Article in:
Studies in Language
Vol. 46:2 (2022) ► pp. 402–452

SAY-complementizers and indexical shift in Poshkart Chuvash

With emphasis on communicative reception reports

| Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences | National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia
Although SAY-complementizers have been extensively documented, the question of the forms used in this function and their specific properties has received less attention. The paper focuses on the complementizer tenine (an action nominalization of SAY), which is used with communicative reception verbs (‘hear’, ‘read’, etc.), in a dialect of Chuvash (Turkic). The main puzzle concerns the difference between tenine and the more general complementizer teze (the same-subject converb of SAY) with respect to the controller of shifted first person (namely, teze, but not tenine, disallows non-subject controllers). An account of this restriction based on three independent language-specific constraints is offered. An alternative account is discussed whereby tenine (and teze) are synchronically non-finite forms of SAY. The findings highlight the importance of the form of the complementizer as well as of the choice of controller for shifted 1st person in SAY-based complementation and extend the typological parameters of indexical shift.
Keywords: Chuvash, Turkic, SAY-complementizers, verbs of hearing, speech reports, indexical shift, logophoricity, action nominalizations
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.SAY-complementizers in Poshkart Chuvash
    • 2.1Poshkart Chuvash
    • 2.2(Participle-based) nominalized clauses
    • 2.3The lexical (contentful) verb te ‘say’
    • 2.4Clauses headed by teze
    • 2.5Clauses headed by (action) nominalizations of te ‘say’
      • 2.5.1Clauses headed by tenine
      • 2.5.2Clauses headed by teni
      • 2.5.3Nominalizations of te ‘say’ in other cases
    • 2.6Participles of te ‘say’
  • 3.Indexical shift in Poshkart Chuvash
    • 3.1Some general discussion of indexical shift
    • 3.2Parameters of indexical shift in Poshkart Chuvash
      • 3.2.1Which indexicals shift
      • 3.2.2Which verbs and complement types allow shifting
      • 3.2.3Optionality of shift
  • 4.The puzzle: Shifted first person in communicative reception reports
    • 4.1Introducing the puzzle
    • 4.2The choice of controller for shifted 1st person
  • 5.An alternative: Syntactic decomposition of SAY-complementizers
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 14 September 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.19078.kny
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