1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Functions of Language
  4. Volume 31, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 31, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0929-998X
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9765
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

The marking on copular verbs in Tibetic languages is regarded as an exemplar of egophoricity, although the extent to which it has been grammaticalized varies between languages. Dzongkha, a southern Tibetic language, is somewhat atypical of the egophoric pattern in the sense that the basic opposition in copulas exhibits a mirative pattern, wherein the non-mirative (egophoric) copula occurs with all grammatical persons in declaratives and interrogatives, and the mirative (non-egophoric) occurs with the 3rd person and rarely with 1st and 2nd persons. The conversational data studied for this paper also show that the speaker need not take knowledge stances that bifurcate the world between objectively ‘old’ and ‘new’ knowledge and the attendant associations of knowledge with a particular grammatical person. Rather, the speaker’s representation of events is subjective, and dependent, in part, on the knowledge stances between speaker and respondent. What is in view in conversational interaction are the social goals of the conversation — assertions, face-saving strategies, and arriving at mutually shared knowledge — and the Dzongkha copulas are a manipulable linguistic resource in achieving these.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/fol.22056.wat
2024-07-09
2025-04-19

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/fol.22056.wat
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. & Robert M. W. Dixon
    2016 The grammar of knowledge: A cross-linguistic view of evidentials and the expression of information source. InAlexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon (eds.), The grammar of knowledge: A cross-linguistic typology, 1–51. Oxford: OUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
    (ed.) 2018 The Oxford handbook of evidentiality. Oxford: OUP. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198759515.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198759515.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  3. Bradley, David
    1997 Tibeto-Burman languages and classification. InDavid Bradley (ed.), Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas, 1–71. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Margret Selting
    2001 Introducing interactional linguistics. InElizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Margret Selting (eds.), Studies in interactional linguistics, 1–22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/sidag.10.02cou
     https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.10.02cou [Google Scholar]
  5. 2018 Interactional linguistics: Studying language in social interaction. Cambridge: CUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Curnow, Timothy Jowan
    2000 Why “first/non-first person” is not grammaticalized mirativity. InKeith Allan & John Henderson (eds.), Proceedings of ALS2k, the 2000 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, 203–300. Available atwww.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2000.html
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Denwood, Philip
    1999 Tibetan. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/loall.3
     https://doi.org/10.1075/loall.3 [Google Scholar]
  8. DeLancey, Scott
    1997 Mirativity: the grammatical marking of unexpected information. Linguistic Typology11. 33–52. 10.1515/lity.1997.1.1.33
     https://doi.org/10.1515/lity.1997.1.1.33 [Google Scholar]
  9. 2003 Lhasa Tibetan. InGraham Thurgood & Randy LaPolla (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages, 235–256. New York, NY: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. 2018 Evidentiality in Tibetic. InAlexandra Y. Aikhenvald (ed.), 580–594. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198759515.013.27
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198759515.013.27 [Google Scholar]
  11. van Driem, George
    1991 Guide to official Dzongkha romanization. Gaylegphug, Bhutan: Sherab Lham Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. van Driem, George & Karma Tshering
    1998 A grammar of Dzongkha. Leiden: Research School CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Floyd, Simeon, Elizabeth Norcliffe & Lila San Roque
    (eds.) 2018 Egophoricity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/tsl.118
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118 [Google Scholar]
  14. Hyslop, Gwendolyn & Karma Tshering
    2017 An overview of some epistemic categories in Dzongkha. InLauren Gawne & Nathan W. Hill (eds.), Evidential systems of Tibetan languages, 351–365. Berlin: de Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110473742‑011
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110473742-011 [Google Scholar]
  15. Hyslop, Gwendolyn
    2018 Mirativity and egophoricity in Kurtöp. InSimeon Floyd, Elizabeth Norcliffe & Lila San Roque (eds.), 109–137. 10.1075/tsl.118.03hys
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.03hys [Google Scholar]
  16. Heritage, John
    2012 Epistemics in Action: action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction451. 1–29. 10.1080/08351813.2012.646684
     https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.646684 [Google Scholar]
  17. Kirby, James & Gwendolyn Hyslop
    2019 Phonetic structures of Dzongkha obstruents. InSasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 3607–3611. Canberra: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Labov, William & David Fanshel
    1977 Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as conversation. New York, NY: Academic Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Mélac, Eric
    2014 L’évidentialité en anglais. Approche contrastive à partir d’un corpus anglais-tibétain. Paris: Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 PhD thesis.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Pomerantz, Anita
    1984 Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. InJ. Maxwell Atkinson & John Heritage (eds.), Structures of social action, 57–101. Cambridge: CUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Schegloff, Emanuel A.
    2007 Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis, vol. 1. Cambridge: CUP. 10.1017/CBO9780511791208
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208 [Google Scholar]
  22. San Roque, Lila, Simeon Floyd & Elizabeth Norcliffe
    2018 Egophoricity: an introduction. InSimeon Floyd, Elizabeth Norcliffe & Lila San Roque (eds.), 1–78. 10.1075/tsl.118.01san
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.01san [Google Scholar]
  23. Tournadre, Nicolas & Sangda Dorje
    2005 Manual of Standard Tibetan: Language and civilization. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Tournadre, Nicolas
    2013 The Tibetic languages and their classification. InThomas Owen-Smith & Nathan Hill (eds.), Trans-Himalayan linguistics: Historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area, 105–130. Berlin: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110310832.105
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110310832.105 [Google Scholar]
  25. Tournadre, Nicolas & Randy J. LaPolla
    2014 Towards a new approach to evidentiality. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area371. 240–262. 10.1075/ltba.37.2.04tou
     https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.37.2.04tou [Google Scholar]
  26. Tournadre, Nicolas & Hiroyuki Suzuki
    2023 The Tibetic languages. Villejuif: LACITO-Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Watters, David E.
    2009 A grammar of Kham. Cambridge: CUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Watters, Stephen
    1996 A preliminary study of prosody in Dzongkha. Arlington, TX: University of Texas at Arlington Master’s thesis.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. 2018 A grammar of Dzongkha (dzo): Phonology, words, and simple clauses. Houston, TX: Rice University PhD thesis.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. 2021 Honorification in Dzongkha. InAlexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Robert M. W. Dixon & Nerida Jarkey (eds.), The integration of language and society: A cross-linguistic typology, 91–109. Oxford: OUP. 10.1093/oso/9780192845924.003.0003
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192845924.003.0003 [Google Scholar]
  31. Yliniemi, Juha S.
    2021 A descriptive grammar of Denjongke. Himalayan Linguistics201. 50–87.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.22056.wat
Loading
The discourse functions of simple copulas in Dzongkha
Functions of Language 31, 34 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.22056.wat
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.22056.wat
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.22056.wat
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): conversational interaction; copula; egophoricity; evidentiality; mirativity; Tibetic

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error