A STORYLINE ANALYSIS IN IU-MIENH NARRATIVE DISCOURSE WITH SOME INSIGHTS FROM COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN LINGUISTICS.

ABSTRACT
Storyline is a foregrounded main line of development in narrative discourse.
Longacre’s textlinguistics storyline analysis distinguishes a storyline verb that is marked by the preterite tense from supporting materials coded with other tense-aspect-modality such as imperfect, progressive, modals, irrealis, etc.  Among
these he recognizes a cline of ranking from most dynamic to most static (1981, 1996, 2003a).  In applying his theory to Iu-Mienh narrative discourse, two issues arise: 1) the advantage of a verb ranking/salience scheme approach which is
compatible with prototype analysis from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective (Taylor 2003), as opposed to the binary approach of foreground-background (Hopper 1979), and 2) the problem of strong dependence on verb morphology which Iu-Mienh lacks totally as does Thai in identifying storyline (Somsonge 1990b. 1991a).  What possible alternatives can Cognitive Linguistics suggest to such a situation?

Starting with a storyline analysis and salience scheme analysis based on seven Iu-Mienh narrative discourses within the framework of Longacre’s textlinguistics, this thesis shows first a prototype effect, or gradient relation, not only in the
supportive materials but also inside each band.  The storyline verb in Iu-Mienh is unmarked, used 1) by itself, 2) with post verb aspectual verbs, or 3) in serial verb constructions (SVCs) and topic chains.  The pivotal storyline is recognized as a
band of grounding elements mi’aqv ‘resultative aspectual marker,’ aqv ‘perfective aspectual marker’ and an adverb za’gengh ‘really, indeed, actually.’  Second, following Somsonge’s (2002) non-verb-morphology dependent storyline analysis,
transitivity and sequentiality as the major factors of storyline are analyzed, using Langacker’s billiard-ball model (1991b) and updating (i.e. increasing) Current Discourse Space (CDS) model (2001).  From a Cognitive Linguistics perspective,
storyline is foregrounded to the perception of the conceptualizer by two factors: 1) as a result of the transitivity of energy and event in a clause or sentence composed of SVCs and topic chains, and 2) as a result of sequentiality expressed by the sequential marker ziouc ‘then, so, and,’ the conjunction cingx_daaih ‘therefore,’ the topic marker aeqv ‘as for,’ and adverbial clause containing liuz ‘after doing…’ or  gau ‘after which.’

To identify storyline, Cognitive Linguistics analyzes conceptual structures of transitivity and sequentiality, which result in foregroundedness to human perception. Storyline is an epistemological outcome of transitivity and sequentiality.