Discourse functions of demonstratives in Eastern Bantu narrative texts

Abstract

Demonstratives are an important feature of many eastern Bantu narrative texts. In addition to a basic tracking use, in which demonstratives are used to refer to different participants in a narrative, at least four additional functions can be identified: specifying the activation status (activated vs. reactivated) of major participants; distinguishing participants with agent semantic roles from those with non-agent semantic roles; distinguishing different kinds of participants and different episodes; and marking key thematic developments. These functions are described for 10 eastern Bantu languages based on analyses of original (i.e. non-translated) narrative texts.