False Speech Reports in Pirahã: A Comprehension Experiment

2018 ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
Uli Sauerland
Keyword(s):  
Speech Reports

scholarly journals Reports in Discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Preceding Discourse ◽  
Speech Reports ◽  
Discourse Interactions

Attitude or speech reports in English with a non-parenthetical syntax sometimes give rise to interpretations in which the embedded clause, e.g., "John was out of town" in the report "Jill said that John was out of town", seems to convey the main point of the utterance while the attribution predicate, e.g., "Jillsaid that", merely plays an evidential or source-providing role (Urmson, 1952). Simons (2007) posits that parenthetical readings arise from the interaction between the report and the preceding discourse context, rather than from the syntax or semantics of the reports involved. However, no account of these discourse interactions has been developed in formal semantics. Research on parenthetical reports within frameworks of rhetorical structure has yielded hypotheses about the discourse interactions of parenthetical reports, but these hypotheses are not semantically sound. The goal of this paper is to unify and extend work in semantics and discourse structure to develop a formal, discourse-based account of parenthetical reports that does not suffer the pitfalls faced by current proposals in rhetorical frameworks.

The discourse marker ale in Bislama oral narratives

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-297
Author(s):  
Angeliki Alvanoudi ◽  
Valérie Guérin
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Temporal Sequence ◽  
The South ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Vernacular Discourse ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
Speech Reports

Abstract This study takes us to the South Pacific and concentrates on Bislama, one of the dialects of Melanesian pidgin (Siegel 2008: 4) and one of the official languages of Vanuatu. We take a discourse analysis perspective to map out the functions of ale, a conspicuous discourse marker in conversations and narratives. Using Labov & Waletzky (1967) model, we analyze the use of ale in narratives from the book Big Wok: Storian blong Wol Wo Tu long Vanuatu (Lindstrom & Gwero 1998) and determine that ale is a discourse marker which indicates temporal sequence and consequence, frames speech reports and closes a digression. We conclude our study by considering a possible historical development of ale. We map out how French allez could have become Bislama ale using imposition and functional transfer (Siegel 2008; Winford 2013a) of vernacular discourse markers (such as go in Nguna).

Respectable uncertainty and pathetic truth in Amazonian Quichua-speaking culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janis Nuckolls ◽  
Tod Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Art ◽  
Cultural Preference ◽  
Infinite Multiplicity ◽  
Speech Reports ◽  
Echo Questions

It is argued in this chapter, on the basis of evidence from grammar, discourse, and verbal art, that for Amazonian Quichua speakers, there is a cultural preference for expressing uncertainty, which is linked with animistic perspectivism. Animistic perspectivism endows nonhumans with subjectivity and implies that there is an infinite multiplicity of perspectives, thereby making a single, totalizing truth impossible. Respectable uncertainty is also apparent in the system of evidentiality, in speech reports, echo questions, and verbal art, all of which emphasize perspective over certainty. A type of certainty that Runa do value, however, and which would not be valid within a rational framework of inquiry, is that of emotional truth, involving feelings of empathy for others, including nonhumans. Emotional truth, then, provides an exception to the preference for uncertainty, and may lead people to confidently reason about ethical matters.​

The proper treatment of egophoricity in Kathmandu Newari

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Coppock ◽  
Stephen Wechsler
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Propositional Content ◽  
First Person ◽  
Proper Treatment ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Formal Treatment ◽  
Discourse Model ◽  
De Se ◽  
The Common ◽  
Speech Reports

In egophoric (or conjunct/disjunct) verb-marking systems, a conjunct verb form co-occurs with first-person subjects in declaratives and second-person subjects in interrogatives, and also appears in de se attitude and speech reports; a disjunct verb form appears elsewhere. Conjunct marking also interacts with evidentiality: a speaker who abdicates responsibility for the content of an utterance by means of an evidential marker uses the disjunct verb form despite co-occurence with a first-person subject. Focussing on the case of Kathmandu Newari, Coppock and Wechsler propose that conjunct morphology marks the contents of attitudes de se. They develop a formal treatment of egophoricity, including a dynamic discourse model of the way attitudes de se are communicated. The propositional content of an attitude de se, modelled as a set of centered worlds, is effectively uncentered by its agent, to produce an ordinary proposition that is eligible to enter the common ground.

scholarly journals The advantage of story-telling: children's interpretation of reported speech in narratives

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 541-557
Author(s):  
FRANZISKA KÖDER ◽  
EMAR MAIER
Keyword(s):  
Information Transmission ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Reported Speech ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Transmission Setting ◽  
Referent Selection ◽  
Processing Effort ◽  
Dutch Children ◽  
Speech Reports

AbstractChildren struggle with the interpretation of pronouns in direct speech (Ann said, “I get a cookie”), but not in indirect speech (Ann said that she gets a cookie) (Köder & Maier, 2016). Yet children's books consistently favor direct over indirect speech (Baker & Freebody, 1989). To reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings, we hypothesize that the poor performance found by Köder and Maier (2016) is due to the information-transmission setting of that experiment, and that a narrative setting facilitates children's processing of direct speech. We tested 42 Dutch children (4;1–7;2) and 20 adults with a modified version of Köder and Maier's referent selection task, where participants interpret speech reports in an interactive story book. Results confirm our hypothesis: children are much better at interpreting pronouns in direct speech in such a narrative setting than they were in an information-transmission setting. This indicates that the pragmatic context of reports affects their processing effort.

scholarly journals Paradox, Closure and Indirect Speech Reports

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Read
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Speech Reports

scholarly journals Acting out on Twitter: Affordances for animating reported speech in written computer-mediated communication

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wikström
Keyword(s):  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Body Language ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
Reported Speech ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Oral Practices ◽  
Speech Reports

Abstract Quotative be like is a construction associated with informal spoken contexts and, especially, with various forms of embodied enactments. This study examines instances of quotative be like in a corpus of Twitter data (1,000,000 tweets; 1,113 quotative instances). Special attention is paid to how users of Twitter employ the platform’s affordances to animate their speech reports – i.e. to represent voices, enact body language, or otherwise ‘dramatize’ the speech reports. The aim is to investigate how a linguistic format which is richly embodied in face-to-face interaction gets ‘re-embodied’ on Twitter. The study finds that animation of reported speech on Twitter is visually, and predominantly typographically, afforded. In the material, oral practices are more frequently reconfigured and remediated rather than directly reproduced. That is to say, even when users are not reproducing spoken utterances, they often employ graphical strategies that are mainly understandable by analogy to spoken and embodied face-to-face interaction. However, users also draw on emergent online repertoires with no face-to-face analogues, such as ‘pure’ typographical play and the recruitment of established online memes. Thus, the findings suggest that orality lingers as a trace, but is not a necessary component, in bringing reported speech to life in a text-based computer-mediated setting.

scholarly journals Factors licensing embedded present tense in speech reports

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 127-142
Author(s):  
Corien Bary ◽  
Daniel Altshuler ◽  
Kristen Syrett ◽  
Peter De Swart
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Embedded Contexts ◽  
Speech Reports

According to Ogihara (1995), the usage of the embedded present in a speech reportsuch as John said that Mary is in the room is restricted by the cause of John’s belief (the statethat made John think that Mary is in the room): the present tense can be used only if thiscause still holds at the time that John said that Mary is in the room is uttered. This paperpresents experimental evidence demonstrating that this is only one of the factors that licensesa felicitous usage of the embedded present tense. In particular, we show that the cause ofbelief still holding is not a necessary condition, and identify two additional, sufficient (but notnecessary) factors: in cases of false belief, who is aware of the falsity of the belief and durationof the reported state. While these factors are independent, they collectively support the ideathat the present tense encodes ‘current relevance’, even in embedded contexts (e.g. Costa 1972;McGilvray 1974). This gives rise to the question of how we can derive ‘current relevance’ and,in particular, whether previous analyses of the embedded present tense are adequately equippedto do so.Keywords: tense, speech reports, double access, experiments.

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