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Volume 31, Issue 1
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Abstract

Abstract

This article presents a development of evidential categories derived from a verb related to the auditory sense in the evidential system attested in rGyalthang Tibetan varieties. The language varieties under study possess a morphological distinction of at least five evidentials in the access-to-information category and two evidentials in the source-of-information category. The discussion focuses on one morpheme derived from the Literary Tibetan verb ‘resound, hear’ used for both categories, and examines its process of grammaticalisation and degrammaticalisation. Elicited data illustrate the following functions: (1) as a nonvisual sensory evidential suffix that was further degrammaticalised as a copulative nonvisual sensory verb stem; (2) as a hearsay marker in a separate syntactic slot, which extended from (1); and (3) as a lexical verb stem meaning ‘hear’ [the common origin to (1) and (2)], which underwent two grammaticalisation processes.

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2024-07-15
2025-04-26

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/content/journals/10.1075/fol.22059.suz
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Functional transition from hear to nonvisual sensory and hearsay evidential categories
Functions of Language 31, 63 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.22059.suz
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.22059.suz
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.22059.suz
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): auditory access; evidentiality; grammaticalisation; hearsay; Tibetic

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