood there thinking.’‘Entonces aquel indio se quedó parado y pensativo.’

(b) Kuare masabukau takore aidamo[and when old

sabuka bojita-nae yama.less -PRET HEARSAY]

‘After a while a not so old person came by.’‘Al poco tiempo acertó a pasar por allí un hombre de

mediana edad.’

‘As he stood there thinking’ and (al poco rato) ‘a middle aged man came by’.And:

(39) (b) Warao ja-kotai waji-moana awere dijisi-é [Warao be-REL near -PRET

ama.now]

‘The Warao hid near the boat.’‘Entre tanto el warao se escondió muy cerca de la

embarcación.’

(40) (a) Kuare masabukau takore, tai bure kuamana[and when that buzzard

ja-kotai omunoko ekuya nao-yajabe-REL footprint inside come-as

tía yama ...that HEARSAY]

‘After a little, the buzzard chief was coming down theroad.’

‘Y al poco tiempo vio que el warao salió sin hacer ruidopor el camino.’

‘The Warao hid’ and then (al poco tiempo) ‘the buzzard chief came down theroad’.

These expressions with takore all seem to join two events into a largercompound occurrence. Note that Vaquero’s glosses all point to such a


relation. En esto, for example, has an English meaning ‘whereupon’, implyingsomething preceding and then something immediately following.16

Vaquero (1965.83) has takore with an auxiliary-like subjunctive sense:“Takore: Cuando sea, haya, tenga ....” This is the takore we have seen above.Vaquero (1965.107) also has ‘but’ and ‘however’ as second glosses fortakore. These contrasting meanings appear to coincide with distinctgrammatical uses of takore, which occurs five more times in the text outsideits use in Narrative Linkage: 4 in the speech of the Narrator and 1 in thespeech of the characters.17 In two of those occurrences, takore appears insecond position following sentence initial content, and in two of itsappearances, it is in initial position: (11c) & (16e). The gloss ‘but’accompanies the initial occurrences, and the more auxiliary-like oneaccompanies its appearance in second position.18 The Waira-Joyo text hasonly one use of takore, in (50e); it is in sentence-initial position that makestakore appear to be a ‘but’.

16 The Warao kuare ‘and’ (among other glosses) suggests two terms joined. I have not foundmasabukau in any of my sources.

17 Takore occurs in (2b), (3d), (11c), (19a) in the Narrator’s speech, and in (16e) in quotedtalk.

18 It may be that the last two uses of non-initial takore by the Narrator are also instances ofNarrative Linkage. In (2b), in Ojiaba-yaja takore, takore follows upon another marker ofNarrative Linkage, yaja, and if it is marking Narrative Linkage, one of the marks isredundant. (I have arbitrarily, perhaps, attributed the Narrative Linkage of [2b] to -yaja.) Insentence (19a), takore appears in second position again, but it is in turn followed by ama,still another grammatical device given to managing TOPIC:

(18) (b) Tai kuare warao ja-kotai awere kuana[that because Warao be-REL near strong

dibu-naka ta-nae yama.say-NEG be-PRET HEARSAY]

‘So the Warao did not speak loudly near him.’‘El warao procuró no hablar alto.’

(19) (a) Ebejokua-ne joko-takore ama sike[ -GER dawn-when now actually

tai warao ja-kotai a tida-si sabathat Warao be-REL POSS woman- for


‘When it had dawned, the Warao spoke to his wife.’‘Al amenecer del día siguiente aquel indio dijo a su mujer:’

It seems likely that TOPIC in (19a) belongs with ama and not with takore.Finally, in (3d), in the speech of the Warao, the sense of takore is less clear.


4.2 Tai and amaA striking contrast between Waira-Joyo and Bure kuare Warao lies in the

uses of tai and ama. In Waira-Joyo, tai occurred initially 40 times, and 24 ofthose seemed to be discourse uses associated with the management of aprospective TOPIC. In contrast, ama in its retrospective, summing-up aspect ofTOPIC appears but 4 times. In Bure kuare Warao, tai is present 48 times, but itappears initially in a TOPIC function (of the sort described in Chapter 17) onlyonce.19 Ama is present initially 42 times.20 With regard to tai and ama, thetwo narratives are the complements of each other. The patterns of tai arediscussed in 4.2.1, and those of ama, in 4.2.2.

4.2.1 TaiThere is but one use of tai that follows unremarkably the pattern of

discourse tai described in Waira-Joyo:

(6) (a) Tai tane, isiko a janokoata naru-ae[that thus with POSS house to walk-PRET

yamaHEARSAY]

‘Thus it was, he walked with her to his house.’‘Así pues, marchó con ella para casa y ...

In Chapter 17, section 4.2, we observed that taisi kuare was used to bridgeargument and conclusion. There is one occurrence of taisi kuare in Bure kuareWarao:

(30) (b) —No. Tai joyo ana.[no that stone NEG]‘No. That is not stone.”‘—No. Eso no es piedra.’

19 Tai appears in these utterances: (1b), (3d), (4a), (4c), (5a), (5b), (6a), (7a), (8a), (8b), (9a),(11a), (11c), (14b), (16c), (16f), (18a), (18b), (19a), (19c), (21a), (21c), (22a), (22d), (25a),(28e), (30b), (30c), (31b) twice, (33c), (35a) twice, (36b), (36c), (37c), (38d), (39a), (40a),(41b), (41c), (42c), (42e), (44a) twice, (46a), (48b), (50a). The one that may have a TOPICfunction of the sort noted in Chapter 17 is in (6a).

20 Recall that Herrmann (1999.16) says “Thus there seems to be no free “*ama” or “*tama inuse.”


(c) Tai bisi.[that tree]‘That is a (kind of) tree.’‘Es cachicamo rojo.’

(d) Taisi kuare baj-itane kaba-o.[ return-GER cut-IMP.2nd.SG]‘So go back and cut it.’‘Asi que regrésate y a cortar se ha dicho’

But there are 5 ocurrences of tai kuare without the suffix si:

(18) (b) Tai kuare warao ja-kotai awere kuana[that because Warao be-REL near strong

dibu-nakata-nae yama.say-NEG be-PRET HEARSAY]


The other uses of tai kuare are in (38d), (42e), (48b), and in (50a). The topicalsense of tai is fairly clear here. It refers summarily to what has just been statedin the preceding utterance(s), and with kuare connects what follows aconclusion.

4.2.1.1 Tai as a true demonstrative.The last 14 uses of tai seem to exploit its simple demonstrative sense:


bure tida isía yakara-ja dibubuzzard woman to -be word


‘Then the Warao began to sweet talk the buzzard girl.’‘Ensequida comenzó a decir palabras lisonjeras a la -

zamurita.’

(b) Tai dibu yakara-ja-moa-na yawara-takore,[that say be-give- finish-when




la curiara.’

And

(16) (e) Takore ¡oi iji kuana tamatika[but careful you strong here

dibu-kore!say-when]

‘But be careful about talking loudly.’‘Pero ¡cuidado con hablar alto!’

(f) Tai dima a kua ajera.[that father POSS head painful]‘My father’s head hurts.’‘A mi padre le duele la cabeza.’

(18) (a) Tai bure aidamo a janoko.[that buzzard old POSS house]‘That was the house of the chief of the buzzards.’‘Aquella era la casa del jefe de los zamuros’

In (5b), tai dibu ‘that talk’ indexes the yakara-ja dibu ‘sweet talk’ of (5a). In(16f), the buzzard girl is admonishing her Warao husband to speak softlybecause her father has a headache. And in (18a), we learn that the house theyare in is the house of the chief of the buzzards, her father. The remainingoccurrences in (7a), (25a), (28e), (30b), (30c), (31b) twice, (35a) twice, (36c),and (37c) are straightforward demonstratives. In (7a), (25a), (35a), and in(37c), we find the only four demonstrative uses with animates: (i) tai awarao,the Warao’s relatives, (ii) tai tida aidamo ‘the old woman’ names the personwith whom the Warao is talking, (iii) tai jakotai ‘that one [who will cut thecachicamo], and (iv) tai ma araisa ‘my (the Warao’s) friend’ is an alternativenaming for bure aukatida in the context of a discourse within the larger text:

(7) (a) Ama seke tai awarao, warao-tuma[that.yonder actually that relative Warao-PL


ja-kotai, isía dibu-ya yama:be-REL to say-PRES HEARSAY]

‘His relatives, the Waraos, spoke to him.’‘Sus compañeros, los otros waraos le decían: ...’

(25) (a) Ama seke tai tida aidamo[that.yonder actually that woman old

ja-kotai dibu-nae:be-REL say-PRET]

‘Then the old woman spoke.’‘Y entonces aquella vieja le dijo:’

(35) (a) Ama seke tai ja-kotai tai bisi[that.yonder actually that be-REL that tree

kab-é ama.cut-PRET now]

‘Then he cut the tree.’‘Aquel hombre cortó el cachicamo en un instante.’

(37) (c) Ine arakate tai ma araisa[I also that me friend

yejebu-kitía.call-FUT.IM]

‘Then I will call my friend’‘... pues yo voy a llamar a mi amigo.’

In (28e), it is not known what the literal gloss of babe is, but it pertainssomehow to the road the Warao is walking along:

(28) (e) Tai babe ja-kotai omunoko awere[that be-REL footprint near

joyo-bitu namu-nae tiaja mi-aestone-most -PRET see-PRET

yama.HEARSAY]

‘He saw that the road was lined with a kind of tree whosetrunk was stone.’

‘El vio que a los lados del camino habían sembradocachicamos cuyos troncos eran de pura piedra.’


In (30b), (30c), and (31b), tai clusters with joyo ‘stone’ and bisi ‘(kind of)tree’ in a discussion of the exact nature of the object:

(30) (b) —No. Tai joyo ana.[no that stone NEG]‘No. That is not stone.”‘—No. Eso no es piedra.’

(c) Tai bisi.[that tree]‘That is a (kind of) tree.’‘Es cachicamo rojo.’

(31) (b) —Tai joyo mi-ami tai.21

[that stone see- that]‘That is the stone I’ve seen.’‘—Esta es la misma piedra que vi antes.’

There is another occurrence of tai bisi in (35a). Finally, in (36c), tai gúa ‘thatboat’ refers immediately to the boat in (36b) which the person helping theWarao has constructed:

(36) (c) Warao nabaka-kore, diana tai gúa[Warao arrive-when now that boat

kaba-ya kotai kototuka yiwara-nae tíacut-PRES REL finish-PRET then

yama.HEARSAY]



In all these 13 more-or-less literal demonstrative uses of tai, there issomething in the immediate environment and tai points its finger at it. Withthe exception of three animates, tai refers exclusively to inanimates (tai kuare

21 In Chapter 8, we discussed the function of post-verbal, sentence final position in Warao.And in (31b), we find one of the tai in that spot partaking of the sense of a throw awaymention of that syntactic position. A closer gloss of (31b) should be something like ‘I’veseen that stone, that one.’


‘because of that’ 5 times, dibu ‘word’, kua ‘head’, janoko ‘house’, babe ‘?’,joyo ‘stone’ 3 times, bisi ‘kind of tree’ twice, and gúa ‘boat’).

4.2.1.2 Other uses of taiWe have noted above that none of the characters in Bure kuare Warao are

called by a proper name. The principle characters are designated in somefashion using warao or bure. Frequently, those designations also employ thedemonstrative tai and/or jakotai, the marker of a relative clause-like relation:

(3) (d) —Ama ine, ¿katukanetakore tai bure[that.yonder I how when that buzzard

ja-kotai oa-kuna?be-REL hold.onto-POT]

‘But , ‘How am I going to get this buzzard?’’‘—¿Cómo me las arreglaría yo para agarrar a esa

zamura?’

(4) (a) Tai warao ja-kotai dijisa-ne, uruya-ja[that Waraobe-REL hide-GER slow-be





Tai appears in this way in 28 of its 47 non-TOPIC uses: 18 times with bure and10 times with warao.22 Tai also appears with these two characters and without

22 Tai bure ... jakotai occurs in (3d), (8b), (9a), (11c), (16c), (19c), (21a), (22a), (33c), (39a),(40a), (41c), (42c), and (46a). Tai bure tida is in (4c) & (5a), and tai bure auka-tira is in (8a)& (44a). There is one occurrence of tai preceding bure in which tai does not qualify it:

(18) (a) Tai bure aidamo a janoko.[that buzzardold POSS house]‘That was the house of the chief of the buzzards.’‘Aquella era la casa del jefe de los zamuros’

In (18a), tai qualifies janoko ‘house’ (not bure ‘buzzard’) as the phrase bure aidamo a ‘thebuzzard chief’s’ qualifies janoko. Note Vaquero’s use of aquella in his Spanish gloss.


jakotai, e.g.,warao tai or tai warao in (1b) and in (36b) and tai bure tida in(4c), (5a), (8a), and (44a). Fully 59.6% of the 47 attributive uses of tai arewith just these two individuals. This asymmetry raises three questions: (i)Where does tai occur otherwise and what does it mean?, (ii) What is themeaning of this concentration of tai with bure and warao?, and (iii) Whatdoes it mean when bure and warao do not occur with tai? Question (i) wasaddressed in the preceding section. Questions (ii) and (iii) will be explored insection 4.3.

4.2.2 AmaWe now turn our attention to ama, which joined with tai in Waira-Joyo to

mark retrospective (ama) and prospective (tai) aspects of TOPIC. In Burekuare Warao, ama appears initially in 42 of the 172 utterances, and 38 of theuses are very parallel to the Discourse TOPIC ama in Waira-Joyo.23 Fouroccurrences, although initial, appear to represent the adverbial ‘now’ sense ofama. Recall, however, that it is not always certain which of the uses isintended. Since the morphosyntax of TOPIC ama can be indeterminate, bothmeanings may be present, and it is not necessary that one exclude the other.The four are:

(27) (b) —Ama iji gúa kaba-kitane[now you boat cut-INF

nau-te.come-FUT.INDEF]

‘Now you have to go make a boat.’‘Ahora, tienes que ir a cobar una curiara’

(35) (f) —Ama ma saba gúa kaba-o.[now me for boat cut-IMP.2nd.SG]‘Make a boat for me now.’‘—Ahora cóbame un embarcación.’

Tai warao jakotai appears in (4a), (11a), (14b), (19a), (21c), (22d), (41b), and (44a).Warao tai is in (1b) and tai warao, in (36b). See the footnote to (1b) in the text below forcomment on the differing orders. We must note that in (21c), the form warao is elidedresulting in the phrase tai jakotai, which nevertheless clearly refers to the Warao hero.

23 These are (3c), (3d), (5a), (7a), (7c), (8c) twice, (9a), (9b), (12a), (12c), (14a), (14d),(15a), (16a), (19a), (23a), (24b), (25a), (25f), (26b), (29a), (30a), (31c), (33b), (33d), (34a),(35a), (35e), (37a), (39a), (40b), (41a), (42a), (42c), (45c), (46a), and (47a).


(35) (h) Ama-bitu ine jo jobi-kitane[now-most I water drink-INF

nau-kitía.come-FUT.IM]

‘Right now, I am going to get a drink of water.’‘Yo voy ahora a beber agua’

(49) (b) Ama oko tamatika-mo yatu waba-ja[now we here-from you die-be

mi-kore, oko yatu najoro-ne ja-tesee-when we you eat-PRET be-FUT.INDEF]

“From now on, when we see you dead, we will eat you.’‘Desde hoy, nosotros, siempre que os veamos muertos,

comeremos vuestras carnes.’

Note Vaquero’s use of ahora or desde hoy in his Spanish glosses.The following examples are typical of the use of the TOPIC use of ama in

Bure kuare Warao:


bure tida isía24 yakara-ja dibubuzzard woman to -be word



zamurita.’

(12) (a) Ama seke warao ja-kotai ayamo[that.yonder actually Waraobe-REL back

soro-nae.look-PRET]

‘The Warao looked behind.’‘Al indio se le ocurrió mirar para atrás.’

24 Vaquero (1965.102): “Por, a, acerca de, en, de ...’


(15) (a) Ama seke najamutu arai nabaka-nae[that.yonder actually sky on leave-PRET

yama.HEARSAY]

‘They arrived in the sky.’‘Al poco rato llegaron por fin al cielo.’

(29) (a) Ama seke warao ja-kotai atae[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL again

janoko ata baji-né ama.house to return-PRET now]

‘Because of this, the Warao went home again.”‘En vista de esto el warao se regresó otra ves a casa y...’

(39) (a) Ama seke tai bure[that.yonder actually that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai a rima-sioffspring-woman be-REL POSS father-

yejebu-itane naru-í yama.call-GER walk- HEARSAY]

‘Then the daughter of the buzzard went to call herfather.’

‘Entonces la hija del zamuro fue a avisar a su padre.’

The variety of Spanish glosses that Vaquero uses to express the conclusiveTOPIC sense of ama is typical, including the lexical turn in (12a). Other thanthese, pero ‘but’, y ‘and’, and nothing are common.

Because of their similarity to the use in Waira-Joyo, most appear to needno additional comment. Four, however, show a slight wrinkle in the useof ama. In (8c),

(8) (c) —Ma nibora, ama1 ine tamasía ji[me man that.yonder I you

idamo-tuma kawana-ya kuju-ya-PL -PRES -PRES

kuare ama2 iji ma idamo-tumaand that.yonder you me -PL

yata ma isiko naru-te,to me with walk-FUT.INDEF


najamutu atasky to].

‘Husband, I have been with your people and now you wi l lgo with me to my people, in the sky.’

‘—Mi amor, yo he estado hasta ahora contigo, entre tugente; justo es que tú vengas ahora conmigo al cielo,a casa de mis familiares.’

two clauses are compounded with kuare ‘and’, and each of the clauses beginswith ama. Notice that (8c) contains a direct address ma nibora ‘Husband’preceding ama. Because the vocative is an element semantically separate fromthe remainder of the utterance, ama1 retains its initial position. Similarly,ama2, following the conjunction kuare, is initial in its clause as well. Sentence(12c) shows a similar distribution:

(12) (c) Atae warao ja-kotai ayamosoro-ne ama,[again Warao be-REL back look-PRET now

ama tamajaka jobaji diana diakathat.yonder this ground now

ekida yama.none HEARSAY]

‘The Warao looked backwards again; this time hecouldn’t see the ground.’

‘De nuevo volvió a mirar el indio, pero ya no se veían losperfiles de nuestra tierra. Un poco más arribacomenzaron a verse las casas.’

Sentence (12c) is one of the nine sentences containing juxtaposed clauses(noted in section 2). Again, because the first clause is distinct from the second,ama is initial in its own clause. Finally, in (19a) and in (40b),

(19) (a) Ebejokua-ne joko-takore ama sike[ -GER dawn-when that.yonder actually

tai warao ja-kotai a tida-si sabathat Waraobe-REL POSS woman- for


‘When it had dawned, the Warao spoke to his wife.’‘Al amenecer del día siguiente aquel indio dijo a su


mujer:’

(40) (b) Waji-moana tatuka nabaka-kore, ama[ there arrive-when that.yonder

seke warao ja-kotai ekida-bitu actually Warao be-REL none-most

tiarone, tatuka-bitu-mo ejobo-naealthough there-most-from come.out-PRET

yama.HEARSAY]

‘When he got to the boat there, the Warao was notaround, but then he came out of hiding.’

‘Cuando este llegó a la canoa y creía que no estaba porallí el warao, éste salió de su escondite ...’

ama follows an occurrence of Narrative Linkage, which is sometimes set offwith a pause, allowing ama to be first in its clause.

There are an additional 4 that, in their morphosyntax, diverge even more.In (2b), there is an example of a distribution of ama that is not present inWaira-Joyo, and which recurs 3 more times in Bure kuare Warao:

(2) (b) Ojiaba-yaja takore, warao ja-kotay ama[ -as when Warao be-REL that.yonder

seke a inabe soro-naeactually POSS jungle look-PRET]


selva.’

In this example, there is an instance of Narrative Linkage, set off by a pause(the comma), followed by the first term of the clause (warao jakotay), in turnfollowed by ama. But compare (19a) — also cited just above:


tai warao ja-kotai a tida-si sabathat Warao be-REL POSS woman- for




mujer:’

in which ama is inverted with warao jakotai. The pattern of (2b) is repeated in(4c), (11c), and (32a).

(4) (c) Awere-witu naka-e takore, Warao[near-very become-PRET when Warao

ja-kotai ama sike tai bure be-REL that.yonder actually that buzzard

tida autu-ya maja-nae.woman in.the.middle.of- hug-PRET]



(11) (c) Takore tai bure ja-kotai ama[but that buzzard be-REL that.yonder

sike a nibora-maisía dibu-naeactually POSS man- to say-PRET

yamaHEARSAY]

‘The buzzard girl answered her husband.’‘La zamura le contestó al marido:’

(32) (a) Tatuka warao ja-kotai ama seke[there Warao be-REL that.yonder actually

obonobu-ne kanamu-nae tía yama.think-GER stand-PRET then HEARSAY]


The common morphosyntactic characteristic is that ama appears second, notfirst,.in the clause. Although it is not clear what may be happening here, Inevertheless will add these four to the 38 instances of discourse ama.25 This

25 Notice also that the term preceding ama is one of the Principal Characters marked byjakotai. Cf. section 4.2 for the notion ‘Principal Character’.


text permits the co-occurrence of more than one TOPIC in a given utterance,and that requires morphosyntactic accommodation. This will be discussed inmore detail in the Conclusion.

Setting aside the first three utterances of the Bure kuare Warao text asintroductory, 24.7% (or 42) of the remaining 170 utterances are marked bydiscourse TOPIC ama. The Waira-Joyo text had just 4 of 270 utterances (271minus the 11 introductory ones) managed by ama: or 1.5%. The dispropor-tionate use of discourse TOPIC ama is another striking difference beween thetwo narrations.

We must now recognize the pervasive use of seke with ama. Vaquero(1965), Charette (1980), and Romero-Figueroa (1997) all lack citation of aform seke. Vaquero (1965.139), in a discussion of other things, has thisexample outside the text: Ama seke nebu ‘Entonces el hombre ...’ By chance(not concerned with seke, but concerned with demonstratives), Herrmann(1999.28) has this one example with a gloss:

-Ma natoro sanuka, dau a wamana eku jakutai tai seke [my grandchild, tree its-crack in which it actually

tomonojo.wasp]

“My grandchild! The one who is in the the crack of the tree actually is awasp.”

I shall adopt Herrmann’s gloss and use ‘actually’ throughout. The form sekeoccurs 40 times throughout the text, while an apparent variant form, sike,occurs 8 times.26 In thirty of its 48 occurrences, seke ~ sike directly followsama.27

(3) (c) Ama warao ja-kotai obonobu-ae:[that.yonder Warao be-REL think-PRET]‘Then the Warao thought:’‘Y aquel hombre comenzó a pensar: ...

26 These eight are (4c), (11c), (16a), (19a), (34a), (37a), (45c), and (46a).

27 That is, 78.9% of the 38 TOPIC occurrences of ama in this text precede seke ~ sike. Noneof the initial adverbial ‘now’ uses of ama are followed by seke. The four occurrences of non-initial ama in (2b), (4c), (11c), and (32a), from above, that we were reluctant to accept asTOPIC, are also followed by seke ~ sike.


(9) (b) Ama seke Warao dibu-nae:[that.yonder actually Warao say-PRET]‘Then the Warao spoke.’‘Entonces el Warao dijo:’

(16) (a) Ama sike warao ja-kotai[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL


‘The Warao spoke.’‘Entonces el warao preguntó:’

Fourteen of the 48 occurrences of seke do not follow ama (TOPIC nor not), butit is astonishing to find that 13 of the fourteen occur after some manifestationof NARRATIVE LINKAGE! 28

(3) (a) Inabe soro-kore seke bure a[jungle look-when actually buzzard POSS

najoro najoro-yaja mi-ae yama:eat eat-as see-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Looking into the jungle, he saw the buzzards eating theirmeal.’

‘Y mirando mirando vio que unos zamuros estabandándose un buen banquete.’

The one ‘exception’ is in the penultimate utterance of the text:

(50) (a) Tai kuare seke bure ja-kotai, oko[that because actually buzzard be-REL we

waba-ja ka mi-kore, ka najoro-yadie-be us see-when we eat-PRES

ja-kotai.be-REL]

‘That is why the buzzards eat us, when they find us dead.’‘Por eso los zamuros. cuando ven algún cadáver nuestro

los devoran.’where it follows the text summarizing tai kuare.

28 The 13 are (3a), (4d), (12b), (15b), (15c), (27a), (28b), (31d), (35b), (38b), (43b), (45a),and (45b).


While comparison of (3c) with (9b) and (16a) above makes it difficult todetermine precisely what seke ~ sike contributes to the narrative, the 100%occurrence of seke ~ sike following some implementation of TOPIC (NarrativeLinkage or Discourse ama) makes it clear that seke ~ sike, too, is part of thesemantic complex that is Warao TOPIC (at least in this text).

4.3 TOPIC as Principal Character: tai and jakotaiIn this section, we turn to the second and third questions from section

4.2.1.2 about tai: (ii) What is the meaning of the concentration of tai withbure and warao?, and (iii) What does it mean when bure and warao do notoccur with tai? We shall discover that tai has another use in tracking PrincipalCharacters of the narrative, and that it is joined by jakotai in the managementof TOPIC.

We observed in 4.2.1.1 that tai occurs most frequently with animates.29

With one exception, when tai appears — in this text — with animates, 31 ofits 32 uses are with two and only two characters of the narrative. In BellaCoola (Chapter 13), TOPIC was primarily implemented as the track of theutterance-to-utterance sameness or difference in the identity of thepropositionally most central character. Sameness was marked by elision, anddifference/change by explicit naming. There was, however, an alternative wayof signaling a central constituent, which was unchanged from the precedingutterance. It relied upon the deictic suffixes. There were 26 uses of deicticsuffixes, and 17 of them identified the same individual, the young heroine ofthe story. Of the remaining 9, five of them named the antagonist Stump. Fourdesignated inanimates. Fully 84+% of the deictic suffixes were employed inidentifying the protagonist and the antagonist of the narrative. The BuzzardGirl and the Warao appear, as the Young Girl and Stump do, to function asprotagonist and antagonist. Both Warao and Bella Coola maintain a secondmanifestation of TOPIC, one which tracks the presence of characters central ina narrative, a device that reflects a property innate in the identity of theperson(s) and that is independent of the vicissitudes of events.

Both Warao and Bella Coola then recall a composition of TOPIC that wefound in the Yaitepec Chatino text Xwa kjin kwnya7 ‘Deerskin John’ inChapter 14. The Chatino implementation of TOPIC distinguished between acharacter that was constantly — because (s)he was who (s)he was — centralto the tale, and others who — because they were who they were — wereperipheral to the story. When not explicitly named, the former was indexed by

29 Of its 47 demonstrative, non-TOPIC occurrences 32 are with animates.


elision, and the latter by the form ne7.30 In Chatino, the principle of a centraland peripheral distinction among characters is a primary dimension of TOPIC,while in Warao and in Bella Coola, it provides additional modulation of theTOPIC principle. If this conclusion about the TOPIC use of tai is correct, thenwe should find some trace of thte pattern in the places where the Buzzard Girland the Warao are not qualified by tai. We have looked at this pattern fromthe perspective of tai (What does tai occur with?), but it can also be examinedfrom the perspective of bure and warao (What do bure and warao occurwith?).

4.3.1 Tai as a mark of Principal CharacterWe begin with an examination of the interaction between tai and bure,

which appears in the text 32 times. Fourteen of its occurrences are withouttai.31 We shall first examine those fourteen to determine whether there exists aconsistent distinction between them and those 18 occurrences of bure where itis accompanied by tai. Ten of the fourteen uses of bure without tai do notrefer to the individual who became the Warao’s wife. In (1b), (3a), and (3b),bure names the entire flock of buzzards that flies over the Warao:

(1) (b) Warao tai arai-sabasaba bure[Warao that over-towards buzzard

nanaka-ya yama.descend-PRES HEARSAY]

‘Some buzzards fly over that Warao and land.’‘Cuando estaba pescando sintió que, a sus espaldas, había

caído un zamuro.’...

(3) (a) Inabe soro-kore seke bure a[jungle look-whenactually buzzard POSS


‘Looking into the jungle, he saw the buzzards eating their

30 Recall that passages in which Deerskin John was absent, and when others were alone onstage, allowed us to see the same character, Deerskin John’s wife, who was peripheral withrespect to John, assume a central position with respect to another character. The referencingof this person accordingly shifted from ne7 (with respect to Deerskin John) to Ø (withrespect to the other) and then back to ne7 (with respect to Deerskin John).

31 Those fourteen occurrences are in (1b), (3a), (3b) twice, (4d), (10c), (15c), (18a), (24a),(41a), (44a), (45b), (47a), and (50a).


meal.’‘Y mirando mirando vio que unos zamuros estaban

dándose un buen banquete.’

(b) Bure kawana bure tida[buzzard among buzzard woman

kuju-ya yama.go.out.for.walk-PRES HEARSAY]

‘Among the buzzards was a girl buzzard.’‘En medio de los zamuros había una linda zamura.’

The remaining 7 appearances of bure without tai, which do not name theBuzzard Girl, are these. In (4d), ‘the other buzzards’ flew off. In (10c), theWarao and his wife circled in the sky bure monuka ‘like buzzards’. In (15c) &(44a), there are references to bure a sinoto ‘a buzzard shirt’. In (18a),


bure occurs following tai, but is not qualified by it. Tai goes with janoko. Cf.the discussion of this tai in 4.2.1.1. In (18a), bure appears without tai, and thisbure does not denominate the Buzzard Girl. Because this bure, the buzzardchief, is not a central character, we would not expect tai to pick him out assuch ... and tai does not. Again in (41a), bure picks out an individual buzzard:

(41) (a) Ama seke Warao ja-kotai bure[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL buzzard

aidamo a kua aji-nae.old POSS head strike-PRET]

‘The Warao struck the head of the buzzard chief’..’.. y de un hachazo cortó las cabezas al zamuro.’

and since it is not the Buzzard Girl, but the buzzard chief again, tai is absent.Finally, (50a) concludes with an explanation of why bure jakotai ‘buzzards(generically)’ eat the Warao. Because none of these 10 occurrences of burerefer to the Buzzard Girl, it is significant that none of these occurrences isaccompanied by tai.


The last four uses of bure without tai, however, do pertain to the BuzzardGirl. So why no tai?:

(3) (b) Bure kawana bure tida[buzzard among buzzard woman



(24) (a) —Bure auka-tida ja-kotai jo saba[buzzard offspring-womanbe-REL water for

ma kajotabu-ae.me command-PRET]

‘The buzzard girl sent me for water.’‘La hija del gran zamuro me mandó por agua.’

(45) (b) Ayamo soro-kore seke mate bure [back look-whenactually still buzzard

auka-tida ekida yama.offspring-woman none HEARSAY]

‘Looking back, there was still no sight of the buzzard’sdaughter.’

‘Todavía ne venía la hija del zamuro.’

(47) (a) Ama seke bure ja-kotai[that.yonder actually buzzard be-REL

warao-tuma isía dibu-né ama:Warao-PL to say-PRET now]

‘The buzzard spoke to the Waraos.’‘La zamura le dijo al warao:’

In (3b), we find the first of the four uses of bure without tai which name theBuzzard Girl, but in (3b), it is the first presentation of the bure tida before shehas become a player in the story. Here, she is still just one of the flock, ‘a girlbuzzard’. She is not yet individualized as ‘that Buzzard Girl’. That change innarrative status occurs in (3d), where the Warao looks at her desiringly andthinks:


(3) (d) —Ama ine, ¿katukanetakore tai bure[that.yonder I how when that buzzard

ja-kotai oa-kuna?be-REL hold.onto-POT]

‘But , ‘How am I going to get that buzzard?’’‘—¿Cómo me las arreglaría yo para agarrar a esa

zamura?’

Now, she is narratively transformed, and she appears with tai. In (24a), we are not in the narrative per se. We are participating in a

conversation between the Warao and an old woman. In that context, thespeech of the Warao, the Buzzard Girl has no narrative standing, and the useof tai to indicate her narrative position would be inappropriate. So it is absent.

It is the last two occurrences which may seem problematic. The lastoccurrence of tai qualifying the Buzzard Girl is in (44a):








Immediately after tai bure aukatida, the Warao grabs a buzzard shirt andbegins his flight from the village of the buzzards. The relation between theWarao and the Buzzard Girl is ending. In (45b), the Warao is fleeing theBuzzard Girl, who is left behind in the sky, and she is mentioned only as bureaukatida. In (46a), she reappears and is connected with the Warao by herpursuit of him; and she is tai bure aukatida jakotai. In (47a), bure, denoting


the Buzzard Girl, is without tai, but it does precede jakotai, whish is analternative mark of a Principle Character. (Cf. 4.3.2 below).

All in all, consistent with the assumption that tai can mark a TOPIC of thesort described at the beginning of this section, we find that tai is used withbure precisely where we would expect it, and tai is not used with bureprecisely where we would not expect it. The use of tai, both its presence andits absence, is sensitive to the status of the Buzzard Girl as a partner of theWarao as pro/antagonist. As noted in 4.2.1.1, tai is a demonstrative. It doesnot in itself ‘mean TOPIC’. It just has this additional discourse application inwhich it is adapted to making certain narrative characters ‘special’.

The occurrence of warao with tai is a bit different. The form warao occursin the text 41 times (to 32 times for bure), and it is accompanied by tai 10times (to 18 times for bure). Of course, tai never occurs with warao unlessthe reference is to the Warao hero.32

Out of the total of 48 occurrences of tai in Bure kuare Warao, Twenty-eight are the TOPIC of a primary character in the narrative, one is is thediscourse TOPIC found commonly in Waira-Joyo, and nineteen are ‘true’demonstratives.

Herrmann (1999.21) offers some helpful observations on the semantics ofWarao demonstratives, especially tai, and she and I arrive at what appears tobe the same conclusion concerning the use of tai to mark a PrincipalCharacter:33

32 The number 10 includes the one instance in (21c) in which the Warao is designatedelliptically as tai jakotai

33 Herrmann (1999.19) also distinguishes tai among the demonstratives as one that does notrequire a finger pointing gestures. The others do:

Example No 6 (Consultant: Cheo):“ Amojo eku jakore amojo daisa oanaetiaja. Dija’ omokomoni “tai mi, tai mi!”(“when we have something in our hands or have gripped something else. Andwe cannot let it go, we say: “that look, that look!”)

In this example and in direct answers to scene 5 only “tai” was used out of the twosets of demonstrative pronouns. My consultants pointed out to me that fingerpointing/touching was indeed obligatory with “tamaja”, “ amaja” and “otamaja”(just as with the demonstrative adverb “ote”) but not with “tai”. According to myobservational data there is however a possible pointing gesture other than fingerpointing.Example No7:

Calula laid completely wrapped up in his hammock and was not able to use hisarms. As he had to use the adverb “ote” he accompanied it with a pointinggesture of the head.

But for scene 5 “tai” was the only possible demonstrative candidate. So the tai setis set apart from the other terms as it does not require a pointing gesture. Although


In Example No 5b the consultant Cheo was not able to use a demonstrative termof the distance sensitive set as the object was not visible to us. He first called my

name to attract my attention and only after having done so used the

demonstrative “tai”. (“ Estefani, tai sina apipina isiko kemu dujunae jakotai?”)

The question is if he could not have used “tai” right away? An observed

situation might be helpful in resolving this question: Here speaker assumes that

addressee has his/her attention on something but then realizes that this is not the

case :

Example No 8a (consultant Lora):

Lora is trying to show a louse to me she just found in one of her grand-children[’s] hair.

“tai mi, tamaja” that look, this-one-here

look at that, at this one here!

She first uses “tai mi”, thinking I was looking at it. When she realized that I was

not, she follows this with a term from the distance-sensitive set (“tamaja”). The

same holds true for the next example.

Example No 8b (consultant Lora):

She is asking somebody about the owner of a glass and addressee was not

attentive: “sina abaso ja, tamaja?”

who his-glass is, this-one-here?Whose glass is it, this here?

On the basis of this observational data it is possible to conclude that in order to

draw attention to an object the speaker employs terms from the distance-

sensitive set. Whereas when attention is already on the object “tai” may be used.

Further to the use of tai (Herrmann 1999.25-26):

I became aware of the necessity to include [the] discourse use of demonstratives

when I repeatedly heard the use of first “tamaja” and then “tai” in a sequenceportrayed in the next example.

Example No 10:

Jury (a young girl) is sent by her grandmother to fetch one of her

grandfather’s trousers that she wants to sew for her husband. The girl walks

over to another part of the house compound. And holding up a pair of

trousers she asks:

“ tamaja ?” (this-one-here?)

and her grandmother answers:

people do use mouth pointing in other situations[,] they cannot use this gesturewith “ tamaja”, “ amaja” or “otamaja”.


“ tai!” ([yes] that-one!)There was never any variation in the use of these two terms in such a situation.

Jury first uses the appropriate distance sensitive pronoun “tamaja” to call

attention on the object. Then attention being on the object/the object being

mentioned her grandmother uses “tai” ... Here it is not clear whether it is the

variable “object mentioned” or “attention on object” that triggers the use of

“ tai”. In order to find out more we examine discourse use in narrative texts.

Narrative texts need to keep track of mentioned information on the one hand and

introduce new information on the other. In line with our observations so far we

would suspect that “tamaja” is the ideal candidate for discoursenew/unmentioned information while “tai” would then be used to refer to things

that were already mentioned thus paralleling its function in exophoric use where

it denotes that the object is already in the attention span of the addressee.

After an examination of texts of three genres, Herrmann (1999.28) concludes:

By looking at texts of three genres it was thus possible to detect a discourse use

of our demonstratives. “tai”, which was seldom used in spacial deixis[,] is the

demonstrative predominantly used in narrative texts. Terms of the distance-

sensitive set on the other hand appear very seldom. When they do occur they areplaced at the beginning or end of a story and may thus be said to occur

“outside” the narration proper ... Our hypothesis that “tai” may function as way

of keeping track of referents in discourse was not confirmed, but a new variable

“inside/outside narration” was claimed to govern the choice of demonstratives

in discourse: Whereas “tamaja” (and probably also other terms of this set) is

used to point to global characteristics of the story (setting its frame) or to

identify an element within the story, inside the narration process it isexclusively “tai” which is used to keep track of elements within the body ofthe narration [Emphasis mine, PWD].

Although Herrmann does not describe the discourse use of tai in terms oftracking principal characters, it is very likely the same thing.

4.3.2 JakotaiA second difference between the two texts lies in the use of jakotai. It is

present 67 times in Bure kuare Warao, and only 27 times in the longer Waira-Joyo.

Looking at the interaction of tai and jakotai with bure and warao from theperspective of the grammatical markers, it is clear that both tai and jakotai


have a textual predeliction for bure and warao. Only 19 of the 48 occurrencesof tai are not in reference to either bure or warao; 60.4% of the time tai isdoing its job identifying central characters of the narrative. The bond ofjakotai with the two principal characters is even stronger. Only 20 of the 70occurrences of jakotai do not qualify either bure or warao, as they identifythe principal characters of the narrative; 71.4% of the occurrences of jakotaiare with either bure or warao when they name the central characters. Thisstrongly suggests that, like tai, jakotai has a use in characterizing a specialstatus of the Buzzard-Girl and the Warao. Figure 1 summarizes theoccurrences of bure and warao with the two marks, tai and jakotai. The bure-row represents 22 of the 32 occurrences of bure designating the BuzzardGirl.34 The warao-row represents the 39 occurrences of warao when itspecifies the one Warao of the narrative.35

Tai Jakotai Both Neither without without tai & tai norjakotai tai jakotai jakotai

Bure 22 5 2 13 2

Warao 39 2 25 7 5

Figure 1: Bure & Warao occurring with tai and/or jakotai.

Vaquero (1965.66) describes jakotai (or kotai) in such a way that itsconnection with tai is explicit:

Toda proposición en que el relativo toma parte, sea especificativa o explicativa,

puede resolverse en una oración equivalente a la de relativo sustantiva (latina).Por eso el relativo KOTAI ordinariamente lleva infijo el radical del verbo ser JA,

resultando la forma compuesta JAKOTAI y se coloca del antecedente, asumiendo

los oficios del demonstrativo TAI .

34 Ten of the 32 occurrences do not refer to the Buzzard-Girl herself, whether as primarynarrative character or not: (1b), (3a), (3b), (4d), (10c), (15c), (18a), (41a), (44a), and (50a).

35 Two of the 41 occurrences of warao is not to the hero himself. In (7a) and in (47a),warao-tuma refers to all the Waraos. If we include the ellpitical reference to the Warao heroin (21c), then the Warao total for the text would be 40, and the ‘Both tai & jakotai’ columnwould have 8, not 7.


The following example from Vaquero (1965.66) illustrates how he sees(ja)kotai “asumiendo los oficios del demonstrativo TAI ”:

Beoro jakotai yori o joro nisanae: Aquel perro (el que era perro) searranco su piel.

Beoro jakotai is either ‘that dog’ or ‘it which was/is a dog’.36

If both tai and jakotai provide some special status to the principalcharacters, then the question must be “What is the semantic differencebetween the two?” Although it is relatively clear that tai and jakotai share ause in specifying Principal Characters, it does not appear possible to reach adefinite conclusion as to the precise nature of their contrast. But it is possibleto offer a conjecture of their relation. It may be that tai specifies a PrincipalCharacter from the perspective of that property being innate in the character.“Principal Character” is a quality that the Buzzard Girl and the Warao cancarry with them by virtue of their being who they are. In contrast, the qualityof “Principal Character” may also accrue to the Buzzard Girl and the Waraoby attribution. The narrator names them as such rather than recognizingPrincipal Character as a preexisting, inborn property: ‘known to be PrincipalCharacter’ vs. ‘said to be Principal Character’. And it is jakotai that does thesecond.37

The tie of jakotai to the verbal context of what has been said, a referenceto the context of speech, is more apparent in this question and answer pairfrom Bure kuare Warao:

(16) (b) —Janoko kasa-buka-ja ji-dima a janoko?[house where--be your-father POSS house]‘Which house is your father’s house?’‘—¿Cuál de las casas es la de tu padre?’

...(d) —Tamaja ja-kotai.

[this be-REL]‘This is it.’‘—Es esta.’

36 Beoro is borrowed from Spanish perro.

37 Recall from above that Herrmann (1999.26) concludes that “Here it is not clear whether itis the variable ‘object mentioned’ or ‘attention on object’ that triggers the use of ‘tai’.” I amsuggesting that “attention on object” is the province of tai, while “object mentioned” is morethat of jakotai.


The answer in (16d) contains a demonstrative tamaja, that Hermmann(1999.19) recognizes as one requiring an accompanying pointing gesture. Theexophoric tamaja co-occurs in (16d) with the endophoric jakotai, that indexesthe house which has been verbally identified: This (exophoric) is what you’reasking about (endophoric).

Such a contrast between tai and jakotai would further allow for theobserved co-occurrence of the two with both bure and warao. Cf. Figure 1.






(11) (a) Yaburu-ya-kore tai warao ja-kotai[climb-PRES-when that.one Warao be-REL

a tida denoko-ae:POSS woman ask-PRET]

‘As they were climbing, climbing, the Warao questionedhis wife.’

‘Y subiendo, subiendo aquel warao preguntó a la mujer:’

Because their is no contradiction between “inherently a Principal Character”and “called a Principal Character”, the two may appear together to name thesame individual.38

38 We should note a slight asymmetry in the TOPIC uses of tai and jakotai. Warao isaccompanied by jakotai in 32 of its 39 uses referring to our hero (82.1%), and bure isaccompanied by jakotai in 15 of its 22 references to the Buzzard Girl (68.2%). With orwithout jakotai, bure occurs 81.8% of the time with tai, but warao only occurs with tai in23.1% of its occurrences:

Tai Jakotai

Bure 81.8% 68.2%

Warao 23.1% 82.1%


Regardless of how the variety between tai and jakotai is resolved, it seemsfairly certain that they both chronicle the presence of an elite PrincipalCharacter.

4.4 The Unguided RemainderThere are 72 numbered utterances distributed into 39 passages in Bure

kuare Warao, which lack any of the morphosyntax associated above withTOPIC: no Narrative Linkage, no retrospective ama nor prospective tai, and noPrincipal Character tai/jakotai. In section 2, we noted the existence of 9juxtaposed pairs of clauses. Eight of the 9 pairs have their second member

Length of Passage Number of Passages

1 322 63 34 35 3

Figure 2: Passages without Overt Expression of TOPIC.39

without a grammatical mark of TOPIC. When we add those 8, the number ofclauses with no mark for TOPIC rises to 80 (and the passages to 47).40 Thiscontrasts with the 156 utterances in Waira-Joyo which lacked the morphosyn-

This suggests that the Buzzard Girl is more the anointed Principal Character and the Warao,more an elected Principal Character. The distinction is more stark when we examine theoccurrence of jakotai without tai: 25 times with warao, but only twice with bure.Conversely, tai alone appears 5 times with bure, but only twice with warao:

Tai alone Jakotai alone

Bure 22.7% 9.1%

Warao 5.1% 64.1%

Because the distinction between kinds of Principal Characters is more one of mode than ofessence, it is possible for the above contrast to exist in a partial way, as it does. It expressesan attitude towards the characters and not a dichotomous distinction.

39 The number 32 includes the 8 clauses from juxtaposed pairs.

40 Sentence (8c) discussed above in 4.2.2 is one of the 9 juxtaposed clauses, and it is the onlyone that uses an overt mark of TOPIC: ama. The remaining 8 have no such mark: (2a), (4a),(12c), (20b), (24b), (33d), (43c), & (46a). They add their number to the unguided 72.


tax of Narrative Linkage or tai/ama. In Waira-Joyo, there were two mainprinciples organizing this group: (i) the semantic disconnect of lists,interjections, and the like and (ii) repetition. The members of (i) illustrated thetrue absence of TOPIC, and the semantic disconnect was marked both by theabsence of the morphosyntax of TOPIC and by the absence of repetition. Thepresence of lexical continuity from one utterance to the next found inmembers of (ii) constituted the neutral degree of TOPIC. The organization ofthe unguided remainder in Bure kuare Warao is stylistically somewhatdifferent from Waira-Joyo, but otherwise the same grammar is used.

4.4.1 Passages of length oneWe can easily dispose of the 8 clauses that participate as the second

member of juxtaposed pairs. All 8 show lexical repetion, and I shall only citethe first of these:

(2) (a) Warao1 ja-kotai mate tata soro-nakatane,[Warao be-REL still there look-NEG thus

Ø1 kuarika ojiba-ya yama.he more -PRES HEARSAY]

‘The Warao doesn’t look at them; he keeps on fishing.’‘Aquel indio no se preocupó de mirar y siguió pescando.’

Of the remaining 24 isolated utterances which appear to lack any grammar ofthe sort we have so far associated with TOPIC, we may immediately discardboth the first utterance of the narrative and the last.41 The first, of course, hasno opportunity to support TOPIC, and the last is simply ‘The end’. Of theremaining 22, only four ([3b], [4b]. [6a], and [43c]) depend upon repetition.Sentence (3b) repeats bure ‘buzzard (flock)’ from (3a). Sentence (4b) repeatsthe adverb uruya ‘slowly’ from (4a). Sentence (6a) repeats the subject ‘he’(i.e., the Warao) and the ‘her’ (i.e. the buzzard girl) from (5b). Both areexpressed by elision. And (43c) repeats the subject ‘she’ (i.e. the buzzard girl)from (43b), again using elision. These 12 then demonstrate the presence ofTOPIC in its neutral state.

Of the now remaining 18, 17 show the same pattern. The first of these,(7b), is typical:

41 The 24 isolated utterances are (1b), (3b), (4b), (6a), (7b), (11b), (11d), (14c), (14e), (16b),(19b), (20b), (21b), (23c), (25g), (31b), (33a), (35d), (35f), (35h), (41d), (42b), (43c), and(50b).





(b) —Atuje iji jisamuka ja.[ you alone be]‘You were single before.’‘—Antes estabas solito, ...’

Sentence (7a) contains the speech of the narrator, who sets up the words ofone of the characters, which follow in (7b). There can be no substantiveconnection between the discourse of the characters and that of the narrator,and there is none. All 17 then are marked by the absence of the semantics ofTOPIC.42 With one exception, the verb dibu ‘say’ is used in the precedingutterance; the verb denoko ‘ask’ is used before (11b). In three of the 17, thecharacter who will speak just appears on the scene and then erupts intospeech, i.e. nabaka ‘arrive’, baji ‘return’, bojita ‘pass by’. These are in (23c),(31b), and in (33a), e.g.

(23) (b) Kuare masabukau takore tida aidamo[and when woman old



(c) —Ma uka, ¿katukaneiji tamatika tía?[my how you here then]‘My son, why are you here?’‘—Pero ¿qué haces tú por aquí, mi hijito?’

Sentence (35h) shows a semantic disjuncture as do the preceding 17, but the

42 The 17 are (7b), (11b), (11d), (14c), (14e), (16b), (19b), (20b), (21b), (23c), (25g), (31b),(33a), (35d), (35f), (41d), and (42b). Regardless of our earlier decision to print these clausesas distinct from their respective preceding clauses with a Verb of saying, they would exist asseparate entities in our count because they are separate independent tclauses.


absence of TOPIC is found in the opposition of ‘you’ to ‘I’ in the speech of theWarao. I repeat a longer sequence of the narrative to illustrate how theWarao’s speech fits overall into the demands of TOPIC:

(35) (e) Ama seke warao ja-kotai diboto[that.yonder actually Waraobe-REL in.front.of

dibu-nae:say-PRET]

‘The Warao responded to him.’‘Y el warao le contestó:’

(f) —Ama ma saba gúa kaba-o.[now me for boat cut-IMP.2nd.SG]‘Make a boat for me now.’‘—Ahora cóbame un embarcación.’

(g) Gúa kaba-itane, diana ji a janoko[ cut-GER now you POSS house

nau-turu.come- ]

‘When you have made the boat, go to your house.’‘Cuando lo termines bien puedes regresar a tu casa.’

(h) Ama-bitu ine jo jobi-kitane[now-most I water drink-INF



The Warao’s first utterance in (35f) shows no morphosyntax of TOPIC becauseit follows the words of the narrator. His second utterance has the TOPIC ofNarrative Linkage: Gúakaba-itane linking to gúa kaba-o. His last utterance in(35h) opposes what he is going to do with what the other is going to do, andso TOPIC is appropriately completely absent.

4.4.2 Passages of length twoThe six passages of length two illustrate the same principles found in

passages of length one. One of the passages — (26c) & (26d) — turns solely


on repetition:

(26) (b) Ama seke warao1 ja-kotai uju[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL

nisa-nae.take-PRET]

‘The Warao brought the container.’‘Cogió el mapire, lo llevó ’

(c) Ø1 a janoko ata konaru-ae.[he POSS house to fetch-PRET]‘He fetched it to his house.’

(d) Ø1 a tida-si mo-ae yama.[he POSS woman- give-PRET HEARSAY]‘He gave it to his wife.’‘... y lo entregó a su mujer.’

The other passages of this length combine the disjuncture between thenarrator’s speech and the characters’ with a following repetition:

(22) (a) Taisi ebe-jokua-ne atae tai[ before-dawn-GER again that

bure-auka-tida ja-kotai abuzzard-offspring-woman be-REL POSS

nibora-maisía atae dibu-ne ama:man- to again say-PRET now]

‘When it dawned again the buzzard girl again spoke toher husband.’

‘Al día siguiente, de nuevo la hija del zamura le dijo a sumarido:’

(b) —Jo saba naru.[water for walk]‘Go for water.’‘Vete a por agua’

(c) Jo anamu ja-kotai uju torotoro-ida[water container be-REL box-AUG


yama.HEARSAY]

‘The water container was an uju.’‘Lo traes en ese mapire grande’

The break between the narrator’s and the character’s speecch in (22a) and(22b) is signalled by the total absence of any continuance. The quoted speechof (22b) continues through (22c), and the connection is marked by thepresence of jo ‘water’. The pairs (29c) & (29d), (30b) & (30c), (34b) & (34c),and (38c) & (38d) have the same pattern: disjuncture between narrative andquoted speech followed by repetition.

4.4.3 Passages of length threeThe three examples of length three all show similar patterns. They all

begin with quoted speech and they all show the disjuncture that we expect atthis point. The second utterance in all three continues the quoted speech of thecharacter. The final utterance returns the story to the narrator, with nomorphosyntactic indication of TOPIC:43

(19) (c) Tai bure ja-kotai diboto dibu-nae[that buzzard be-REL in.front.of say-PRET

yama:HEARSAY]

‘The buzzard answered him’‘Pero la zamurita le dijo:’

(d) —Mate sanuka.[still little]‘Wait a little.’‘Espera un momento.’

(e) Ine dima denoko-kitane naru-kitía.[I father ask-INF walk-FUT.IM]‘I’ll go ask my father.’‘Voy a preguntar a mi padre’

43 The passages-of-three are cited here along with the utterance that precedes them, so thereare actually four utterances repeated.


(f) Naru-ya diana[walk-PRES now]‘And she went off.’‘Y marchó’

Sentences (37b)-(37c)-(38a) are analogous to (19d)-(19e)-(19f): (37) (a) Ama sike warao ja-kotai dibu-nae

[that.yonder actually Waraobe-REL say-PRET

yama:HEARSAY]

‘Then the Warao spoke.’‘Entonces el warao le dijo:’

(b) —Ji a janoko ata naru diana.[you POSS house to walk now]‘Go to your house now.’‘—Ahora márchate para tu casa, ...’

(c) Ine arakate tai ma araisa[I also that me friend

yejebu-kitía.call-FUT.IM]


(38) (a) Yejebu-é yama diana.[call-PRET HEARSAY now]‘He called then.’‘Fue a llamarle y...’

Notice that the oppositions between the first and second members of the triads— (19d) & (19e) and (37b) & (37c) — have the first member of the pair withan imperative followed by the speaker’s ‘I’. They parallel sentences (35g) &(35h) from 4.2.2. It is this contrast that motivates all absence of TOPIC.

The last example of this group, (28c)-(28d)-(28e), is like the other twoexcept that the character’s speech in (28d) has the TOPIC of repetition from(28c) in place of the absence of TOPIC:


(28) (b) Kona-itane seke a nibora-ma mo-se:[bring-GER actually man- give- ]‘Having brought it, she gave it to her husband.’‘... y se la dio al marido diciéndole:’

(c) —Ø1 tamaja omunoko ekuya naru.[you this footprint inside walk]‘Walk on this path.’‘—Vete por este camino, ...’

(d) Ø1 soro-bukomo naru.[you look- walk]‘Look where you step.’‘... pero vete fijándote’

(e) Tai babe ja-kotai omunoko awere[that be-REL footprint near


yama.HEARSAY]



The narrator’s resumptive speech in each case has its subject identify the sameperson who has just spoken or who has just been addressed. It does not seemincorrect to interpret this as another way to repeat content, so that theseillustrate a neutral TOPIC.

4.4.4 Passages of length fourThe three passages of length four show more diversity in how they

manage the lack of TOPIC morphosyntax, but they still are consistent. This isthe first of the three — (16d) through (18a):44

44 The examples with four are again cited with the utterance that precedes them.


(16) (c) Tai bure ja-kotai uria abane-bitu[that buzzard be-REL slowly -most

a nibora saba dibu-nae ama:POSS man for say-PRET now]

‘The buzzard girl spoke very quietly to her husband.’‘Y la zamura le dijo al marido muy bajito:’

(d) —Tamaja ja-kotai.[this be-REL]‘This is it.’‘—Es esta.’

(e) Takore ¡oi iji kuana tamatika[but careful you strong here

dibu-kore!say-when]




The passage of four begins with quoted speech followed by two more piecesof quoted speech in (16e) & (16f), concluding with a return to the narrator. Asbefore, the narrator’s speech in (18a) is connected to the character’s byrepetition. In (16f) & (18a), the identity is between tai dima ‘father’ and taibure adiamo ‘the buzzard chief’. They are the same person. Sentences (16e)and (16f) lack repetition and consist of an imperative ‘you’ opposed to taidima ‘my father’.

The next passage — (25b) through (25e) — is more “normal”:





(b) —Uju ma mo.[ me give]‘Give me the pot.’‘—Hijito, ...’

(c) Iji kemo bare-nu[you there -IMP.2nd.SG]‘Look over there.’‘... ya puedes mirar para acá.’

(d) Uju isa-nae ama.[ get-PRET now]‘She took the pot.’

(e) Jo oa-nae.[water grab-PRET]‘She got the water.’

Sentence (25b) is the first in a series of quoted speech, thus breaking with(25a). Sentence (25c) repeats the imperative subject ‘you’ from (25b).Sentence (25d) returns to the narrator, whose ‘she’ is the same as the quotedspeaker in (25c). The final sentence (25e) repeats ‘pot’ and ‘water’.

The last passage of four once again starts with quoted speech in (48a):





(48) (a) —Yakarata-yaja iji mebe dubuida-ja[ -as you quick-be

nanaka-nae.descend-PRET]

‘ ... you descended rapidly.’‘—Gracias a que te lanzaste rápidamente antes que yo.’

(b) Ine tai kuare ji na-naja.[I that because you kill- NEG]‘That’s why I didn’t kill you.’‘Esto te ha librado de la muerte.’

(49) (a) Ma sinoto tamatema kuai ma-nu.[me shirt here me above -IMP.2nd.SG]‘Throw me my shirt up to me.’‘—Arrójame aquíarriba me chaleco.’

(b) Ama oko tamatika-mo yatu waba-ja[now we here-from you die-be

mi-kore, oko yatu najoro-nesee-when we you eat-PRET

ja-tebe-FUT.INDEF]



Unlike the others, the passage contains only quoted speech with eachutterance repeating a common participant ‘you’: iji , ji , -nu, and yatu.Internally, there is the consistency of a repeated TOPIC.

4.4.5 Passages of length fiveThe last group of unguided utterances consists of three passages composed

of five utterances each. Again, they are consistent in invoking strategies in theothers, only more of them and in different combination. We begin with (9c)through (10c):

(9) (b) Ama seke Warao dibu-nae:[that.yonder actually Warao say-PRET]


‘Then the Warao spoke.’‘Entonces el Warao dijo:’

(c) ‘—¡Seisa! ine arakate ji amo[let’s.go I also you

naru-te iji ma raisawalk-FUT.INDEF you me significant.other

kuare.’because]

‘Well, Let’s go! I will go with you because you are mysignificant other.’

‘—¡Vámanos, pues! Me iré contigo, pues eres mycompañera.’

(d) Ø yaburu-ae yama diana ...[they climb-PRET HEARSAY now]‘They ascended then.’‘Y comenzaron a subir’

(10) (a) A tida a nibora-ma ebe[POSS woman POSS man- before

yaburu-ya.climb-PRES]

‘The woman climbed in front her husband.’‘La mujer iba delante del marido ...’

(b) A nibora ja-kotai a tida-si ayamo.[POSS man be-REL POSS wife- back]‘The man was behind his wife.’‘... y él la seguía detrás.’

(c) Bure monuka bajibaji-komo kuai[buzzard same circle-GER upward

yaburu-ae yama.climb-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Circling just like buzzards, they climbed upward.’‘Planeando lo mismo que los zamuros remontaron hacia

arriba.’


The quoted speech of sentence (9c) breaks with the narrator’s speech of (9b),and it is followed by a return to the narrator in (9d), whose elided ‘they’indexes the ‘I’-’you’-’we’ of (9c). Sentences (10a), (10b), and (10e) completethe passage with continued repetition of the Warao and his Buzzard Girl wife.

The second passage occurs in (27b) through (28a):

(27) (a) Moa-kore seke atae dibu-nae:[give-when actually again say-PRET]‘As he gave it, she spoke again.’‘En cuanto se lo dijo ella le volvió a ordenar:

(b) —Ama iji gúa kaba-kitane[now you boat cut-INF



(c) Tamatika mate sanuka-ma waka-u.[here still little- wait-IMP.2nd.SG]‘Wait here a little.’‘Espérate aquí un momento ...’

(d) Ine jima sama nau-kitía.[I iron.tool come-FUT.IM]‘I’ll go for an axe.’‘... mientras yo voy a buscar el hacha’

(e) Ø1 naru-ae yama diana.[she walk-PRET HEARSAY now]‘She went off.’‘Ella salió’

(28) (a) Ø1 tata-mo jima kon-ae yama.[she there-from iron.tool bring-PRET HEARSAY]‘She brought an axe from there.’‘Trajo de allá el hacha ...’

Following the break of quoted speech with the narrator’s speech in (27b),


(27c) repeats the iji ‘you’ from (27b) in its imperative waka-u ‘Wait!’. This isin turn followed by an opposed ‘I’ of the speaker. Sentences (27e) and (28a)return to the narrator, who repeats the identity of the quoted speaker withhis/her elided ‘she’.

The last passage is in (42d) throough (43a):

(42) (c) Ama seke atae tai bure[that.yonder actually again that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai dibu-nae:offspring-woman be-REL say-PRET]

‘Again the daughter of the buzzard chief spoke.’‘Pero la hija del zamuro le dijo:’

(d) —Iji dima na-e.[you father kill- PRET ]‘You killed my father.’‘Tú has matado a mi padre.’

(e) Tai kuare dibuidaja-bitu tamate janoko[and because quick-most here house

atanao-ae.to come-PRET]

‘That is why you have come to the house so quickly.’‘Por eso has venido tan rápidamente a case.’

(f) Taisi kuare tamatika sanuka ma[ because here little me

waka-o.wait-IMP.2nd.SG]

‘Wait for me here just a moment.’‘Veremos, espérame aquí un momento.’

(g) Ine waji-moana yata nau-kitía.[I to come-FUT.IM]‘I am going to the boat.’‘Voy a llegarme hasta el bongo.’

(43) (a) Natu-í yama.[go-PRET HEARSAY]


‘She left.’‘Salió.’

Following the break with the narrator in (42d), sentences (42e) and (42f)repeat the iji ‘you’ in (42d). Sentence (42g) opposes the speaker’s ‘I’ with theimperative ‘you’ in (42f). And lastly, (43a) returns to the narrator, whose’she’repeats the identity of the speaker in (42g). All patterns we have seen above.

4.4.6 Conclusion to the unguidedOverall, of the 80 utterances unguided by some recognized overt

morphosyntactic mark of TOPIC, 42 or 52.5% show repetition from thepreceding utterance.45 Thirty-eight or 47.5% are isolated from their context.Of the 38, 31 are isolated because they initiate speech of a character followingon the speech of the narrator. Two are isolated by virtue of being the absolutefirst or absolute last in the narrative. The last 5 of this group have aninteresting internal coherence.46 Let us repeat (35h) with the utterancepreceding it:

(35) (g) Gúa kaba-itane,diana ji a janoko[ cut-GER now you POSS house

nau-turu.come- ]





Sentence (35g) contains an imperative, and (35h) follows with a statement ofwhat the speaker (or someone other than the addressee) will do instead. Again

45 The 42 are (3b), (4b), (6a), (9d), (10a), (10b), (10c), (18a), (19e), (19f), (22c), (25c),(25d), (25e), (26c), (26d), (27c), (27e), (28a), (28d), (28e), (29d), (30c), (34c), (36d), (37c),(38a), (42e), (42f), (42g), (43c), (48b), (49a), and (49b), plus the juxtaposed (2a), (4a), (12c),(20b), (24b), (33d), (43c), & (46a).

46 They are (35h), (16e), (16f), (27d), and (42g).


in (16e) & (16f):

(16) (d) —Tamaja ja-kotai.[this be-REL]‘This is it.’‘—Es esta.’

(e) Takore ¡oi iji kuana tamatika[but careful you strong here

dibu-kore!say-when]



Sentence (16f) opposes the imperative in (16e), which itself ruptures with(16d). Again in (27d):

(27) (c) Tamatika mate sanuka-ma waka-u.[here still little- wait-IMP.2nd.SG]‘Wait here a little.’‘Espérate aquí un momento ...’

(d) Ine jima sama nau-kitía.[I iron.tool come-FUT.IM]‘I’ll go for an axe.’‘... mientras yo voy a buscar el hacha’

And lastly in (42g):

(42) (f) Taisi kuare tamatika sanuka ma[ because here little me


‘Wait for me here just a moment.’


‘Veremos, espérame aquí un momento.’

(g) Ine waji-moanayata nau-kitía.[I to come-FUT.IM]‘I am going to the boat.’‘Voy a llegarme hasta el bongo.’

The pairings of an imperative with a following alternative action seem to bemore than coincidental, especially since they — except for the pairings ofnarrator’s & character’s speech — constitute the only complete absences ofTOPIC morphosyntax in Bure kuare Warao.47

5. HEARSAY.Romero-Figueroa (1997.32) describes a form yama, to which he ascribes

the meaning ‘by hearsaying’:

Although indirect quotation is not found in the language, there is a verb suffix -

yama ‘BY HSY’ (= ‘by hearsaying’), that expresses the non-responsibility of the

speaker for the speech he employs and which transmits almost textual

information from other source [sic]. In this sense -yama ‘BY HSY’ suggestsindirection ....

However, -yama ‘BY HSY’ is used in association with the periphrastic

legendary past adverbials of the language, within narratives handed down for

generations. Thus, as it might be expected, -yama ‘BY HSY’ has a restricted usage

and it is very seldom, if ever, heard in everyday speech. Independently from

these last considerations, -yama ‘BY HSY’ is a significant indicator that the

speaker is transmitting some else’s comments, which is a manifestation of

indirection.

Earlier, Romero-Figueroa (1985a.114) suggested that “Yama is mostly heardin sentence-final position in subject-initial sentences relating Warao mythsand legends”. In Bure kuare Warao, yama (and its alternate shape ama. Cf.5.1) appears 67 times, always postverbally, and mostly sentence-finally.48

With respect to the occurrence of S’s, O’s, and elision, the occurrence of yama

47 I suspect that these pairs are actually unitary and are — like repetition — anothermanifestation of TOPIC, but there are not enough examples to examine this in detail. And Iwill leave them here as illustrations of the absence of TOPIC.

48 Cf. footnote 53.


is, however, otherwise random, and has nothing to do with “subject-initialsentences”.

The randomness of yama with respect to the occurrence of S’s, O’s, andelision can be demonstrated in the following way. Of its 67 occurrences inBure kuare Warao, yama is used 6 times in SOV sentences, 7 times intransitive OV sentences, 2 times in transitive SV sentences, 2 times intransitive sentences with both S & O elided, 38 times in intransitive sentenceswith S, 12 times in intransitive sentences with elided S, and Ø times in OSVsentences. There are no OSV utterences in this text. If we take the frequencyof clause types49 and match the percentage of each type with the percentage ofthe 67 instances yama that occurs with that type, we discover the pairings ofFigure 3. There is a striking coincidence in the distribution of yama across the

% of S, O & % OccurrenceElision of yama

OSVt Ø Ø yamaSOVt 14.5 8.9 yamaSVt 5.2 3 yamaOVt 13.4 10.5 yamaV t 2.9 3 yamaSVi 44.8 56.7 yamaV i 19.2 17.9 yama

Figure 3: Comparison of Clause Types and the Occurrence of yama.

six types. The percentages of the clause types are mirrored very closely by thepercentages of yama that occur with them, and it is the homologous pairingsthat demonstrate the randomness of yama.50 To better visualize this, imagine atwo dimensional surface composed of 172 equally sized areas, say, your frontyard sodded with 172 squares of new grass. Then because snow is predicted,let us cover the grass to protect it. As it turns out we have to use six tarpaulinsso that the first piece covers just 14.5% of the 172 squares, the next covers5.2%, and so forth to the last, which covers 19.2%. During the night, snow

49 Here, “clause type” means the inventory of clauses with a transitive or an intransitive verband with S, O, or elision.

50 Either the pairings are random, or the speaker has an uncanny ability to track theoccurrence of his/her clause types in order to assure the same percentage of yama appearswith each.


falls evenly over the yard.51 If we measured the snow fall, we would find thatthe first tarpaulin would have 14.5% of the total snow fall over the spacedefined by the 172 sods of grass, and the last piece of cloth would have 19.2%of the snow. If we replace the snow with 67 pieces of anything distributed likethe snow in a random way over the surface, the statistically random outcomewill one in which the first piece of cloth garners 14.5% of the 67 pieces ofwhatever was dropped. The second piece, 5.2%, and so forth. This is what hashappened to yama in this text.

Whatever yama may mean, it is clear that in Bure kuare Warao, at least,its usage has nothing to do with “subject-initial sentences”.52

5.1 The Morphophonemics of yama. The shape yama appears 43 times in Bure kuare Warao. In thoseoccurrences, it is final (or nearly so).53 It is always post-verbal:

(1) (a) Awajabara-bitu warao isaka ojiaba-kitane[before-most Waraoone -INF

naru-ya yama.walk-PRES HEARSAY]

‘At the beginning of time, a certain Warao goes outfishing.’

‘En tiempos muy remotos salió un warao a pescar conguaral y anzuelo.’

(9) (d) Yaburu-ae yama diana ...[climb-PRET HEARSAY now]‘They ascended then.’‘Y comenzaron a subir’

51 Barring wind drifting and the like.

52 If nothing else, the claim of an association of yama with subject-initial sentences leaves uspuzzled as to why the 13.4% of OVt clauses should pair with 10.5% of the occurrences ofyama, why the 2.9% of the Vt clauses should acquire 3% of the occurrences of yama, andwhy the 19.5% of the Vi clauses should have 17.9% of the occurrences of yama. None ofthese near matches has any connection at all with S’s, yet they are as consistent as the otherpairings.

53 Diana ‘now’ is the only element that follows yama. It appears in (9d), (27e), and (38a).


The shape ama also appears in final position, 24 times:54

(15) (b) Nabaka-kore seke warao ja-kotai kaye[arrive-when actually Warao be-REL street

ekuya soro-ne ama.inside look-PRET now]

‘When they arived, the Warao looked at the street.’‘Nada más llegar el warao se asomó por una de las calles’

There exists another pair of shapes, which fairly clearly are morphophonemicalternates, and in which an initial y alternates with its absence:

(42) (g) Ine waji-moanayata nau-kitía.[I to come-FUT.IM]‘I am going to the boat.’‘Voy a llegarme hasta el bongo.’

(26) (c) A janoko ata konaru-ae.[POSShouse to fetch-PRET]‘He fetched it to his house.’

Vaquero (1965.101) cites both ata and yata in a list of “Principalesposposiciones”. Ata has the glosses ‘A, en hacia’, and yata, the glosses ‘A,hacia, en’. The alternation between yata ~ ata, plus the common syntacticposition of yama and ama, further suggests that they, too, are alternates. Andthat we are treating the familiar ama in yet another function.55

5.2 The Meaning of yama ~ amaAs far as I can determine, Vaquero does not mention yama in the

descriptive portion of his grammar, although it does, of course, appear in histexts.56 In one of them (Vaquero 1965.200), this example occurs:

(12) (b) Obonobu-komo aba-nae yama

54 In (12c), (15b), (16a), (16c), (19a), (20a), (22a), (23b), (25d), (25f), (26a), (29a), (29b),(31c), (33b), (34a), (35a), (35b), (36a), (36b), (39b), (41c), (43c), and (47a).

55 I have nevertheless glossed this grammatical occurrence of ama as ‘now’.

56 Ama but not yama appears in Charette’s 1980 Warau dictionary. Yama does not occur inHerrmann’s (1999) paper on Warao demonstratives.


[think-GER put.down-PRET HEARSAY]‘Pensando quedaron pues’‘Todos quedaron pensativos’

And again in the same text:

(14) (c) Jau57 akari araisa jobaji[ite.palm.shoot end another ground

tori-kore warao-tuma isaka isaka tanetouch-GER Warao-PL one one so

nanakabu-ae58 yamaclimb.down-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Fibra punta otra tierra tocando los waraos uno uno asíbajaron pues’

Cuando el otro extremo tocó la tierra los indioscomenzaron a bajar de uno en uno’

Without comment (that I can find), in this text Vaquero provides two glossesfor each Warao utterance, and the first is the more literal.59 In the more literalgloss, but not the freer one, yama has the gloss ‘pues’, then or so. The‘summarizing’ aspect of pues recalls the retrospective TOPIC sense of ama(section 4.2.2).

The text Bure kuare Warao confirms Romero-Figueroa’s observation thatyama ~ ama is not common in conversational speech. None of its 67occurrences are in the quoted speech of the characters. The one occurrence ofyama ~ ama in Waira-Joyo, however, comes in the elder Jaburi’s speech tothe Jaburis’ mothers:

(50) (b) Yatu ja-kotai ka rani-tuma yama.[you be-REL our mother-PL now]‘Now you are our mothers’‘Ahora sabemos que vosotras sois nuestras madres’

As a result of what the Nutria People told us, ‘We therefore/now know you

57 Charette (1980.51).

58 Charette (1980.51): nanakaza ... ‘climb down, descend’.

59 He does this for the first six texts in the collection.


are our mothers’. The pues sense of yama ~ ama is applicable. It is as if yama~ ama expresses the ‘therefore’ summation following one or more‘whereas’es.

Unfortunately, that interpretation cannot be generalized to all occurrencesof yama ~ ama. The first sentence of the first text in Vaquero’s collection(1965.198) is this:

(1) (a) Atuje-bitu warao-tuma najamutu arai[before-most Warao-PL sky over


‘Al principio los Waraos-cielo-en-vivían’‘En tiempo muy remotos los Indios Navegantes vivían en

el cielo’

It is difficult to rationalize a pues gloss for yama in this example, and Vaqueroprovides it no gloss at all in either the literal or the freer Spanish rendition.The same sort of use is found in the initial utterance of our text, Bure kuareWarao.

At this point, our grasp of yama ~ ama is at best incomplete. It may wellbe that Romero-Figueroa’s interpretation of it as ‘hearsay’ is accurate.60 Buton the other hand, the occurrence of yama ~ ama may have some meaning,not necessarily ‘hearsay’, which just happens to be more appropriate to thecontext of narratives of the sort we are examining here ... and that meaning,not ‘hearsay’, is what prompts (or not) the use of yama ~ ama. Theimpression of ‘hearsay’ may be a byproduct. The relatively high frequency ofyama ~ ama in Bure kuare Warao encourages us to adopt a meaning of‘hearsay’ for it. But if so, we have the problem of explaining why there is buta single occurrence of yama ~ ama in the longest text in the Vaquerocollection (and a text which is as equally ‘hearsay’ as the other), and why thatoccurrence comes in the speech of one of the characters, i.e., ‘live speech’ asopposed to second hand narration.

6. ConclusionThere are several conclusions that come from this description of a

second Warao narrative. The first should be that in this text, as well as thefirst, all of the utterances betray a sensitivity to the demand of TOPIC, either

60 It is not certain what the addition of ama would do to his description.


bearing an overt morphosyntactic mark of its presence in some strongerdegree, a repetition indicating its neutral value, or a complete grammaticalabsence of TOPIC. And in the last instance, in both narratives, the absoluteabsence of TOPIC is motivated. Both Bure kuare Warao and Waira-Joyo arewithout exception 100% consistent with respect to TOPIC.

Second, Bure kuare Warao is consonant with Waira-Joyo. Themorphosyntax of TOPIC that we found in the former — Narrative Linkage,retrospective ama and prospective tai, and repetition — recurs in the latter,and in the same manner. There is, however, a difference in emphasis.Although the degree to which Narrative Linkage appears in the first ismatched by its appearance in the second, the respective prominences of TOPIC

tai and ama are reversed. Tai is much less common than ama in Bure kuareWarao, while the reverse is true in Waira-Joyo.

Third , there are modes of TOPIC in addition to Narrative Lingkage andTOPIC tai & ama, that are common in Bure kuare Warao. Tai and jakotaioccur with bure and warao to signal the presence of individuals who areprivileged Principal Characters.

Fourth , these varieties of TOPIC are coordinate responses to the singledemand to ‘make sense’, and they are therefore not in conflict. Two or moremay exist in the same utterance, so long as the morphosyntax of theirexpressions do not conflict.


warao ja-kotai jo oa-komoniWarao be-REL water hold.onto-impossible

ta-nae.be-PRET]

‘When he got to where the water was, the Warao couldnot get water.’

‘Pero cuando quiso sacar el agua le era imposible con elmapire.’

Sentence (23a) contains three manifestations of TOPIC. Ama sike begins theutterance, followed by the Narrative Linkage jo ata nabaka-kore, followed inturn by the Principal Character warao jakotai. Sentence (40b) also containsthree manifestations of TOPIC, but this time the order is Narrative Linkage,then ama sike, followed by warao jakotai:


(40) (b) Waji-moana tatuka nabaka-kore, ama[ there arrive-when that.yonder

seke warao ja-kotai ekida-bitu actually Warao be-REL none-most

tiarone, tatuka-bitu-mo ejobo-naealthough there-most-from come.out-PRET

yama.HEARSAY]



And (2b) illustrates that ama seke may come last in the sequence of three:

(2) (b) Ojiaba-yaja takore, warao ja-kotay[ -as when Warao be-REL

ama seke a inabe soro-naethat.yonder actually POSS jungle look-PRET]


selva.’

The most complex example of the combinations is in (44a):

(44) (a) Tai warao ja-kotai, tai bure[that Warao be-REL that buzzard








The utterance begins with a Principal Character reference to the Warao: taiwarao jakotai. It is then followed by a Narrative Linkage: tai bure auka-tida arima mi-kitane nau-kore. The Narrative Linkage itself contains anotherPrincipal Character reference, tai bure aukatida.

Lastly, the multiplicity of ways that TOPIC may emerge in a narrativeunderscores the earlier — and oft emphasized — conclusion that TOPIC is notan atomic category, but a grammatical phenomenon that is the response to thedemand that each utterance which a speaker performs should ‘make sense’.Either the utterance should meld in some fashion with what has gone before(what we all know at that point), or if not, then the isolation itself should‘make sense’, be motivated and understandable. Our grasp of TOPIC mustallow for its complete absence as well as its presence by degrees. All of that isTOPIC.


Bure kuare WaraoThe Buzzard & the Warao

(1) (a) Awajabara-bitu61 warao isaka ojiaba-kitane[first-most Warao one -INF

naru-ya yama.walk-PRES HEARSAY]

‘At the beginning of time, a certain Warao goes outfishing.’

‘En tiempos muy remotos salió un warao a pescar conguaral y anzuelo.’

(b) Warao tai62 arai-sabasaba63 bure[Warao that over-towards buzzard

nanaka-ya yama.descend-PRES HEARSAY]

‘Some buzzards fly over that Warao and land.’‘Cuando estaba pescando sintió que, a sus espaldas, había

caído un zamuro.’

(2) (a) Warao ja-kotai mate tata64 soro-nakatane65,[Warao be-REL still there look-NEG thus

kuarika66 ojiba-ya yama.more -PRES HEARSAY]

‘The Warao doesn’t look at them; he keeps on fishing.’‘Aquel indio no se preocupó de mirar y siguió pescando.’

61 Vaquero (1965.98).

62 “Los adjetivos demonstrativos determinan los objetos a que se refieren, indicando ladistancia a que se encuentran de las personas due intervienen en la conversación. Su relaciónpropia es de lugar y, por traslación, de tiempo ... Los demonstrativos pueden colocarsedelante o detrás del nombre, según lo exija la eufonía de la frase. Ordinariamente preceden alsustantivo ...” (Vaquero 1965.52).

63 Vaquero 1965.101: ‘Arai: Sobre’ & ‘Sabasaba: Hacia, por.’

64 Vaquero 1965.55 & 96.

65 Vaquero 1965.97.

66 Vaquero 1965.98.


(b) Ojiaba-yaja takore67, warao ja-kotay[ -as when Warao be-REL

ama seke68 a inabe soro-naethat.yonder actually POSS jungle look-PRET]


selva.’

(3) (a) Inabe soro-kore seke bure a[jungle look-when actually buzzard POSS


‘Looking into the jungle, he saw the buzzards eating theirmeal.’

‘Y mirando mirando vio que unos zamuros estabandándose un buen banquete.’

(b) Bure kawana bure tida[buzzard among buzzard woman



(c) Ama warao ja-kotai obonobu-ae69:[that.yonder Warao be-REL think-PRET]

67 “Takore: Cuando sea, haya, tenga ...” (Vaquero 1965.83) Or ‘however’ (Vaquero1965.107).

68 Vaquero (1965), Charette (1980), and Romero-Figueroa (1997) all lack citation of a formseke. Vaquero (1965.139), in a discussion of other things, has this example outside the text:Ama seke nebu ‘Entonces el hombre ...’ By chance (not concerned with seke, but withdemonstratives), Herrmann (2000.28) has this one example with a gloss:

(i) -Ma natoro sanuka, dau a wamana eku jakutai tai seke [my grandchild, tree its-crack in which it actually

tomonojo.wasp]

“My grandchild! The one who is in the the crack of the tree actually is a wasp.”

I shall adopt Herrmann’s gloss and use ‘actually’ throughout.

69 Vaquero 1965.93.


‘Then the Warao thought:’‘Y aquel hombre comenzó a pensar: ...

(d) —Ama ine, ¿katukanetakore tai bure[that.yonder I how when that buzzard

ja-kotai oa-kuna?70

be-REL hold.onto-POT]‘But , ‘How am I going to get that buzzard?’’‘—¿Cómo me las arreglaría yo para agarrar a esa

zamura?’

(4) (a) Tai warao ja-kotai dijisa-ne, uruya-ja[that Warao be-REL hide-GER slow-be

aba-nae, jobaji araya71 yaji-neput.down-PRET ground on -GER




(b) Uruya abane72 ...[slowly ...]‘... little by little.’‘...con mucho cuidado.’

(c) Awere-witu73 naka-e takore,Warao ja-kotai[near-very become-PRET when Warao be-REL

70 Vaquero 1965.78: “Modo Potencial”.

71 Vaquero 1965.101: ‘Arai: Sobre.’

72 Vaquero 1965.97: ‘Uria abane: Poco a poco’. There is a verb (Vaquero 1965.177)abakitane with the gloss ‘poner’.

73 Vaquero 1965.51.


ama sike74 tai bure tidathat.yonder actually that buzzard woman

autu75-ya maja76-nae.in.the.middle.of- hug-PRET]



(d) Maja-kore seke awarao-tuma77 bure[hug-when actually relative-PL buzzard

ja-kotai naru-ae yama.be-REL walk-PRET HEARSAY]

‘When he grabbed her, the other buzzards flew off.’‘Al agarrarla los demás zamuros escaparon.’


bure tida isía78 yakara-ja79 dibubuzzard woman to -be word



zamurita.’

74 I assume that sike is a morphophonemic variant of seke.

75 Charette 1980.34.


77 Vaquero 1965.122.

78 Vaquero (1965.102): “Por, a, acerca de, en, de ...’

79 Cp. “Yakera: Bueno” (Vaquero 1965.170).


(b) Tai dibu yakara-ja-moa-na80 yawara-takore81,[that say be-give- finish-when



la curiara.’

(6) (a) Tai tane,isiko a janokoatanaru-ae[that thuswith POSS house to walk-PRET

yamaHEARSAY]

‘Thus it was, he walked with her to his house.’‘Así pues, marchó con ella para casa y ...

(b) A janokoata nabaka-kore seke saba82

[POSS house at leave-when actually forjiaka era-ja isa-naeclothing many-be get-PRET]

‘When they left his house, he had bought some clothesfor her.’

‘..., en cuanto llegaron, la compró cantidad de vestidos.’




80 ”Moakitane: Dar” (Vaquero 1965.175).

81 Charette (1980.117) has zewaraza with the meaning ‘to finish’.

82 “ La posposición de dativo es siempre SABA, designando el término o complementoindirecto sobre quien racae la acción del verbo” (Vaquero 1965.48).


(b) —Atuje83 iji jisamuka84 ja.[ you alone be]‘You were single before.’‘—Antes estabas solito, ...’

(c) Ama iji ja-kotai ji daisa85

[that.yonder you be-REL your someoneja diana.benow]

‘But now you have a significant other.’‘...pero ahora tienes compañera.’

(8) (a) Tuatane86 tai bure auka-tira87

[in.the.same.waythat buzzard offspring-womanisiko taisia bajibaji-ae88 yama.with circle-PRET HEARSAY]

‘The buzzard girl went with him everywhere.’‘Efectivamente aquella zamura anduvo dando vueltas con

él por todas partes.’

(b) Tuatane waniku89 isaka jaka-kore[in.the.same.waymonth one run.away-when

seke tai bure auka-tida90

actually that buzzard offspring-woman

83 Vaquero (1965.97): “Ateje: En otro tiempo”.

84 Vaquero (1965.97) has ‘Jisamika: Solamente’.

85 Charette (1980.40) has “daisha: the other one, someone”. Compare araisa ‘another’ in(34a) and elsewhere.

86 Vaquero 1965.97.

87 “Aukatira: Sobrinas de mujer, por ambas lineas” (Vaquero 1965.123).

88 Cf. (11c).


90 Same gloss as aukatira or also ‘hija’ (Vaquero 1965.123).


ja-kotai a nibora-ma91 isíabe-REL POSS man- to

dibu-nae:say-PRET]



(c) —Ma92 nibora, ama ine tamasía ji[me man that.yonder I you

idamo-tuma kawana-ya kuju-ya-PL -PRES -PRES

kuare ama iji maand that.yonder you me

idamo-tuma yata93 ma isiko-PL to mewithnaru-te, najamutu atawalk-FUT.INDEF sky to].

‘Husband, I have been with your people and now you willgo with me to my people, in the sky.’

‘—Mi amor, yo he estado hasta ahora contigo, entre tugente; justo es que tú vengas ahora conmigo al cielo,a casa de mis familiares.’

(9) (a) Ama tai bure tida ja-kotai[that.yonder that buzzard woman be-REL

a sinoto isaka nisa-itane94 aPOSS shirt a take-GER POSS

nibora-ma mo-ae yama.man- give-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Then the buzzard girl taking her shirt, gave it to herhusband.’

91 Notice the turn of phrase ma nibora in the following (8c).

92 “Comp. verb. directo” (Vaquero 1965.61).

93 Vaquero 1965.101.

94 Vaquero 1965.831: “Nisakitane: Comprar”.


‘Y entonces, aquella zamura, sacando una especie dechaleco, se lo entregó al marido.’

(b) Ama seke Warao dibu-nae:[that.yonder actually Warao say-PRET]‘Then the Warao spoke.’‘Entonces el Warao dijo:’

(c) ‘—¡Seisa!95 ine arakate ji amo[let’s.go I also you

naru-te iji ma raisawalk-FUT.INDEF you me significant.other

kuare.’because]

‘Well, Let’s go! I will go with you because you are mysignificant other.’

‘—¡Vámanos, pues! Me iré contigo, pues eres mycompañera.’

(d) Yaburu-ae96 yama diana ...[climb-PRET HEARSAY now]‘They ascended then.’‘Y comenzaron a subir’

(10) (a) A tida a nibora-ma ebe[POSSwoman POSS man- before

yaburu-ya.climb-PRES]

‘The woman climbed in front her husband.’‘La mujer iba delante del marido ...’

(b) A nibora ja-kotai a tida-si ayamo.[POSS man be-REL POSS wife back]‘The man was behind his wife.’‘... y él la seguía detrás.’

95 ‘¡Adelante! ¡Vamos!’ (Vaquero 1965.111).

96 Charette (1980.91) has zaburuya ‘climb’.


(c) Bure monuka97 bajibaji-komo98 kuai[buzzard same circle-GER upward

yaburu-ae yama.climb-PRET HEARSAY]

‘Circling just like buzzards, they climbed upward.’‘Planeando lo mismo que los zamuros remontaron hacia

arriba.’

(11) (a) Yaburu-ya-kore tai warao ja-kotai[climb-PRES-when that.one Warao be-REL

a tida denoko-ae:POSS woman ask-PRET]

‘As they were climbing, climbing, the Warao questionedhis wife.’

‘Y subiendo, subiendo aquel warao preguntó a la mujer:’

(b) ‘—¿Mate-bitu-ra ji dima a janoko[still-most-INTER your father POSS house

oa-kitia-ra?’99

grab-FUT.IM-INTER]‘Is it much further to your father’s house?’‘—¿Falta aún mucho para la casa de tu padre?’

(c) Takore tai bure ja-kotai ama[but that buzzard be-REL that.yonder

sike a nibora-maisía dibu-naeactually POSS man- to say-PRET

yamaHEARSAY]

‘The buzzard girl answered her husband.’‘La zamura le contestó al marido:’

(d) —¡uujú! Mate-bitu.[ still-much]

97 Vaquero 1965.51.

98 Vaquero (1965.115): “-KOMO: Desinencia del gerundio. Najorokomo: Comiendo.”

99 Vaquero (1965.128): “Agarrar: Oakitane”.


‘Uh-huh. It’s much further.’‘—Um jú ... Aún falta mucho.’

(12) (a) Ama seke warao ja-kotai ayamo[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL back

soro-nae.look-PRET]

‘The Warao looked behind.’‘Al indio se le ocurrió mirar para atrás.’

(b) Soro-kore seke tamajaka rauna ja-kotai[look-when actually this forest be-REL

bebe yakera-ya ida-yaja monukagrass good-PRES -as same

yama.HEARSAY]

‘Looking backwards, the forest looked just like finegrass.’

‘Nuestra selva se veía como una pradera bonita, cubiertadefina hierba.’

(c) Atae warao ja-kotai ayamosoro-ne ama,[againWarao be-REL back look-PRET now

ama tamajaka jobaji diana diakathat.yonder this ground now

ekida yama.noneHEARSAY]

‘The Warao looked backwards again; this time hecouldn’t see the ground.’

‘De nuevo volvió a mirar el indio, pero ya no se veían losperfiles de nuestra tierra. Un poco más arribacomenzaron a verse las casas.’100

(14) (a) Ama seke kuarika yaburu-ae.[that.yonder actually more climb-PRET]

100 Vaquero’s numbering of the text becomes confused here. There is no (13) in the Warao.We go from (12) to (14). In the Spanish glosses, there is a (13), which corresponds to (12c).His gloss of (12c) contains ‘Un poco más arriba comenzaron a verse las casas,’ for whichthere is no Warao equivalent. We are back on track with (14).


‘They continued climbing.’‘Todavía continuaron subiendo.’

(b) Tai warao ja-kotai atae a tida-si[that Warao be-REL again POSS woman-

denoko-ae yama:ask-PRET HEARSAY]

‘The Warao again questioned his wife.’‘Y el warao volvió a preguntar a la mujer:’

(c) —Ma tida, ¿kasa-buka101 sia nabaka-te?[me woman where- to arrive-FUT.INDEF]‘Where are we coming to, my wife?’‘—Pero mujer, ¿a dónde vamos a llegar?’

(d) Ama sike diboto102 dibu-nae:[that.yonder actually in.front.of say-PRET]‘She answered him.’‘Y ella contestó:’

(e) ‘—Mate ma denoko-naka.[still me ask-NEG]‘Don’t ask me again.’‘—No me preguntes más.’

(f) Oko tata nabaka-kore, ine ji saba[we there arrive-when I you to

dibu-te.’say-FUT.INDEF]

‘When we arrive there, I’ll tell you.’‘Cuando lleguemos yo te lo diré.’

(15) (a) Ama seke najamutu arai nabaka-nae[that.yonder actually sky on leave-PRET

101 Vaquero (1965.95) has “¿Kasaba?: ¿Dónde?” and (96) “Nokabuka: Detrás” &“Nokabasaba: Por detrás.”

102 Charette (1980.43): “diboto: in front of (persons only), pp.”


yama.HEARSAY]

‘They arrived in the sky.’‘Al poco rato llegaron por fin al cielo.’

(b) Nabaka-kore seke warao ja-kotai kaye[arrive-when actually Waraobe-REL street

ekuya103 soro-ne104 ama.inside look-PRET now]

‘When they arived, the Warao looked at the street.’‘Nada más llegar el warao se asomó por una de las calles’

(c) Soro-kore seke bure a sinoto[look-when actually buzzard POSS shirt

ja-kotai darakojo isiko ajubu-ae tía105

be-REL door with -PRET thenyama.HEARSAY]

‘When he looked, there was a buzzard’s shirthanging on a door.’

‘Y observando vio que un zamuro había dejado colgadosu chaleco en la puerta de la casa.’

(16) (a) Ama sike warao ja-kotai dibu-ne[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL say-PRET

ama:now]

‘The Warao spoke.’‘Entonces el warao preguntó:’

(b) —Janoko kasa-buka-ja ji-dima a janoko?[house where--be your-father POSS house]

103 Vaquero 1965.105.

104 It seems that the PRETERITE -(n)ae has a variant -(n)e when it occurs before ama.Sometimes, Vaquero will write it as -né. Cf., for example, (29a) & (29b).

105 ”Con frequencia [tía] se emplea como partícula eufónica, de relleno, equivalente al‘pues’ explicativo castellano ... ¿Katukane tanae tía?: ¿Cómo sucedió pues?” (Vaquero1965.109).


‘Which house is your father’s house?’‘—¿Cuál de las casas es la de tu padre?’

(c) Tai bure ja-kotai uria abane-bitu106

[that buzzard be-REL slowly -mosta nibora saba dibu-nae ama:POSS man for say-PRET now]

‘The buzzard girl spoke very quietly to her husband.’‘Y la zamura le dijo al marido muy bajito:’

(d) —Tamaja ja-kotai.[this be-REL]‘This is it.’‘—Es esta.’

(e) Takore ¡oi107 iji kuana108 tamatika[but careful you strong here

dibu-kore!say-when]


(f) Tai dima a kua ajera.109

[that father POSS head painful]‘My father’s head hurts.’‘A mi padre le duele la cabeza.’

(18)110 (a) Tai bure aidamo a janoko.[that buzzard old POSS house]‘That was the house of the chief of the buzzards.’‘Aquella era la casa del jefe de los zamuros’

106 Cf. (4b).

107 Vaquero 1965.112.

108 Vaquero 1965.97.

109 Charette 1980.27.

110 Number 17 is skipped in Vaquero’s numbering.


(b) Tai kuare warao ja-kotai awere kuana[that because Warao be-REL near strong

dibu-nakata-nae yama.say-NEG be-PRET HEARSAY]



tai warao ja-kotai a tida-si sabathat Waraobe-REL POSS woman- for



mujer:’

(b) —Ine ji dima mi-kitane obono-ya.[I your father see-INF want-PRES]‘I want to see your father.’‘—Yo quiero ver a tu padre.’

(c) Tai bure ja-kotai diboto dibu-nae[that buzzard be-REL in.front.of say-PRET

yama:HEARSAY]

‘The buzzard answered him’‘Pero la zamurita le dijo:’

(d) —Mate sanuka.[still little]‘Wait a little.’‘Espera un momento.’

(e) Ine dima denoko-kitanenaru-kitía.[I father ask-INF walk-FUT.IM]‘I’ll go ask my father.’‘Voy a preguntar a mi padre’


(f) Naru-ya diana[walk-PRES now]‘And she went off.’‘Y marchó’

(20) (a) Kuare masabukau takore atae tata-mo111

[and when again there-fromejobo-itane,112 a nibora-maisíawalk.out-GER POSS man- to


‘And when she had come back from there, she spoke toher husband.’

‘Al poco rato volvió de allá y le dijo al marido:’

(b) —Dima dibu-ya mi-kitane obona-naja.[father say-PRES see-INF want-NEG]‘Father says he does not want to see you.’‘—Mi padre dice que no quiere verte.’

(21) (a) Kuare masabukau takore, tai bure[and when that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai a nibora-maisía offspring.woman be-REL POSS man- to

dibu-nae:say-PRET]

‘After a while, the buzzard girl spoke to her husband.’‘Después de un rato la hija del zamuro le dijo al hombre:’

(b) —Dau-waja113 aje-kitane.114

[wood-dry -INF]‘Go cut some firewood.’‘—Verte a rajar leña.’

111 Vaquero 1965.96.

112 Charette (1980.46): “ehoboza ... walk out, come out ...”

113 Charette 1980.42 & 88.

114 Cp. aji ‘strike’ in (31c) et passim.


(c) Tai ja-kotai naru-ya yama.[that be-REL walk-PRES HEARSAY]‘He went.’‘Y él marchó.’

(22) (a) Taisi ebe-jokua-ne atae tai[ before-dawn-GER again that

bure-auka-tida115 ja-kotai abuzzard-offspring-woman be-REL POSS

nibora-maisía atae dibu-ne ama:man- to again say-PRET now]

‘When it dawned again the buzzard girl again spoke toher husband.’

‘Al día siguiente, de nuevo la hija del zamura le dijo a sumarido:’

(b) —Jo saba naru.[water for walk]‘Go for water.’‘Vete a por agua’

(c) Jo anamu116 ja-kotai uju torotoro-ida117

[water container be-REL box-AUG

yama.HEARSAY]

‘The water container was an uju.’‘Lo traes en ese mapire grande’

(d) Tai warao ja-kotai naru-ae yama.[that Warao be-REL walk-PRET HEARSAY]‘The Warao left.’‘Y el warao marchó con el mapire’

115 Here, in his transcription, Vaquero joins the two forms bure and aukatida with a hyphen:bure-aukatida.

116 Charette 1980.30.

117 “torotoro box, trunk” (Charette 1980.86). “El adjetivo AIDA o IDA, sufijado a losnombres, aumenta el significado de contenido” (Vaquero 1965.169).



warao ja-kotai jo oa-komoni118

Waraobe-REL water hold.onto-impossibleta-nae.119

be-PRET]‘When he got to where the water was, the Warao could

not get water.’‘Pero cuando quiso sacar el agua le era imposible con el

mapire.’

(b) Kuare masabukau takore tida aidamo[and when woman old



(c) —Ma uka, ¿katukaneiji tamatika tía?[my how you here then]‘My son, why are you here?’‘—Pero ¿qué haces tú por aquí, mi hijito?’

(24) (a) —Bure auka-tida ja-kotai jo saba[buzzard offspring-womanbe-REL water for

ma kajotabu-ae.me command-PRET]

‘The buzzard girl sent me for water.’‘La hija del gran zamuro me mandó por agua.’

118 Vaquero (1965.168): “Oakoina: Agarradero.” And “La particula KOINA sufijada anombres temporables (verbos activos), forma los sustantivos verbales que designan elinstrumento con que se ejecuta la acción” (Vaquero 1965.43).

119 On the distinction between jakitane and takitane, Vaquero (1965.80) says, “creo que taldistinción es aparente y no rebasa la simple razón del eufonismo, norma ordinaria y volubleen el idioma Warao.” On the preterite form tanae (81), “A veces adquiere el significado desuceder, verificarse un hecho; v.gr.:

¿Katukane tanae?: ¿Cómo sucedió?”


(b) Ama ine jo saba nao-ae,[that.yonder I water to come-PRET

jo konaru-komoni120 uju eku.water fetch-impossible in]

‘But when I came for water, I could not fetch it in thepot.’

‘A esto he venido, pero me es imposible llevarla con elmapire.’




(b) —Uju mamo.[ megive]‘Give me the pot.’‘—Hijito, ...’

(c) Iji kemo121 bare-nu[you there -IMP.2nd.SG]‘Look over there.’‘... ya puedes mirar para acá.’

(d) Uju isa-nae ama.122

[ get-PRET now]‘She took the pot.’

(e) Jo oa-nae.[water grab-PRET]‘She got the water.’

120 Charette 1980.65.

121 Vaquero (1965.96): “Kemosaba: Por allá.”

122 The next four sentences are not glossed by Vaquero.


(f) Ama sike dibu-nae ama:[that.yonder actually say-PRET now]‘Then she spoke.’

(g) —Ma uka,123 diana ma kuare babare-nu.124

[me now me side -IMP.2nd.SG]‘My son, now you can turn around and face me.’

(26) (a) Kuare barita-kore,68 diana jo jona-nae[side -when now water -PRET

tía ama.then now]

‘When he turned around to her, she had the water.’‘Al volverse vio que había sacado el agua.’

(b) Ama seke warao ja-kotai uju[that.yonder actually Waraobe-REL

nisa-nae.take-PRET]

‘The Warao brought the container.’‘Cogió el mapire, lo llevó ’

(c) A janoko ata konaru-ae.[POSS house to fetch-PRET]‘He fetched it to his house.’

(d) A tida-si mo-ae yama.[POSS woman- give-PRET HEARSAY]‘He gave it to his wife.’‘... y lo entregó a su mujer.’

(27) (a) Moa-kore seke atae dibu-nae:[give-when actually again say-PRET]‘As he gave it, she spoke again.’‘En cuanto se lo dijo ella le volvió a ordenar:

123 Vaquero (1965.123): “Auka: Hijo”.

124 Charette (1980.159) has “turn, v. baria (-n-), (-ete)...”


(b) —Ama iji gúa kaba-kitane125

[now you boat cut-INF



(c) Tamatika mate sanuka-ma waka-u.126

[here still little- wait-IMP.2nd.SG]‘Wait here a little.’‘Espérate aquí un momento ...’

(d) Ine jima127 sama nau-kitía.[I iron.tool come-FUT.IM]‘I’ll go for an axe.’‘... mientras yo voy a buscar el hacha’

(e) Naru-ae yama diana.[walk-PRET HEARSAY now]‘She went off.’‘Ella salió’

(28) (a) Tata-mo jima kon-ae yama.[there-from iron.tool bring-PRET HEARSAY]‘She brought an axe from there.’‘Trajo de allá el hacha ...’

(b) Kona-itane seke a nibora-mamo-se:[bring-GER actually POSS man- give- ]‘Having brought it, she gave it to her husband.’‘... y se la dio al marido diciéndole:’

125 Charette (1980.61: “kabataza ... chop, cut”.

126 Vaquero 1965.75.

127 Charette (1980.52): “hima iron tool”.


(c) —Tamaja omunoko128 ekuya naru.[this footprint inside walk]‘Walk on this path.’‘—Vete por este camino, ...’

(d) Soro-bukomo naru.[look- walk]‘Look where you step.’‘... pero vete fijándote’

(e) Tai babe ja-kotai omunoko awere[that be-REL footprint near


yama.HEARSAY]



(29) (a) Ama seke warao ja-kotai atae[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL again

janoko ata baji-né ama.house to return-PRET now]

‘Because of this, the Warao went home again.”‘En vista de esto el warao se regresó otra ves a casa y...’

(b) Baj-itane seke a tida-si dibu-né[return-GER actually woman- say-PRET

ama:now]

‘On arriving he spoke to his wife.”‘...en llegando, la dijo a su mujer:’

(c) —Ine babe mi-naka-ta-nae.[I see-NEG-be-PRET]

128 Charette 1980.79.


‘I didn’t see any trees like that.’‘No he visto ningún cachicamo.’

(d) Joyo-bitu mi-ae[stone-most see-PRET]‘I saw solid stone things.’‘Los que hay son de pura piedra.’

(30) (a) Ama seke a tida ja-kotai[that.yonder actually POSS woman be-REL

a nibora-ma diboto dibu-naePOSS man- in.front.of say-PRET]

‘But his wife answered her husband.”‘Pero la mujer contestó al marido:’

(b) —No. Tai joyo ana.[no that stone NEG]‘No. That is not stone.”‘—No. Eso no es piedra.’

(c) Tai bisi.129

[that tree]‘That is a (kind of) tree.’‘Es cachicamo rojo.’

(d) Taisi kuare baj-itane 130 kaba-o.[ return-GER cut-IMP.2nd.SG]‘Go back and cut it.’‘Asi que regrésate y a cortar se ha dicho’

(31) (a) Warao ja-kotai baji-nae:[Warao be-REL return-PRET]‘The Warao returned.’‘El Warao se volvió por el mismo camino.’

129 Vaquero (1965.166): “Bisi: Cachicamo (árbol).” Bisi occurs in Waira-Joyo in (57b),where it appears to mean ‘armadillo’, namely, its shell.

130 Charette 1980.144.


(b) —Tai joyo mi-ami tai.[that stone see- that]‘That is the stone I’ve seen.’‘—Esta es la misma piedra que vi antes.’

(c) Ama seke warao jima aji-né[that.yonder actually Waraoiron.tool strike-PRET

ama.now]

‘The Warao struck with the iron tool’‘Comenzó a golpear con el hacha, ...’

(d) Aji-kore seke jima soko-e tane[strike-when actually iron.tool thus

yana.NEG]

‘When he struck, the iron tool did not make a dent.’‘... pero el hacha rebotaba’

(32) (a) Tatuka warao ja-kotai ama seke[there Warao be-REL that.yonder actually

obonobu-ne131 kanamu-nae132 tíathink-GER stand-PRET then

yama.HEARSAY]


(b) Kuare masabukau takore aidamo[and when old

sabuka bojita-nae yama.less -PRET HEARSAY]

‘After a while a not so old person came by.’‘Al poco tiempo acertó a pasar por allí un hombre de

mediana edad.’

131 Charette (1980.78): “obonobuza ... think; memorize”.

132 Charette (1980.62): “kanamuya ... stand; get up.”


(33) (a) Mauka,133 ¿katukaneiji tamatika tía?[son how you here then]‘My son, what are you doing here?’‘—¿Qué haces tú, mi hijo?’

(b) Ama seke warao ja-kotai saba[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL to

wara-nae134 ama:call-PRET now]

‘The Warao answered him.’‘Y el Warao le dijo:’

(c) —Tai bure auka-tida ja-kotai tamaja[that buzzard offspring-womanbe-REL this

bisi kaba-kitane ma kajotabu-ae.tree cut-INF me command-PRET]

‘The daughter of the buzzard ordered me to cut this tree.’‘—Esa hija del gran zamuro me mandó a cortar este

cachicamo.

(d) Ama ine kaba-komoni, ma jima[that.yonder I cut-impossible me iron.tool

ami-naja.-NEG]

‘But I am not able to cut it because my iron tool won’tcut.’

‘Pero me es imposible cortarlo. Mi hacha no entra.’

(34) (a) Ama sike araisa ja-kotai[that.yonder actually another be-REL

dibu-né ama:say-PRET now]

‘The other person spoke.’‘Y el otro le dijo:’

133 “Auka: Hijo” (Vaquero 1965.123).

134 Charette (1980.89): “waraza ... call, name, sing”.


(b) —Ji a jima ma mo.[you POSS iron.tool me give]‘Give me your iron tool.’‘—Entrégameel hacha y ...

(c) Iji kemo soro-nu.[you there look-IMP]‘You look the other way.’‘...ponte mirando para allá.’

(35) (a) Ama seke tai ja-kotai tai bisi[that.yonder actually that be-REL that tree

kab-é ama.cut-PRET now]

‘Then he cut the tree.’‘Aquel hombre cortó el cachicamo en un instante.’

(b) Weru-kore seke, warao ja-kotai atae[ -when actually Warao be-REL again

tata soro-né ama.there look-PRET now]

‘When the tree fell, the Warao looked around.’‘Al caer el árbol el Warao se volvió i mirar.’

(c) Soro-kore seke araisa ja-kotai[look-when actually another be-REL

dibu-nae:say-PRET]

‘When he looked, the other person spoke.’‘Al voltearse, el otro le dijo:’

(d) —¿Katukane ta-te?[how act-FUT.INDEF]‘What are you doing?’‘¿Qué quieres hacer?’

(e) Ama seke warao ja-kotai diboto[that.yonder actually Waraobe-REL in.front.of


dibu-nae:say-PRET]

‘The Warao responded to him.’‘Y el warao le contestó:’

(f) —Ama ma saba gúa kaba-o.[now me for boat cut-IMP.2nd.SG]‘Make a boat for me now.’‘—Ahora cóbame un embarcación.’

(g) Gúa kaba-itane, diana ji a janoko[ cut-GER now you POSS house

nau-turu.come- ]





(36) (a) Warao ja-kotai a janoko ata[Warao be-REL POSS house to

jobi-kitane naru-é ama.drink-INF walk-PRET now]

‘The Warao walked off to his house to get a drink.’‘Y el warao marchó a casa a beber agua.’

(b) Araisa ja-kotai, tai warao nokabuka,135

[another be-REL that Waraobehinddubujida-ja gúa kab-é ama.quick-be boat cut-PRET now]

‘The other person, in the absence of the Warao, quicklymade the boat.’

135 Vaquero 1965.94.


‘El otro, en ausencia del indio, cobó rápidamente lacanoa.’

(c) Warao nabaka-kore, diana tai gúa[Warao arrive-when now that boat

kaba-ya kotai kototuka yiwara-nae136 tíacut-PRES REL finish-PRET then

yama.HEARSAY]



(37) (a) Ama sike warao ja-kotai dibu-nae [that.yonder actually Waraobe-REL say-PRET

yama:HEARSAY]

‘Then the Warao spoke.’‘Entonces el warao le dijo:’

(b) —Ji a janoko ata naru diana.[you POSS house to walk now]‘Go to your house now.’‘—Ahora márchate para tu casa, ...’

(c) Ine arakate tai ma araisa137

[I also that me friendyejebu-kitía.call-FUT.IM]


(38) (a) Yejebu-é yama diana.[call-PRET HEARSAY now]‘He called then.’‘Fue a llamarle y...’

136 Charette (1980.117) has zewaraza with the meaning ‘to finish’.

137 Charette 1980.31.


(b) Yejebu-tane seke isía dibu-nae:[call-GER actually to say-PRET]‘Having called, he spoke to her.’‘... le dijo:’

(c) —Diana ine gúa kaba-yawata-nae.[now I boat cut-finish-PRET]‘I have finished making your boat.’‘—Ya terminé de cobar la canoa.’

(d) Tai kuare seke tatuka waji-moana tatuka[that and actually there there

ja.be]

‘There’s the boat there.’‘Así que allá tienes tu curiarón.’

(39) (a) Ama seke tai bure[that.yonder actually that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai a rima-sioffspring-woman be-REL POSS father-

yejebu-itane naru-í yama.call-GER walk- HEARSAY]

‘Then the daughter of the buzzard went to call her father.’‘Entonces la hija del zamuro fue a avisar a su padre.’

(b) Warao ja-kotai waji-moana awere dijisi-é[Warao be-REL near -PRET

ama.now]

‘The Warao hid near the boat.’‘Entre tanto el warao se escondió muy cerca de la

embarcación.’

(40) (a) Kuare masabukau takore,tai bure kuamana138

[and when that buzzard

138 Compare kua ‘head’ in (16f) and elsewhere.


ja-kotai omunoko ekuya nao-yajabe-REL footprint inside come-as

tía139 yama ...that HEARSAY]

‘After a little, the buzzard was coming down the road.’‘Y al poco tiempo vio que el warao salió sin hacer ruido

por el camino.’

(b) Waji-moana tatuka nabaka-kore,[ there arrive-when

ama seke warao ja-kotaithat.yonder actually Warao be-REL

ekida-bitu tiarone,140 tatuka-bitu-monone-most although there-most-from

ejobo-nae yama.come.out-PRET HEARSAY]



(41) (a) Ama seke Warao ja-kotai bure[that.yonder actually Warao be-REL buzzard

aidamo a kua aji-nae.old POSS head strike-PRET]

‘The Warao struck the head of the buzzard chief.’.’.. y de un hachazo cortó las cabezas al zamuro.’

(b) Aji-tane seke tai warao ja-kotai, uruya[strike-when actually that Waraobe-REL slow

abane141, omunoko ekuya naru-í yama.footprint inside walk-PRETHEARSAY]

‘Having struck him, the Warao quietly walked along thepath.’

139 Vaquero (1965.107): “Anunciativa: Tía: Que”.

140 Vaquero 1965.107.

141 Cf. (4b).


‘Después de cortárselas el warao salió sin hacer ruido porel camino.’

(c) Janoko awere takore tai bure[house near when that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai a nibora-maoffspring-womanbe-REL POSS man-

dibu-nae ama:say-PRET now]

‘When he neared the house, the buzzard chief’s daughterspoke to her husband.’

‘Cuando estaba llegando a la casa la hija del zamuro ledijo al hombre:’

(d) —¿Iji dima mi-naka tane-ra?’[you father see-NEG thus-INTER]‘Have you not seen my father?’‘—¿No has visto a mi padre?’

(42) (a) Ama seke warao ja-kotai a[that.yonder actually Waraobe-REL POSS

tida-si diboto dibu-nae:woman- in.front.of say-PRET]

‘’Then the Warao addressed his wife.’‘Y el warao contestó a la mujer:’

(b) —Ine ji dima mi-naja[I you father see-NEG]‘I have not seen your father.’‘—Pues no he visto a tu padre.’

(c) Ama seke atae tai bure[that.yonder actually again that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai dibu-nae:offspring-woman be-REL say-PRET]

‘Again the daughter of the buzzard chief spoke.’‘Pero la hija del zamuro le dijo:’


(d) —Iji dima na-e.142

[you father kill- PRET ]‘You killed my father.’‘Tú has matado a mi padre.’

(e) Tai kuare dibuidaja-bitutamate143 janoko[and because quick-most here house

atanao-ae.to come-PRET]

‘That is why you have come to the house so quickly.’‘Por eso has venido tan rápidamente a casa.’

(f) Taisi kuare tamatika sanuka ma[ because here little me


‘Wait for me here just a moment.’‘Veremos, espérame aquí un momento.’

(g) Ine waji-moana yata nau-kitía.[I to come-FUT.IM]‘I am going to the boat.’‘Voy a llegarme hasta el bongo.’

(43) (a) Natu-í yama.[go-PRET HEARSAY]‘She left.’‘Salió.’

(b) Nau-kore seke a rima wab-ae[come-when actually POSS father die-PRET

ja mi-ae yama.be see-PRET HEARSAY]

‘When she got there, she saw that her father was dead.’‘Cuando llegó allá encontró a su padre muerto.’

142 Charette (1980.127): “naza kill one person or thing, v.”.

143 Vaquero 1965.179.


(c) Dibu-naka-bitu atae dibuida-ja baji-né[say-NEG-most again quick-be return-PRET

ama.now]

‘Saying nothing, she quickly returned.’‘Sin decir una palabra emprendiórápidamente el regreso.’








(45) (a) Nanaka-ya-kore seke ayamosoro-nae.[descend-PRES-when actually back look-PRET]‘While he was descending, he looked back.’‘Mientras bajaba miró para atrás.’

(b) Ayamo soro-kore seke mate bure [back look-whenactually still buzzard

auka-tida ekida yama.offspring-woman none HEARSAY]

‘Looking back, there was still no sight of the buzzard’sdaughter.’

‘Todavía ne venía la hija del zamuro.’

(c) Ama sike warao ja-kotai, [that.yonder actually Warao be-REL


dubuida-ja nanaka-itane,dauna kawana-yaquick-be descend-GER forest among-PRES

weba-bitu tutata-né yama.far-most -PRET HEARSAY]

‘As the Warao was descending rapidly, he fell into theforest.’

‘Entonces el warao, acelerando a toda marcha la caída,vino a caer lejísimos, en medio de la selva.’

(46) (a) Ama sike tai bure[that.yonder actually that buzzard

auka-tida ja-kotai warao eyamo144

offspring-womanbe-REL Warao behinddubuida-ja nanaka-ya tiji 145

quick-be descend-PRES becausedaima-ja-bitu nanaka-nae yama.

-be-most descend-PRET HEARSAY]‘Because the daughter of the buzzard was quickly

descending behind the Warao, she came down like anarrow.’

‘La hija del zamuro que bajaba como una flecha le veníamordiendo los talones.’




(48) (a) —Yakarata-yaja iji mebe dubuida-ja[ -as you quick-be

nanaka-nae.descend-PRET]

‘ ... you descended rapidly.’‘—Gracias a que te lanzaste rápidamente antes que yo.’

144 Vaquero 1965.101.

145 Vaquero 1965.107.


(b) Ine tai kuare ji na-naja.[I that because you kill- NEG]‘That’s why I didn’t kill you.’‘Esto te ha librado de la muerte.’

(49) (a) Ma sinoto tamatema kuai ma-nu.[me shirt here me above -IMP.2nd.SG]‘Throw me my shirt up to me.’‘—Arrójame aquíarriba me chaleco.’

(b) Ama oko tamatika-mo yatu waba-ja[now we here-from you die-be

mi-kore, oko yatu najoro-nesee-when we you eat-PRET

ja-tebe-FUT.INDEF]



(50) (a) Tai kuare seke bure ja-kotai, oko[that because actually buzzard be-REL we

waba-ja ka mi-kore, ka najoro-yadie-be us see-when we eat-PRES

ja-kotai.be-REL]

‘That is why the buzzards eat us, when they find us dead.’‘Por eso los zamuros. cuando ven algún cadáver nuestro

los devoran.’

(b) A kúa.[POSS end]‘The end.’‘Fin.’

[Version: November 29, 2008]

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Chapter 18 TOPIC in Warao

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