Cover not available
Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 44:2 (2020) ► pp.461–499

Reported speech in earthquake narratives from six Tibeto-Burman languages

ORCID logo | La Trobe University
| Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

This paper is an analysis of the use of reported speech in six Tibeto-Burman languages from two closely-related sub-branches (Tamangic and Tibetic). The data come from a set of interview narratives about people’s experiences of the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal. The analysis begins with an examination of the relationship between reported speech, overt subjects and ergativity. We also look at reported speech and evidentiality, including grammatical reported speech evidentials. Structural features discussed include hybrid reported speech and multiple clause relationality. Interactional features discussed include the use of deictic shift, prominent subordination, and the multiple functions of reported speech forms, as well as zero-marked reported speech events. This analysis highlights the benefits of studying linguistic features such as reported speech in narrative context. We conclude with the implications of this usage-based analysis in the coverage of reported speech in descriptive grammars.

Keywords: reported speech, grammar, syntax, pragmatics, evidentiality, Tibeto-Burman
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Corpora and methods
  • 4.Overt subjects, ergativity, and the relevance to reported speech in Tibeto-Burman languages
  • 5.Structural features of reported speech
    • 5.1Reported speech as part of the evidential system
      • 5.1.1Reported evidential particle
      • 5.1.2Reported speech, evidence, access to information
      • 5.1.3Evidential and modal effects of lexical reported speech
    • 5.2Hybrid reported speech
    • 5.3Multiple clause relationality
    • 5.4Structural features of reported speech: A summary
  • 6.Pragmatic and interactional features of reported speech
    • 6.1Deictic shift
    • 6.2Prominent information
    • 6.3Polyfunctionality
      • 6.3.1Semantic functions
      • 6.3.2Grammatical functions
      • 6.3.3Summary of polyfunctionality
    • 6.4Zero-marked reported speech
    • 6.5Pragmatic and interactional features of reported speech: A summary
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 10 June 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.18028.gaw
References
Adhikari, Sujan Raj, Gopi Baysal, Amod Dixit, Stacey S. Martin, Mattieu Landes, Remy Bossu, & Susan E. Hough
2017 Toward a unified near-field intensity map of the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake. Earthquake Spectra 33(S1). S21–S34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
2004 Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2018 Evidentiality: The Basics. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (ed.), The Oxford handbook of evidentiality, 1–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ameka, Felix K.
2004 Grammar and cultural practices: The grammaticalization of triadic communication in West African languages. Journal of West African Languages 30(2). 5–28.Google Scholar
Banfield, Anne
1973 Narrative style and the grammar of direct and indirect speech. Foundations of Language 10(1). 1–39.Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar
2003 Referential density in discourse and syntactic typology. Language 79(4). 708–736. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar, Bernard Comrie & Martin Haspelmath
2008 The Leipzig Glossing Rules: Conventions for interlinear morpheme by morpheme glosses. [URL] (Last access: 6 February 2020)
Bond, Oliver, Kristine Hildebrandt & Dubi N. Dhakal
2015 Conditions on differential ergative case marking. Poster presented at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, OR, January 8–11, 2015.
Bond, Oliver & Kristine Hildebrandt
2013 Optional ergative case marking: what can be expressed by its absence? Paper presented at the 10th biennial Meeting of Association for Linguistic Typology, Leipzig, August 15–18, 2013.
Buchstaller, Isabelle
2014 Quotatives: New trends and sociolinguistic implications. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chappel, Hilary
2012 Say in Sinitic: from Verba Dicendi to attitudinal discourse markers. In Johan van der Auwera & Jan Nuyts (eds.), Grammaticalization and (inter-)subjectification, 81–110. Wetteren: Universa Press.Google Scholar
Chelliah, Shobhana & Gwendolyn Hyslop
2011 Introduction to special issue on optional case marking in Tibeto-Burman. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 34(2). 1–7.Google Scholar
Childs, Geoff, Sienna Craig, Duni Nanda Dhakal, Mark Donohue & Kristine Hildebrandt
2017 Narrating disaster through participatory research: Perspectives from post-earthquake Nepal. Collaborative Anthropologies 10(1). 207-236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
D’Arcy, Alexandra
2015 Quotation and advances in understanding syntactic systems. Annual Review of Linguistics 1(1). 43–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, Scott
1991 Ergativity and the cognitive model of event structure in Lhasa Tibetan. Cognitive Linguistics 1(3). 289–322. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Relativization and nominalization in Bodic. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 28(2). 55–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 Evidentiality in Tibetic. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (ed.), The Oxford handbook of evidentiality, 580–594. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deutscher, Guy
2011 The grammaticalization of quotatives. In Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog (eds.), The Oxford handbook of grammaticalization, 646–655. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dhakal, Dubi Nanda
2018 A Nubri lexicon. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Ding, Picus
2014 A grammar of Prinmi. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donohue, Mark & Dubi Nanda Dhakal
2016 A Tsum lexicon. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Eckhardt, Regine
2012 Particles as speaker indexicals in free indirect discourse. Sprache und Datenverarbeitung 35–361. 99–109.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas
2012 Some problems in the typology of quotation: a canonical approach. In Dunstan Brown, Marina Chumakina & Greville G. Corbett (eds.), Canonical morphology and syntax, 66–98. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Floyd, Simeon, Elisabeth Norcliffe & Lila San Roque
2018 Egophoricity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Edward
2001 Evidentiality and assertion in Tibetan. Los Angeles: University of. California Los Angeles PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Gawne, Lauren
(collector) 2009  Kagate (Nepal) (SUY1). Digital collection managed by PARADISEC [Open Access]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Lamjung Yolmo copulas in use: evidentiality, reported speech and questions. Melbourne: The University of Melbourne PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
2015 The reported speech evidential particle in Lamjung Yolmo. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 38(2). 292–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016a A sketch grammar of Lamjung Yolmo. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
2016b Reported speech evidentiality in Tibeto-Burman languages. Paper presented at the Workshop on Typological Profiles of Language Families of South Asia. Uppsala: September 15–16, 2016.
Gawne, Lauren, Barbara F. Kelly, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker & Tyler Heston
2017 Putting practice into words: The state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions. Language Documentation & Conservation 111: 157–189.Google Scholar
Gawne, Lauren & Kristine A. Hildebrandt
2017 Reported speech evidentiality in corpora of earthquake narratives in Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal. Paper presented at the Association for Linguistic Typology 12, Canberra, December 11–15, 2017.
Gawne, Lauren. & Nathan W. Hill
(eds.) 2017 Evidential systems of Tibetan languages. Berlin/Boston: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genetti, Carol
2005 The participial construction of Dolakhā Newar: syntactic implications of an Asian converb. Studies in Language 29(1). 35–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 A grammar of Dolakha Newar. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 The tapestry of Dolakha Newar: Chaining, embedding, and the complexity of sentences. Linguistic Typology 15(1): 5–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Güldemann, Tom
2008 Quotative indexes in African languages: A synchronic and diachronic survey. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K.
1985 An introduction to functional grammar. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hari, Anna Maria
2010 Yohlmo Sketch Grammar. Kathmandu: Ekta books.Google Scholar
Haßler, Gerda
2002 Evidentiality and reported speech in Romance languages. In: Tom Güldemann & Manfred von Roncador (eds.), Reported discourse: A meeting ground for different linguistic domains, 143–172. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees
1989 Layers and operators in functional grammar. Journal of Linguistics 251. 127–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hildebrandt, Kristine A.
2004 A grammar and glossary of the Manange language. In Carol Genetti (ed.), Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal: Manange and Sherpa, 1–192. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Hildebrandt, Kristine A. & Oliver Bond
2017 Manange. In Randy J. LaPolla & Graham Thurgood (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages (2nd edn), 516–533. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hildebrandt, Kristine A., Tanner Burge-Beckley, & Jacob Sebok
2019 Language documentation in the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: A guide to two archives and a web exhibit. Language Documentation & Conservation 131. 618–651.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott
2003 Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hyland, Ken
2012 Genre and discourse analysis in language for specific purposes. The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Wiley. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume
2016 Complementation in Japhug. Linguistics of the Tibeto Burman Area 39(2). 222–281. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
LaPolla, Randy J.
1995 “Ergative” marking in Tibeto-Burman. In Yoshio Nishi, James A. Matisoff & Yasuhiko Nagano (eds.), New horizons in Tibeto-Burman morphosyntax, 189–228. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar
Lausberg, Hedda & Hans Sloetjes
2009 Coding gestural behavior with the NEUROGES-ELAN system. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 41(3). 841–849. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Charles N.
1986 Direct and indirect speech: A functional study. In Florian Coulmas (ed.), Direct and indirect speech, 29–45. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lyons, John
1968 Theoretical linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maier, Emar
2015 Quotation and unquotation in free indirect discourse. Mind & Language 30(3). 345–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mathis, Terrie & George Yule
1994 Zero quotatives. Discourse Processes 18(1). 63–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mazaudon, Martine
2017 Tamang. In Randy J. LaPolla & Graham Thurgood (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages (2nd edn), 468–493. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McGregor, William B.
1994 The grammar of reported speech and thought in Gooniyandi. Australian Journal of Linguistics 14(1). 63–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 Semiotic grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
2008 Complementation as interpersonal grammar. WORD 59(1–2). 25–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Optional ergative case marking systems in a typological-semiotic perspective. Lingua 1201. 1610–1636. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Michael, Lev
2012 Nanti self-quotation: Implications for the pragmatics of reported speech and evidentiality. Pragmatics and Society 3(2). 321–357. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mushin, Ilana
2001 Evidentiality and epistemological stance: Narrative retelling. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nikitina, Tatiana
2012 Personal deixis and reported discourse: towards a typology of person alignment. Linguistic Typology. 16(2). 233–263.Google Scholar
Noonan, Michael
2006 Grammar writing for a grammar-reading audience. Studies in Language 30(2). 351–365. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Nominalization in Bodic languages. In María José Lópes-Couso & Elena Seoane (eds.), Rethinking grammaticalization: New perspectives, 219–273. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noonan, Michael & Kristine A. Hildebrandt
2017 Nar-Phu. In Randy J. LaPolla & Graham Thurgood (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages (2nd edn), 534–556. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, Thomas
2014 Grammatical relations in Tamang, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal. London: SOAS PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Prakash, Rajesh, Ravi Kant Singh & H. N. Srivastava
2016 Nepal earthquake 25 April 2015: source parameters, precursory pattern and hazard assessment. Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk 7(6). 1769–1784. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reesink, Ger P.
1993 “Inner speech” in Papuan languages. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 241. 217–25.Google Scholar
Rumsey, Alan
1982 An intra-sentence grammar of Ungarinjin, North-Western Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
2010 ‘Optional’ ergativity and the framing of reported speech. Lingua 120(7). 1652–1676. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
San Roque, Lila & Robin Loughnane
2012 The New Guinea Highlands evidentiality area. Linguistic Typology 161. 111–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saxena, Anju
1988 On syntactic convergence: the case of the verb “say” in Tibeto-Burman. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1988), 375–388. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
SIL International & HIS Nepal
(eds.) 2016 Syuba – Nepali – English dictionary. Kathmandu: SIL International and HIS Nepal.Google Scholar
So-Hartmann, Helga
2009 A descriptive grammar of Daai Chin. Berkeley: University of California PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Spronck, Stef
2016 Evidential fictive interaction (in Ungarinyin and Russian). In Esther Pascual & Sergeiy Sandler (eds.), The conversation frame: Forms and functions of fictive interaction, 255–275. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 Defenestration: Deconstructing the frame-in relation in Ungarinyin. Journal of Pragmatics 1141. 104–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tournadre, Nicolas
1996 L’Ergativite en tibetain: approche morphosyntaxique de la langue parlee. Paris: Peeters.Google Scholar
2008 Arguments against the concept of ‘conjunct’/‘disjunct’ in Tibetan. In Brigitte Huber, Marianne Volkart, Paul Widmer & Peter Schwieger (eds.), Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek, Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier, 281–308. Saale: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies.Google Scholar
2014 The Tibetic languages and their classification. In Thomas Owen-Smith & Nathan W. Hill (eds.), Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area, 105–130. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2017 A typological sketch of evidential/epistemic categories in the Tibetic languages. In Lauren Gawne & Nathan W. Hill (eds.), Evidential systems of Tibetan languages, 95–130. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tournadre, Nicolas & Randy J. LaPolla
2014 Towards a new approach to evidentiality: Issues and directions for research. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 37(2). 240–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vandelanotte, Lieven
2004 Deixis and grounding in speech and thought representation. Journal of Pragmatics 36(3). 489–520. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe
2011 The functions of represented speech and thought in Umpithamu narratives. Australian Journal of Linguistics 31(4). 491–517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Voort, Hein van der
2002 The quotative construction in Kwaza and its (de-) grammaticalisation. In Mily Crevels, Simon van de Kerke, Sérgio Meira & Hein van der Voort (eds.), Current studies on South American languages. Indigenous languages of Latin America 31, 307–328. Leiden: Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies (CNWS).Google Scholar
Webster, Jeff
1992 A socio-linguistic survey of the Tibeto-Burman dialects of North Gorkha District, Nepal. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Widmer, Manuel
2014 A descriptive grammar of Bunan. Bern: University of Bern PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Willett, Thomas
1988 ‘A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticization of evidentiality.’ Studies in Language 121. 51–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zemp, Marius
2017 Evidentiality in Purik Tibetan. In Lauren Gawne & Nathan W. Hill (eds.), Evidential systems of Tibetan languages, 261–296. Berlin: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Chelliah, Shobhana L.
2021. Reasons for Endangerment. In Why Language Documentation Matters [SpringerBriefs in Linguistics, ], ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
Suzuki, Hiroyuki & Sonam Wangmo
2021. Hearsay evidential marking strategy in Lhagang Tibetan. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 44:2 ► pp. 141 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.