The proper treatment of egophoricity in Kathmandu Newari
Files
Accepted manuscript
Date
2018
DOI
Authors
Coppock, Elizabeth
Wechsler, Stephen
Version
Accepted manuscript
OA Version
Citation
Coppock, Elizabeth and Stephen Wechsler (to appear). The proper treatment of egophoricity in Kathmandu Newari. In Kasia M. Jaszczolt and Minyao Huang (eds.) Expressing the Self: Cultural Diversity and Cognitive Universals, Oxford University Press.
Abstract
We develop a theory of so-called 'conjunct-disjunct marking', also known as 'egophoricity', in Kathmandu Newari. The signature pattern of egophoricity looks a bit like person agreement: In declaratives, there is a special marker that goes on first person verbs, but not second or third person (e.g. 'I drank-EGO too much'). But in interrogatives, the same marker goes on second person (e.g. 'Did you-EGO drink too much?'). This is called interrogative flip. Egophoric marking also interacts interestingly with the presence of evidential markers, and comes with an implication of knowing self-reference (emphasized in Newari by a restriction to volitional action). Our paper discusses two previous approaches, which we label indexical and evidential, and motivate our account, which we label egophoric. Along the way, we develop a theory of how de se attitudes are communicated.