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Part of
Egophoricity
Edited by Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe and Lila San Roque
[Typological Studies in Language 118] 2018
► pp. 437–471

Chapter 14
Learning how to know

Egophoricity and the grammar of Kaluli (Bosavi, Trans New Guinea), with special reference to child language

| Radboud University
| New York University

Languages with egophoric systems require their users to pay special attention to who knows what in the speech situation, providing formal marking of whether the speaker or addressee has personal knowledge of the event being discussed. Such systems have only recently come to be studied in cross-linguistic perspective. This chapter has two aims in regard to contributing to our understanding of egophoric marking. Firstly, it presents relevant data from a relatively under-described and endangered language, Kaluli (aka Bosavi), spoken in Papua New Guinea. Unusually, Kaluli tense inflections appear to show a mix of both egophoric and first vs non-first person-marking features, as well as other contrasts that are broadly relevant to a typology of egophoricity, such as special constructions for the expression of involuntary experience. Secondly, the chapter makes a preliminary foray into issues concerning egophoric marking and child language, drawing on a naturalistic corpus of child-caregiver interactions. Questions for future investigation raised by the Kaluli data concern, for example, the potentially challenging nature of mastering inflections that are sensitive to both person and speech act type, the possible role of question-answer pairs in children’s acquisition of egophoric morphology, and whether there are special features of epistemic access and authority that relate particularly to child-adult interactions.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background on the Kaluli language and data sources
  • 3.Verbal inflections and egophoric patterns
    • 3.1Present
      • 3.1.1Basic distribution
      • 3.1.2Examples from child-adult interactions: Present
    • 3.2Future
      • 3.2.1Basic distribution of the future inflections
      • 3.2.2Examples from child-adult interactions: Future
      • 3.2.3Note on ‘teasing’ present and future forms
    • 3.3Intentive and immediate future inflections
  • 4.Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 25 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.14san
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