On the nature of inverse systems

Diachronica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Konnerth
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
First Person ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Inverse Systems ◽  
Functional Motivation ◽  
Pseudo Inverse

Abstract Previous theoretical discussion about inverse systems has largely revolved around the synchronic and diachronic relationship between the inverse and the passive. In contrast, this study argues for the antipassive origins of two inverse constructions in Monsang (Trans-Himalayan), which are used for 3→SAP and 2→1 scenarios. This questions central assumptions from previous accounts about the functional motivation underlying inverse systems, and suggests that strategies of avoiding overt reference may be at play. The diachronic pathway proposed here connects the traditional inverse with other special marking patterns that involve speech act participant objects, in particular the “pseudo-inverse” construction of innovative first person object indexation.

Recycling through perspective persistence in Monsang (Trans-Himalayan)

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Linda Konnerth
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
First Person ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Reported Speech ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
South Central ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Current Speaker

Abstract In a reported intentionality construction, intentionality is expressed as reported speech/thought (‘s/he says/thinks, <I will go>’). The quoted clause must contain a first person form and refer to the future. Reported intentionality displays perspective persistence and an accompanying apparent form-meaning mismatch, as it structurally marks the speech-act participant perspective of the volitional agent despite idiomatically translating only from the perspective of the current speaker. While this construction has been examined in languages around the world, this is the first treatment for the Trans-Himalayan (or Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman) language family. Monsang (South-Central; Northeast India) is shown to have a reported intentionality construction of the cross-linguistic type. In addition, there is a desiderative construction in the language that does not display perspective persistence but is argued to reconstruct back to a reported intentionality construction. Further evidence from synchronic and diachronic quotative constructions in Monsang is presented that illustrates the prominence of quotative-derived expressions of intentionality in Monsang verbal morphology.

Indices of a ‘subjectivity-prominent’ language

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 132-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshihiko Ikegami
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Third Person

The speaker of language is primarily conceived of as locutionary subject (or ‘sujet parlant’), i.e. as a person who exchanges linguistic messages with his/her counterpart — typically in dialogic situations where the two alternate in their roles as speaker and hearer. In this setting, the speaker and the hearer are equal as speech-act participants and thus the contrast is ‘first/second person’ vs. ‘third person’ (or ‘speech-act participant’ vs. ‘non-speech-act participant’). There is, however, another aspect of the speaker — the speaker as cognizing subject, i.e. as a person who, prior to his/her locutionary act, construes the situation to be encoded, being engaged in the monologic cognitive activity of choosing what to encode and how to encode what is to be encoded. In this capacity, the speaker is contrasted with everything he/she may want to encode and thus the contrast here is ‘first person’ vs. ‘second/third person’ — or better, ‘ego’ vs. ‘alter’. Language may manifest features that count as indices of either of these two types of linguistic subjectivity. But individual languages may differ in the extent to which they manifest more features indicating one type of subjectivity than the other. I propose to discuss these two contrasting typological orientations by referring to my native language, Japanese, which seems to be an eminently ego-centered, or subjectivity-prominent, language.

scholarly journals Pragmatic person features in pronominal and clausal speech act phrases

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 484
Author(s):  
Hailey Hyekyeong Ceong
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Asymmetric Distribution ◽  
First Person ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Person Features ◽  
First Person Plural

This paper proposes the necessity of pragmatic person features (Ritter and Wiltschko 2018) in pronominal and clausal speech act phrases in Korean, giving three main arguments for such necessity: (i) pragmatic person [addressee] is needed for hearsay mye which expresses the meaning of you told me without the lexical verb of saying, (ii) pragmatic person [speaker] is needed for the unequal distribution of first-person plural pronouns with exhortative ca ‘let us’, and (iii) pragmatic persons [speaker], and [addressee] are needed for the asymmetric distribution of a dative goal argument in secondhand exhortatives. Based on the compatibility and incompatibility of exhortative ca- and secondhand exhortative ca-mye clauses with a first-person pronoun (e.g., na ‘I’, ce ‘I’, wuli ‘we’, and cehuy ‘we’), I argue that pragmatic person features are needed in syntax to account for their distribution.

Multiple functions of the inclusive: examining synchronic variation in light of diachronic shift in South-Central Trans-Himalayan

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (s42-s1) ◽  
pp. 175-204
Author(s):  
Pavel Ozerov ◽  
Linda Konnerth
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
First Person ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
The South ◽  
Reference Pattern ◽  
Multiple Functions ◽  
South Central ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Generic Usage

Abstract A few languages of the South-Central branch of Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman/Sino-Tibetan) display diachronic shifts of the inclusive to become innovative markers of 1sg or 2sg. Such shifts are rarely reported in the cross-linguistic literature. In conjunction with phylogenetic-comparative evidence on cases of actual diachronic shift, we offer a synchronic usage-based analysis of the inclusive in one particular language, Anal Naga. In this language, usage frequencies suggest that a shift of the inclusive is underway: apart from the frequent generic usage, the inclusive now commonly has a humbling, empathy-seeking first person (1sg/excl) reference. In contrast, forms that combine inclusive and plural marking pattern more like a prototypical inclusive, i.e., with regular reference to the local speech act participants of speaker and addressee(s). The optional plural marking is the most important factor to determine the reference pattern of the inclusive. Other factors (irrealis setting; lexeme semantics) only play a marginal role; person form (bound indexes or free pronouns) and syntactic role are not indicative.

Person in Morphology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Linguistic Expression ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Personal Reference ◽  
The Third ◽  
Inverse Systems ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Possessive Constructions ◽  
Third Person

The category of person is a linguistic expression of reference to a role in a speech act, including the speaker, the addressee, or a combination thereof. The values of the person category commonly, if not universally, include the opposition of first person (reference to the speaker) versus second person (reference to the addressee). Reference to neither the speaker nor the addressee is commonly—though not always—considered to be the third value of the category, third person. This article is an overview of person indexation on the verb and in possessive constructions, interaction of the category of person with other categories such as number and moods, the issue of person hierarchies as reflected in the categories of clusivity and direct-inverse systems, and some topics in the pragmatics of person. The discussion includes some topics disregarded or less touched upon in other surveys of the category of person, such as a discussion of the person relationship to commands (imperative paradigms) or logophoricity. The main focus is on the morphology of person, and other aspects of personal reference are discussed with respect to how they are expressed or differentiated by morphological material. On the other hand, personal reference in grammar and lexicon show strong affinity, making it both difficult and unnecessary to separate independent personal pronouns from person affixes in a typological perspective. In this sense, person-related lexicon and inflectional morphology are treated together.

On the left periphery of Spanish indirect interrogatives

Probus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-92
Author(s):  
José María García-Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
First Person ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Semantic Property ◽  
Structural Pattern ◽  
Default Option ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Embedded Questions ◽  
Embedded Clauses

AbstractSpanish doubly filled complementizer (DFComp) clauses differ from plain embedded questions in a number of respects (availability of discourse-related projections, islandhood, sequence of tenses, licensing of discourse particles). I argue that the contrast is caused by the presence in the left periphery of these clauses of an illocutionary projection (Haegeman 2004, 2006; Coniglio and Zegrean 2012; Woods 2016b) between the leftmost projection, here identified as Haegeman’s (2004) SubP, and the criterial interrogative projections (InterP and QembP). This illocutionary projection prevents syncretism of the clause-typing and the criterial projections, the default option in plain embedded clauses. This not only explains the range of structural phenomena differentiating DFComp clauses and embedded questions, but also a key semantic property of the former, namely their speech-act denotation. Finally, DFComp clauses are compared with plain embedded questions displaying root behavior under first-person matrix subjects and with English inverted embedded questions. Both are shown to pose minimal variants of the structural pattern proposed for DFComp clauses.

scholarly journals Forfatterens gjerninger

Nordlit ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf Gaasland
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Issue ◽  
First Person ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
The Real ◽  
Fictional Narratives ◽  
Classical Definition ◽  
Original Definition ◽  
The One ◽  
Narrative Poem ◽  
Unreliable Narration

The article adresses the literary theoretical issue of unreliable narration in first-person fictional narratives. The theoretical discussion is prefaced by an interpretation of T.S. Eliot’s narrative poem “Journey of the Magi”. The interpretation conludes that the narrator, contrary to critical consensus, qualifies as unreliable according to Wayne Booth’s original definition. Having thus opened up the issue of unreliable narration, the article goes on to argue that Booth’s classical definition is misleading, especially when applied to first-person narrators like the one in “Journey of the Magi”. The broader context for the discussion is the question of how narrative fictions communicate and the roles taken by respectively the (real) author and (the fictive) narrator in acts of narrative communication.

How to restructure a grammatical category: the innovative person system of Chamacoco (Zamucoan, northern Paraguay)

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (s42-s1) ◽  
pp. 111-154
Author(s):  
Luca Ciucci
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
First Person ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
The Third ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
Number Term

Abstract Chamacoco is a Zamucoan language of northern Paraguay that has considerably restructured its person reference system. Starting from the existing reconstruction of Proto-Zamucoan, I will analyze the evolution of person marking in free pronouns, verbs and possessable nouns. The verb lost the realis/irrealis distinction in speech act participants, while the third person underwent some allomorphic changes and introduced a distinction between third singular and plural, dependent on an innovative animacy hierarchy. The first person proved overall particularly unstable. In possessable nouns, it was replaced by a form for unspecified possessor, while a new exponent was created for the latter. In free pronouns, the first plural shifted to the first singular and then grammaticalized to the new verb prefix for the first singular. The most significant changes concern the introduction of clusivity in verbs and free pronouns, which was combined with an unusual number term: the greater plural. Besides, the verbal first-person exclusive is typologically unexpected, since it derives from the inclusive. I will discuss the reasons for these and other minor changes, which involve internal factors and language contact. Finally, I will show how recent contact with Spanish has affected the Chamacoco person system.

First Person on the Last Page: Choosing How to Walk the Path

ASHA Leader ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-72
Author(s):  
Kelli Jeffries Owens
Keyword(s):  
First Person

First-Person Experiments in Thinking

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 189-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renatus Ziegler ◽  
Ulrich Weger
Keyword(s):  
Physiological Parameters ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
Mental Contents

Abstract. In psychology, thinking is typically studied in terms of a range of behavioral or physiological parameters, focusing, for instance, on the mental contents or the neuronal correlates of the thinking process proper. In the current article, by contrast, we seek to complement this approach with an exploration into the experiential or inner dimensions of thinking. These are subtle and elusive and hence easily escape a mode of inquiry that focuses on externally measurable outcomes. We illustrate how a sufficiently trained introspective approach can become a radar for facets of thinking that have found hardly any recognition in the literature so far. We consider this an important complement to third-person research because these introspective observations not only allow for new insights into the nature of thinking proper but also cast other psychological phenomena in a new light, for instance, attention and the self. We outline and discuss our findings and also present a roadmap for the reader interested in studying these phenomena in detail.

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