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Studies in Language
Vol. 41:1 (2017) ► pp.33–75

The epistemization of person markers in reported speech

| University of Zurich |
| University of Bern |

Egophoricity is a cross-linguistically rare grammatical phenomenon. While numerous descriptive studies have substantially improved our synchronic understanding of the category in recent years, we are still largely ignorant of the diachronic origins of egophoricity systems. In this article, we address this gap and discuss a diachronic process that transforms person agreement markers into egophoricity markers. Based on evidence from three Tibeto-Burman languages, we reconstruct the diachronic transformation and argue that the process starts out in reported speech clauses once the direct construal of the predicate is generalized. This generalization allows for the functional reanalysis of first and third person markers as egophoric and allophoric markers, while second person markers become functionally obsolete. Once person markers have undergone an epistemization in reported speech clauses, the innovative epistemic system is extended to simple declarative and interrogative clauses, where it gradually replaces the conservative person agreement system.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Preliminaries
    • 2.1Terminology
    • 2.2Defining egophoricity
    • 2.3Reported speech and deixis
  • 3.Person marking and epistemic marking in Bunan
    • 3.1An overview of the Bunan verbal system
    • 3.2The egophoricity system in the present tense
    • 3.3The second person forms
    • 3.4Diachronic considerations
  • 4.Comparative perspective
    • 4.1Dolakha Newar
    • 4.2Sunwar
  • 5.Reported speech constructions and the epistemization of person markers
    • 5.1Hybrid reported speech
    • 5.2The epistemization of person markers
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1The narrowing of the egophoric domain
    • 6.2The extension of epistemic marking
    • 6.3The loss of second person markers
    • 6.4Other possible starting point for the process
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 1 June 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.41.1.02wid
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