Evidential Systems of Tibetan Languages

Evidential Systems of Tibetan Languages PDF

Author: Lauren Gawne

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-04-24

Total Pages: 478

ISBN-13: 3110473747

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This edited volume brings together work on the evidential systems of Tibetan languages. This includes diachronic research, synchronic description of systems in individual Tibetan varieties and papers addressing broader theoretical or typological questions. Evidentiality in Tibetan languages interacts with other features of modality, interactional context and speaker knowledge states in ways that provide important perspectives for typologists and our general understanding of evidential systems. This book provides the first sustained attempt to capture this complexity and diversity from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective.

Relative Tense and Aspectual Values in Tibetan Languages

Relative Tense and Aspectual Values in Tibetan Languages PDF

Author: Bettina Zeisler

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-06-24

Total Pages: 1012

ISBN-13: 3110908182

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This study presents a comparative approach to a universal theory of TENSE, ASPECT and MOOD, combining the methods of comparative and historical linguistics, fieldwork, text linguistics, and philology. The parts of the book discuss and describe (i) the concepts of TENSE, ASPECT and MOOD; (ii) the Tibetan system of RELATIVE TENSE and aspectual values, with main sections on Old and Classical Tibetan, “Lhasa” Tibetan, and East Tibetan (Amdo and Kham); and (iii) West Tibetan (Ladakhi, Purik, Balti); Part (iv) presents the comparative view. Discussing the similarities and differences of temporal and aspectual concepts, the study rejects the general claim that ASPECT is a linguistic universal. A new linguistic concept, FRAMING, is introduced in order to account for the aspect-like conceptualisations found in, e.g., English. The concept of RELATIVE TENSE or taxis, may likewise not be universal. Among the Tibetan varieties, West Tibetan is unique in having fully grammaticalized the concept of ABSOLUTE TENSE. West Tibetan is compared diachronically with Old and Classical Tibetan (documented since the mid 8th century) and synchronically with several contemporary Tibetan varieties. The grammaticalized forms of each variety are described on the basis of their employment in discourse. The underlying general function of the Tibetan verbal system is thus shown to be that of RELATIVE TENSE. Secondary aspectual functions are described for restricted contexts. A special focus on the pragmatic or metaphorical use of present tense constructions in Tibetan leads to a typology of narrative conventions. The last part also offers some suggestions for the reconstruction of the Proto-Tibetan verb system.

Egophoricity

Egophoricity PDF

Author: Simeon Floyd

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2018-04-15

Total Pages: 515

ISBN-13: 9027265542

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Egophoricity refers to the grammaticalised encoding of personal knowledge or involvement of a conscious self in a represented event or situation. Most typically, a marker that is egophoric is found with first person subjects in declarative sentences and with second person subjects in interrogative sentences. This person sensitivity reflects the fact that speakers generally know most about their own affairs, while in questions this epistemic authority typically shifts to the addressee. First described for Tibeto-Burman languages, egophoric-like patterns have now been documented in a number of other regions around the world, including languages of Western China, the Andean region of South America, the Caucasus, Papua New Guinea, and elsewhere. This book is a first attempt to place detailed descriptions of this understudied grammatical category side by side and to add to the cross-linguistic picture of how ideas of self and other are encoded and projected in language. The diverse but conceptually related egophoric phenomena described in its chapters provide fascinating case studies for how structural patterns in morphosyntax are forged under intersubjective, interactional pressures as we link elements of our speech to our speech situation.

Evidence for Evidentiality

Evidence for Evidentiality PDF

Author: Ad Foolen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2018-07-19

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 9027263914

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Statements are always under the threat of the potential counter-question How do you know? To pre-empt this question, language users often indicate what kind of access they had to the communicated content: Their own perception, inference from other information, ‘hearsay’, etc. Such expressions, grammatical or lexical, have been studied in recent years under the cover term of evidentiality research. The present volume contributes 11 new studies to this flourishing field, all exploring evidential phenomena in a range of languages (Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Khalkha Mongolian, Spanish, Tibetan, Yurakaré), using a variety of methodologies. Evidential meaning is discussed in relation to other semantic dimensions, such as epistemic modality, semantic roles, commitment, quotative meaning, and tense. The volume is of interest to scholars and students who are interested in up-to-date methods and frameworks for studying evidential meaning and the various ways it is expressed in the languages of the world.

Give Constructions across Languages

Give Constructions across Languages PDF

Author: Myriam Bouveret

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2021-03-15

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 902726015X

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This cognitive contrastive study of ten languages (Chinese, Dalabon, English, French, Spanish, Romanian, Kurdish, Khmer, Polish, Tibetan) focuses on the concept of giving from six main points of view, namely argument structure, lexical semantics and event structure, role marking in the three argument construction and in other constructions, lexicalization, grammaticalization and constructionalization of the verb from a cognitive construction grammar point of view, and central and extended meanings. It is proposed that a continuum approach to grammar and lexicon is needed in order to describe the typological and historical facts. The volume argues for a concrete and abstract transfer ‘cluster model’ involving coverage of lexical and grammatical extension or bleaching phenomena and that the semantic extensions (metaphorical and otherwise) exploit various portions of this schema. The volume is deeply anchored in the Cognitive Construction Grammar theoretical movement, and proposes analyses of constructional phenomena to illustrate a grammar to lexicon continuum, in synchrony and diachrony: language change, grammaticalization chains, constructionalization analysis, and an invariant hypothesis of giving as a basic activity in human cognition.

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality PDF

Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-01-18

Total Pages: 929

ISBN-13: 0191077402

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This volume offers a thorough, systematic, and crosslinguistic account of evidentiality, the linguistic encoding of the source of information on which a statement is based. In some languages, the speaker always has to specify this source - for example whether they saw the event, heard it, inferred it based on visual evidence or common sense, or was told about it by someone else. While not all languages have obligatory marking of this type, every language has ways of referring to information source and associated epistemological meanings. The continuum of epistemological expressions covers a range of devices from the lexical means in familiar European languages and in many languages of Aboriginal Australia to the highly grammaticalized systems in Amazonia or North America. In this handbook, experts from a variety of fields explore topics such as the relationship between evidentials and epistemic modality, contact-induced changes in evidential systems, the acquisition of evidentials, and formal semantic theories of evidentiality. The book also contains detailed case studies of evidentiality in language families across the world, including Algonquian, Korean, Nakh-Dagestanian, Nambikwara, Turkic, Uralic, and Uto-Aztecan.

A Grammar of Mangghuer

A Grammar of Mangghuer PDF

Author: Keith W. Slater

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-12-20

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1135790817

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This book is a grammar of Mangghuer, a Mongolic language. Its primary importance is as a systematic grammatical description of a little-known language. It also makes a significant contribution to comparative Mongolic studies.

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