Chapter 169Glossed Openings from Abuta and Horobetsu Verse
Four-tier excerpts comparing fourth-person and exclusive-plural narration, with source line boundaries and metrical material explained.
169.1 Two narrative voices in verse
These openings illustrate different person forms used by singular narrators. The first comes from Satō's edition of an Abuta yukar told by 遠島タネランケ and recorded by Sarashina Genzō. Its speaker is the land-making deity, mosirkarkamuy, an unusual protagonist compared with the familiar poyyaunpe hero Satō (2009: §3 introduction; 10, §3.1). The second is from Chiri Yukie's divine-tale collection, quoted and discussed by Nakagawa Nakagawa (2024: 603, example 1308).
Slashes in the source tiers mark printed verse-line boundaries. The segmentation and English glosses are added here. A verse line can divide a phrase; it does not necessarily end a clause.
169.2 An Abuta opening
aynu kotan / a-kar kusu / u kanto oro wa / u rap-an ki wa / nupuri ka ta / okay-an ki wa / mosir kurka / kotan kurka / a-uwanpare
‘To create a human village, I descended from heaven, stayed on a mountain, and looked intently over the land and village.’
Satō 2009: 10; Abuta, §3.1, lines 2–10; Sarashina recording 897352
The source's hyphenated person forms use equals signs in the segmented tier. METR identifies the inserted u sounds discussed by Satō; ki retains the gloss do.
The narrator uses a= on transitive kar and uwanpare, and =an on intransitive predicates. The plural stems rap and okay have singular narrative reference; Satō explicitly leaves the singular-reference use of okay as a problem for further study Satō (2009: 2, note 3; 10).
Satō identifies the two u sounds as inserted material without lexical meaning. His note on the final verb compares Kubodera's uwampare, watching without looking away Satō (2009: 25, notes on lines 4–5 and 10).
169.3 A marsh-dwelling narrator
sineanto ta / sirpirka kusu / ci=kor nitat or ta / ci=sikihi newa / ci=paroho patek / ci=etukka wa / inkar=as kane / okay=as awa
‘One fine day, in my marsh, I had only my eyes and mouth sticking out and was looking around, when…’
Nakagawa 2024: 603; Horobetsu, Example 1308, through Chiri Yukie 1923:76, fifth tale
The source tier follows Nakagawa's quotation of Chiri. This opening excerpt ends in a connective; the story continues.
Here ci= and =as belong to the exclusive first-person plural series, although the story's speaker is singular. Nakagawa contrasts the collection's consistent narrative use of these forms with mixtures found in other Horobetsu and Bihoro materials Nakagawa (2024: 603–604). The two excerpts therefore illustrate conventions of particular performances and collections, rather than one person pattern imposed by verse.
169.4 Grammar across verse lines
In both passages, person forms and verb number require interpretation within the narrative convention. Possessed spatial nouns and connectives organize phrases that continue across printed lines. For the person analyses, see Chapter 150 (Narrative Person and Reported Speech); for metrical material and line structure, see Chapter 153 (Poetic and Elevated Language) and Chapter 151 (Sakehe, Refrains, and Verse Structure).