Speaking\u00a0in a rapid manner, the supplicant invokes the spirit of the ancestors and the patron saint of San Juan Quiahije, Saint John the Baptist, to intercede on behalf of the younger generation. The prayer achieves its resonance through extensive use of repetition, refrains, parallelism, and formulaic expressions (H. Cruz 2014).<\/p>\n
Members of the community hold prayers such as this to be beautiful and powerful statements of their survival. Their\u00a0beauty lies in the juxtaposition of simple but profound concepts. Line 2, for instance, is a crescendo that lists the life accomplishments of the ancestors: no4<\/sup>\u00a0yqu2<\/sup>, no4<\/sup>\u00a0ylu3<\/sup>, no4<\/sup>\u00a0nsuq3<\/sup>, no4<\/sup>\u00a0nsen42<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0\u2018those who survived, those who thrived, those who matured, those who multiplied.\u2019 These words\u00a0express the ancestors\u2019 successful completion of\u00a0the different stages of their lives starting with surviving childhood, growing and thriving, then maturing, and ultimately multiplying. Because mortality rates were very high in SJQ before the introduction of modern medicine, the passage through these different stages of life was not a given,\u00a0and thus celebrated.<\/p>\n Zurita\u2019s prayer also shows two types of parallelism, one occurring within adjacent lines and another across verse lines. Line\u00a03, for example, illustrates the use of a repeated grammatical structure within a line:\u00a0No4<\/sup>\u00a0ya42<\/sup>\u00a0tykwi4<\/sup>, no4<\/sup>\u00a0ya42<\/sup>\u00a0nyi4<\/sup>, no4<\/sup>\u00a0ya42<\/sup>\u00a0ykwa4<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0\u2018Those who lived entirely, those who lived a righteous life, those who lived evenly\u2019. Each of these phrases reinforces an aspect of the community’s standards for living a virtuous life.<\/p>\n Examples 2 and 4 illustrate parallelism across non-adjacent lines. Line 4—Sa4<\/sup>-kwa20<\/sup>\u00a0nya14<\/sup>\u00a0kqu0<\/sup>, sa4<\/sup>-kwa20<\/sup>\u00a0nya14<\/sup>\u00a0klu0<\/sup>, sa4<\/sup>-kwa20<\/sup>\u00a0nya14<\/sup>\u00a0ksuq0<\/sup>, sa4<\/sup>-kwa20<\/sup>\u00a0nya14<\/sup>\u00a0kxin0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0\u2018So too may they survive, so too may they thrive, so too may they mature, so too may they multiply.\u2019—echoes Line 2, but differs in aspect. Line 2 refers to past generations and is inflected in the completive aspect. Line 4, on the other hand, is inflected in the potential aspect and refers to the new generation.<\/p>\n Formulaic expressions are pervasive in this text and they involve combinations of various grammatical categories (e.g., noun phrases: qyu1<\/sup> kla24<\/sup><\/i>\/qan1<\/sup> kla24<\/sup><\/i> \u2018old man\/old woman\u2019 in line 1 and verb phrases: sqwa20<\/sup> yaq1<\/sup><\/i>\/sqwa20<\/sup> skon1<\/sup><\/i> \u2018give a hand\/ give an arm\u2019 in line 8). Formulas are used to economize words but still convey human abstractions, emotions, and observations poignantly and memorably. Many of the formulaic expressions also evoke a third meaning, which is described by Garibay (1953) as difrasismo<\/i>. Employing a formulaic expression containing two verbs of position in line 4,\u00a0tyi20<\/sup> ton10<\/sup><\/i> \u2018to stand\u2019 and tyi20<\/sup> kqan24<\/sup><\/i> \u2018to sit (on the ground)\u2019, the orator expresses the wish\u00a0that the new generation will become a powerful force for their families and their community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Speaking\u00a0in a rapid manner, the supplicant invokes the spirit of the ancestors and the patron saint of San Juan Quiahije, Saint John the Baptist, to intercede on behalf of the younger generation. The prayer achieves its resonance through extensive use of repetition, refrains, parallelism, and formulaic expressions (H. Cruz 2014). Members of the community hold … Continue reading Rhetorical elements<\/span>