Generating Narratives: Interrelations of Knowledge, Text Variants, and Cushitic Focus Strategies

Description

Part I Introduction and background Section A Guides for the reader 1. Introduction 2. A survey of the study 3. Symbols and abbreviations 4. On reading the text charts Section B Background of the study 1. Acknowledgments to those who provided language data 2. The context of this study 3. Brief notes on the language areas and the ethnic groups 4. Gada and the Gedeo way of life today 5. Linguistic descriptions of the three Highland East Cushitic languages 6. The classification of Sidamo, Gedeo and Burji Section C Typological characteristics 1. Phonological characteristics 2. Morphophonemic characteristics 3. Morphological characteristics 4. Morpho-syntactic strategies 5. Noun phrases in text and syntax 6. An introduction to complex structures 7. A sample grammar of two complex sentences (Gedeo) 8. Representation of complex structures 9. Representation of text scores with transitions Section D Perspectives on discourse and text generation 1. The functional grammar model of Simon Dik 2. Text generation 3. Analysis of discourses of the narrative genre 4. Psychology of sentence production Section E The present approach 1. Comparison of models 2. The components of narratives 3. The pragmatic notions “theme, topic, focus” and “coda” Part II Gedeo narratives Section A Gedeo Text A: “A Story of Hyenas” 1. The worlds of texts as exemplified in text A 2. Steps in the production of text A 3. Text rules: The “Semantic Frames Roster” of text A 4. The complete “Semantic Frames Roster” of text A with signals 5. The “Hyena” narrative in four surface versions 6. Generating different surface forms for the “same” text Section B Gedeo Text B: “Nine Hyenas and One Lion” 1. Remarks on text B 2. Notes on the lexicon of text B 3. Generating text B 4. The charts of text B 5. Actual surface form of text B 6. Hesitation patterns and notional units in text B Section C Gedeo-texts C1, C2 and C3: “A House on Fire” 1. Remarks on texts C1, C2, and C3 2. Generating texts C1, C2, and C3: A note on functors 3. Text rules of texts C1, C2 and C3 4. On the charts of text texts C1, C2 and C3 5. The actual surface forms of texts C1, C2 and C3 Part III Burji narratives Section A Burji Text A: “Jackal and Hyena” 1. Overall pattern and script of Burji Text A 2. The lexicon of Burji Text A 3. Designing the story time-line 4. Remarks on the charts of Burji Text A 5. The actual surface form of Burji Text A 6. Comparison of oral and written versions Section B Burji Text B: “A Journey to Debre Zeyt” 1. Remarks on Burji Text B 2. Lexicon of Burji Text B 3. The “Semantic Frames Roster” of Burji Text B 4. Chart for generating the surface form of text B 5. Chart: The actual surface form of Burji Text B Section C Burji Text C: “Origin and Migrations of the Burji People” 1. Remarks about Burji Text C 2. Lexical list of Burji Text C 3. The semantic frames roster of Burji Text C 4. Developing the surface form of Burji Text C 5. The actual surface form of Burji Text C Part IV Sidamo narratives Section A Sidamo Text A: “The Girl Arfu” 1. General remarks about Sidamo Text A 2. Word list, Sidamo Text A 3. Remarks on the semantic frames roster of Sidamo Text A 4. The charts of Sidamo Text A 5. The actual surface form of Sidamo Text A Section B Sidamo Text B: “The Animal which was Beaten” 1. Remarks on Sidamo Text B 2. Word List: Sidamo Text B 3. Scenes and participants of Sidamo Text B 4. The time-line of Sidamo Text B 5. The actual surface form of Sidamo Text B Part V Comparisons and summary Section A Typological traits of Gedeo, Burji and Sidamo 1. Comparisons of syntax and text strategies 2. Comparisons of morphology and text frequencies Section B The present model of text generation 1. Modifications of the “functional grammar” model 2. Speakers’ strategies and the presentation of texts Section C Text dimensions: identification and predication 1. Text dimensions 2. Identification of participants: maintaining and highlighting 3. Predications and their relations to each other Section D Qualities and overall structures of the narratives 1. Stylistic and representative qualities of narratives 2. Overall structures of narratives Appendix Swadesh/Bender wordlist Notes References Index