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The article discusses the strategies of resolving a referential conflict in a traditional narrative in Mwan (< South Mande < Mande < Niger-Congo), as well as the means used for this purpose. It considers anaphoric means which encode an already mentioned NP; the choice of these means depending on the properties of the referent of within the discourse. It is shown that the main strategy of avoiding a referential conflict in Mwan is the following: every character (or a group of characters) which acts in a particular narrative is sequentially marked by anaphoric means of one type only (personal or contrastive-demonstrative pronouns). Personal pronouns mark the central participants which are in the focus of attention, while contrastive-demonstratives mark the participants of the second plan. A hierarchy of anaphoric marking is proposed: the antecedent, when repeated, is encoded by a “more focused” anaphoric means, when its referent: 1) is in the focus of attention and is central to the discourse; 2) is a plot engine; 3) is more “animated’; 4) has a higher social status; 5) possesses a greater physical strength or size. |
