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Fighting Words: Evidential Particles, Affect and Argument
John B. Haviland
Reed College
We ethnographers, like everyone else, normally meet words n the quotidian
contexts of their daily lives, where, at least in principle, we should be able to
overcome our idealizations to see the richness, rather than the poverty,
of
language
strUcture. We find that languages not only permit the expression of, but also
grammaticalize aspects
of
daily life that we have not often
een
trained to detect.
Recently I have been looking at fights, in which people war with each othe r with
words as their weapons. The linguistic facts in verbal battles seem to collapse
or
conflate referential, expressive, and other rhetorical speech functions. The material
has led me to examine the range
of
linguistic devices which typically carry affective
and argumentative load, or which seem peculiarly suited to verbal battles. Here, of
course, linguistic device must be understood to include everything from
emotively charged lexical items to intonation, from anaphora and ellipsis to
gestures, and from poetic parallelism to particles. This paper is about evidential
particles, especially n Tzotzil and Guugu Yirnidhirr argument
Let me start, though, with English. We often fight with truth and the basic
techniques
of
contentiousness are often inseparable from the same matters that are
routinely encoded in the grammatical category of evidence: truth, reliability,
knowledge, and authority--relative to the context of the speech event. This is,
among other things, what irony is all about. Consider the two fragments in (I) and
2), where I have put some notionally evidential elements into boldface.
(1) The
Bickersons
(an
old-time radio
show
with Frances
Langford
and Don Ameche) :
Blanche; had a miserable t ime.
i t was the UNhappiest anniversary I ever spent.
Why
didn t you
show up for
the party, John7=
John; =1 TOLD
ya
I got stuck a t the office.
Blanche;
I d
like to believe that.
What
were you
doing?
John; working.
Blanche; su:re sure.
That s
always
the
f i rs t excuse.
(2)
Two
sis te rs
(aged
6
and
12)
fighting
s;
C'mon Maya,
STOP
i t .
m;
you
nearly
BROKE
the te levis ion=
s;
=
yeah
I
nearly
broke
the television.
Since evidentials grammaticalize aspects
of
the epistemological status of the
(putative) propositional substrate of utterances, they are by their very nature useful
in arming an argument over matters of fact. But there is usually more than this to
evidential particles: they are also interactive. Evidentials offer a delicate resource for
manipulating a constantly shifting common ground between speaker (in his or her
various faces) and interlocutors, a universe of discourse that has not only
epistemological but also moral character. Evidentials encode not only what a
Speaker knows or how he knows it; but also what an addressee can be taken to
know,
or
shouldknow, or apparently (perhaps culpabl y)fails to know. Again, this
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is
what irony is often all about. For example, clause initial yu van, in Tzotzil
marks a proposition
as ridiculous or untenable, but at the same time presents it
somehow the alleged suggestion of some interlocutor, perhaps the present one.
As
in (3e)l, it typically elicits a demurring disclaimer.
(3) (d i s cus s ion o f t he
old days)
a .
1;
ti naka to 'ox to j t z -k ' e l
ART
j u s t
then p ine NONP+3E-watch
"They
only
used to use p i tch pine to s ee wi th . "
b . j ; naka
no'ox
j u s t only
"Tha t ' s
a l l . "
[
c . 1; i i
ta
a k ' u b a l t i k
ART ART
PREP night
"uh . . uh . . a t n igh t . "
d.
yu'van
oy Ius
un
EVID
ex i s t l igh t CL
"(Do you
suppose) they
had (e lec t r ic ) l igh t? "
e .
j ; ch 'aba l
to 'ox
not
then
"No
they
d idn ' t
(have l i gh t ) . "
.
~ x t e n d i n g
argument, the grammar of evidence picks out, presupposes,
or
Imphcates
VOIces
or faces (on both the speaker's
end
and that
of
his
interlocutors): those who do and don't,
or
can and can't, know. Kuroda (1973)
was among the fIrst to point out that grammar can accord special treatment to those
events or states, many
of
them psychological, which a t least in Japanese one can
only reliably predicate of oneself ('being sad,' for example). Grammatically, only
the experiencer
of
such states (or an imagined omniscient narrator)
is
entitled to use
what Kuroda calls a nonreportive description of such states and events, as in (4a).
(4)
(Kuroda
1973)
a .
Yamadera no
kane 0 ki i te , Mary wa kanas ika t t a
"Hear ing t he be l l
of
the
mountain
temple, Mary was sad."
/nonrepor t ive l
b . Yamadera
no
kane
0
k i i t e , Mary wa
kanas iga t ta .
"Hear ing t he be l l
of
t he mountain temple, Mary was sad."
I repor t ive with
g tl
By contrast, the gat form of (4b), appropriate to an evidentially less secure
report
of
someone else s state of mind, "has definite referential force directed toward the
'judger"'(p. 388). That is, the form "points semantically to the existence of a
subject of consciousness whose
judgment
the sentence is understood to
represent"(388), and who must be distinguished from the experiencer
of
the state
described. The outsider's lack of access to someone else's inner facts is here
morphologically encoded, and so, thereby, is his existence as a separate participant
indexed by the grammar.
Evidentials can also pick out or implicate those responsible for the issue of
truth, validity, or evidence in the first place. Consider how the participant structure
of a speech event is characteristically brought to the fore when evidentials appear
in
non-declarative sentences. There is a complicated, although by now familiar,
I
.;,
:
interaction between evidentials and illocutionary force. The connection between
dubitatives and interrogatives, for example, is iconically symbolized
by
frequently
shared morphology (if not
by
shared meaning, what Wierzbicka [1980] calls the
"ignorative"2). But there
is
more to this interaction. Both Warlpiri (Laughren 1981)
and Tzotzil have a hearsay particle (see [ aJ below) which marks the proposition of
a declarative as originating with,
or
vouched for by, someone other than the
speaker. Notably, the particle also appears in commands and questions, thus
nodding obliquely in the direction of otherwise unseen participants.
(5) War lp i r i (Laughren 1981)
nganta ' a f f i rma t ion from
ind i rec t
evidence,
hearsay '
a .
Marna- lu ma-nta
grass-PL
get-IMP
"Pick up the grass "
b .
Marna nganta-lu
ma-nta .
"They
say
you 've got to pick up the grass . "
(6) Tzotz i l Is 'hearsay,3
Mi l i ' - oxuk Is k ' a l a l i -O-ya l t an - e?
Q
here-2plA hearsay when
PAST-3A-fall ash-CL
"Were you
here when
t he
ashes f e l l
( implicates : somebody e l s e
wants
to
know)?"
As
a consequence, by indexing participants, evidentials drag us back again to the
arena where we should always have been: to situated speech and its unavoidably
social context.
Moreover, insofar as truth is something one (sometimes) predicates
of
propositions, whereas states of knowledge are properties of speakers and hearers,
evidentials bridge the treacherous and multi-tiered chasm between language and
metalanguage--a chasm we should by now fInd familiar, i no ~ e s s frightening.
I take as given an inherent multi unctionality (Silverstem 1985) to language,
so
that aspects
of
language design organized around certain linguistic functions, at
certain levels, may systematically feed other uses and purposes, at t h ~ r levels. A
single element (a demonstrative, for example, as part of an utterance) IS at once a
primary referential device (picking
out
a referent), a member
of
a structured
semantic domain (patterning both in sense and in syntax with other paradigmatically
similar elements), an indexical vehicle (tied inextricably to its moment and plaee,
and at the same time anchoring the utterance in precisely the ~ i g h t n:t0ment and
place), a functionally crucial part
of
the uttered token of an.lllocutlO.nary type
("identifying," perhaps, or simply "referring"), and element m practtcal soc al
act (so that its reduced pronominal character, say, Will contrast
With
an
a l t e r n ~ t l v e
way
of
"doing the same thing"--using a full noun I?hrase, for
~ x a m p l e
or a sIlent
gesture which would lend
to
the act of reference a different SOCIal character).
'Particles present the same sort
of
stratified
f u n t i ~ n ~ l
complexity, but in
spades. To bring this argument down to earth, let
e ~ l b i t
s o m e f r a g ~ e n t ~
?f
Tzotzil talk by way
of
introducing a few more eVldentlals. The Pcu:tlcies
In
question (here I will deal with only
half
a dozen
or
so
out of
an Inventory
considerably larger) fall into morpho-syntactic categories that suggest some of the
relevant complexities
of
scope and contrast .
There are "second position" clitics (Aissen, in press) which have restrIcted
distribution within a clause, and which are tied in scope to the corresponding
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clausal predicate. The syntactic fa t C
particle/clitic) are rather complex h e ~
s ~ n c I ~ m ~ t h ~
precise placement
of
can be grouped together' They incl ' d u on ~ t n b u t i o n a l grounds the eVldel1tiallt
[the h ~ a y marker, w h i ~ h
we
hav u e most 1mportantly l 'they say, so I
canomcal examples. e already met], and nan 'perhaps's. (7)
7)
a.
b.
Mu la bu O-s-ve'
.
NEG HEARSAY
where
3A-3E-
"He d d n t eat .
ora
ea t
so it i s sa id .
nan O-s-botz '
a t
once
perha s 3A 3
lok 'e l
ta
' a n i l
"He probably ~ u l l e ~ ~ ? ~ ~ t l o u ~ klelaving
PREP f a s t
q u ~ c y .
.
T ~ e r e
are also clause-fina l cliti .
c o m t : ~ a t i o n s . The most notable exam I ~ s , , : ~ l c h may occur in various
by hi mdeed'), and
yu van
which pes are. a a nght, of course' (often preceded
'nonetheless' (examples in [S]). may also be glossed as 'of course' or perhaps
8) a. ja '
l i k
s -ve ' ta ora
MPH
a r i se
3E-eat
PREP h
(Tha t ' s r igh t )
h b
our
of
course
k'ox-on to ' ox
b ~ g a n to
eat
immediate ly ."
b.
small- lA then C L ' d d
I w ee
k
'oxas , ~ n d ~ e d
only
a
ch i ld then
-on
yu van .
.
small- lA
of
course
I
was smal l , of course "
The last word yu v I .o ' . an, a so occurs m ela .. . . .
a ye), where 1t means Do you suppo ? ~ s ~ l m . t i a l
p<;lsltlOn
(as we saw in [3d]
10 (?), it is often paired with the s ~ ~ : -- ut Implymg 'you would be wrong'
were It normally seems to beg rheto ' s ~ c o n d l?erson form of -na' 'know',
response. nca y or
an
1Oterlocutor's s e l f - d e f e n s i v ~
(9)
yu'van
ch ' abal
k
indeed
not exis t p r ~ x c h a n o chk'elvan
ana'oj
( erson
watch
You
don ' t
suppose fool ishl you
know
people
who ll y
that) the re are no
s ta re , (do
you?)"
~ i n a l l y there are evidential senten 'al '
look of It]' and ya el'it seems [by
th
ti lartieles, such as yilel 'it seems [by the
verbs
t
'see: and a i 'hear s ~ ~ ~ or feel of it].' These are derived from
r p p o S ~ I Y :
is transparently
d e r i ~ e d
.
f ~ r t h ~ r
evidential phrase, ta 'aiel
rom saymg: rom a say and means literally 'in saying,
(10)
a .
k ' e l - t z ' i ' yilel
see-dog
app 1
ch-O-bat
H
a ren t
y INC-3A-go
e
went to watch fo r
d '
b . ' a t a j j - ve ' - t ' k ' ogs ,
seems."
L
] -moton-t ik ya'el
C tha t
lE-eat -PL
lE -
ift
'
"Well
we a te it. t g - ~ L seems
, was a g ~ f t to us, it
seems."
c. Ja ' yech nolt i -O- ' ak' -b -a t
y-o l
ta 'alel-e
EMPH
thus
only COMP-3A-give-BEN-PASS
3E-child PREP saying.
"She was ju s t given an i l l eg i t ima te
ch i ld , supposedly ."
The etymology of these expressions suggests their kinship with a phenomenon,
noted by various authors
6
, linking evidential categories with explicit deictics and
perception verbs. The evidential element is directive: it points toward the relevant
evidence from which inferences may be drawn, and hence draws a contrast with an
unmarked proposition (which needs no special evidence). (lOa), thus, suggests: It
looked as
ifhe
was going (to the cornfield) to watch for dogs --suggesting what
sort
of
appearances were relevant to drawing this conclusion, and thereby priming
the hearer with the expectation that things were not as they seemed. (He was
actually heading for a lover's tryst.)1
In
the same vein, we discover, in the Trotzil phrase t 'aiel, an expression
which at last conforms to Jakobson's original characteriz.ation (1957) of the
evidential category: an indexical relation between the speech event, the narrated
event, and a narrated speech event (presumably, when someone told the speaker
about
the
narrated event). TheTzotz.il etymology directs attention
to
precisely such a
putative occasion of prior
speaking
8
•
In (l0e), the phrasing suggests She had an
illegitimate child, (or so she [or someone1 said).
Evidentials, indeed most particles, are notoriously resistant to uniform
analysis, in either propositional (semantic) or illocutionary terms
9
• Since such
particles do not pattern neatly into paradigmatic sets, they do not reward structural
treatment.
heir syntactic behavior is, as we see in the Tzotz.i1 case, heterogeneous,
and
it
presents daunting complexities
of
scope. To what, for example, does the
doubt of the clitic nan attach? When nan appears in standard second position
(following an introductory word
or
phrase and
any
temporal clitics) its scope seems
to extend to the entire clause
(lla);
but where it splits an idiomatic phrase (11
b) or
appears outside
of
second position its gaze settles, Janus-like, on constituents to
either side (see
[llc1
facing backwards to 'slingshot', and [lId] seemingly facing
forwards to 'girl').
11)
probable nan scope marked with
brackets
a . kultul to nan I i j ' a ' ye l e
a l ive still
probably
ART
person
"Probably
[ tha t
fe l low i s still a l ive ] .
b. te nan k ' a l a l mi j - k ' e l a
n
komel
the re probably when i f IE-give
away leaving
( te
k alal
means
'never mind,
forget
it )
I t probably
[doesn ' t
matter] if I ju s t give them
away."
c . muk'
bu
x-o - la j
ta
' u l i '
nan
s-bek'
y-a t ch -a ' i
NEG where AOR-3A-finish
PREP
slingshot.EVID 3E-seed
3E-penis
INc+3E-feel
"He f igu res
tha t probably
he
hasn ' t
been h i t in t he
ba l l s
[with
a s l ingsho t ] .
d. ' an soleI nan
tzeb
i - y - i k ' a ' a
yu 'van
PART only
EVID
g i r l
COMP-3E-mar
r
y EVID EVID
Why,
probably
he
married [a mere g i r l ] , of course , don ' t
you know."
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As evidentials are clearly desi ed f '
characteristics are often relegated
t g ;l
or SItuated mteraction, many of
? t h e ~ interpersonal elements in l a ~ ~ ~ ~ : ( ~ t a b l e ~ ~ g m a t i c ~ s ~ d u u m along
lmphcatures, diminutives and au .
onon
ICS and sImtlar c O l l l v e : n t i o n l ~
psychological tinge.-indicating ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ t t v e s i l or ~ e r linguistic devices
w ~ e r e he stands with his f e l l o w ~ . - l e a v e ~ re:,
).
saYili
g
, h?w a speaker feels,
m t s ~ r a b l e ) . All the same, it is precisely ee eorehcally naked, wet,
busmess that the properties
of
Ian en spe get down to such
OlX1Uliint
Wittgenstein's phrase, "idling
lO
.
guage as a tool begIn
to
appear-·that it stops,
. I will limit myself to one famil f .
be
pnmary weapons in a war of wor l? uses. W.hy
e V I ~ n t i a l c ~ t e g o r i e s
should
have a look at some Tzotzil cases 'th s the
p a r h c u ~ a r
ISsue
of
Interest. So let's
Evidential s as we have'
n
a ew ~ m p a r a t i v e glances elsewhere.
between the
p r o p o ~ i t i o n a l
content of ' eXfrCItly grammaticalize a relationship .
b e l i ~ f ~ , attirudes, and intentions. Wh
an
u ~ r a n c e , and the speaker's knowledge
exphcItly at issue then as in certa' ere thIS
~ o w l e d g e
and these attitudes
provide a ~ e a n s 1 smuggling them i ~ n ~ ~ s thargument ove,r facts,
e ~ i d e n t i a l s
.
them, as It were, directly into words Th g e ~ r a m m a r ,
" " : I ~ O U t
haVIng to put .
appropriately crafted fonnulations'
n ~ t e
: r s g r ~ V l t d ~ h an. addItIonal resource for
contextually relevant knowled e
rath
a e Issue may be expected
M. Laughlin(l977:94) d e s c r i b ~ s er than ~ ~ O l u e , abstract knowledge
Robert
"accounts are sprinkled throughout i ~ ~ ~ : a
e,
~ m a c a n t . e c o myth-teller whose
t h ~ fonner a sign of his self-assured status i ; ~ ~ ~ S and ~ t u a l words a n ~ phrases;
pnde as a shaman, and an avowal of his inf ~ u r u t y , the latt;er a
s I ~ n
of his
he neglected to add the particle la which ' d ~ y ;lth the gods. QUIte dehberately .
he wants you to know that he was there : n t h ~ c : : ~ o ; ~ story
~ a S " O n 1 y
hearsay, for '
The ploy also works in reverse bal e creation.
Consider the stratagem of the skilled
,as
ver c o m b a ~ t s know (or soon learn).
boss, in (12). Called before a l a d i n } ( ~ ~ ~ ( ~ ~ ' m o u t h p l e ~ e for a village political
abuse of power in which a man who had -b
n
Ian)
~ u t h o n t y
to explain a blatant
pre ext returned to find his cornfield and
f
~ : : . e c a ed ~ " Y a y on a manufactured
facIle spokesman is given a chan
rul.
es sacnflced to a new road this
inteIJ?feter. It has already been
e s t ~ i 1 : ~ ~ ~ ~ h I S . ~ s s ' s h d e f e n s e
in Tzotzil to an
the VIllage when his lands were des e VICtim ad been lured away from
his account, subtly undennining the i : i t R ~ ; : b ~ ~ ~ : I Y inserts several las into '
(12) ~ a ~ g u m ~ n t a t damages hearing)
a,
Jun
J t a t a t i k l e ' 'une
ART one fa ther there CL
"That
o ld
gentleman
over the re "
b.
t a l
sk 'e jan
(sba) l i '
ta
l
.
co
k
~ s e n s y r o
'une
"Hmeh
neel
se l f
here
a t
lawyer CL
as Jcome, : beg
before
the
of f i c i a l s .
c. yu
un a Ja k'ux ta
yo'on
because CL EMPH
pain
in h is heart
"Because he
claims
to feel dis t ress "
d. komo muk' bu tey la 1 ' 1 ..
. vo
Je-e
~ ~ ~ c e
NEG
w?ere there CL ART yesterda -CL
s ~ n c e he c auns he
wasn' t
th y
ere yesterday."
349
I have already noted that such manipulated epistemological issues often leak
into other semantic areas, so that it should not surpriseus that evidentials also relate
to
questions
of
causation, volition, and agentivity (DeLancey 1985) a t the level
of
the
clausal encoding
of
events.
Still, face-to-face interaction, as the label implies, involves more than one
face. Doubt and hearsay may be individually expressed, but with agreement and
disagreement it takes two to tango. An important featureof evidential categories,
rarely mentioned in the literattIre on the subject, is their capacity to encode fearures
of what an interlocutor, as well as a speaker, knows or is ignorant of. Moreover,
such facts are no t absolute. The epistemological groundingof a conversation, the
presumed body
of
shared
information, is,
as
usual, a collaborative co-production
tailored to the purposes and conditions at hand. Since the extent of shared
knowledge between interlocutors can vary, it can also be a topic for contention,
or
for competitive interactional designs.
There are, however, some fonnal details. In Tzotzil, for example, the
evidential enclitics a a and yu van are logically tied to what conversation analysts
call "seconds"--tums that follow and are in some sense shaped by preceding rums.
Thus,
a a
means not only 'of course; or 'indeed' but more: 'I agree with that (and
what's more, I already knew it)' or, more contentiously, 'I can tell you that you're
right about what you've just said ' In fights, as in other fonns of verbal (not to
mention academic) exchange, it is often pressing business to establish precedence:
rights over and prior claims to infonnation.
Conversely, yu van, which I also glossed as 'indeed,' has a contradictory,
disagreeing tone. t means, 'indeed, despite what you have said (or implied)' and
goes on to suggest 'and you should have known it already '
In
some contexts the
particle seems to have the force
of
after all,'
as
in
'despite everything that has gone
before, it turns out after all thatp.
(A comparative digression: in Guugu Yimidhirr, two exclamations, yuu and
ngay, fulfill parallel functions: both respond to an interlocutor's remarks. The first
indicates that the speaker was just waiting for the other to come round to a truthor
proper fonnulation that he already possessed ("Yeah That's right "), The second
suggests, in the context
of
a question just asked, that the answer is somehow
coming out wrong or contrary to the speaker's expectations--a kind of surprised,
heckling, back-channel.)
Notably, an utterance with a a or
yu
van cannot stand alone. The (b)
sentences in (13) and (14) would not
be
well-fonned in
an
isolated frrst-tum.
12
(13) (conversa t ion
about
hybrid
corn)
a.
puta, 'unen k'ox-et ik
damn l i t t l e
small-PL
"Damn,
they ' r e just
l i t t l e
t iny
(kernels) "
b.
k'ox-et ik
a'a
"Yeah, they ' re
small ,
all
right "
(14)
( la ter in the same ta lk)
a. s - t a -o j kwentail
li
vojton ch-ak' 'uke
3E-get-STAT
account ART cob
INC+3E-give
a lso
I t gives a suff ic ient ly large cob a lso
(I
suppose?)"
ak ' -o
mi
k'ox-et ik yi le l
y-ok
give-IMP Q small-PL it appears 3E-stalk
"even if
i t s s ta lk appears small"
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b. ch-ak' a'a yu'van
INC+3E-give CL CL
"Of coura. i t
does (c . i . :
how
could
you think
otherwise )"
Mary Laughren( 1981) notes
that
the Warl iri
..
. . .
f:; ':Ffoamad
u g g ~ ~ ~ the 'negati<.>n of a former p r e s u : p o s i J : ~ f 1 : ~ ? ~ i l ~ I ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ .
,an conu""",cts, somethmg that has been said
or
suggested before.
(15)
-Karlarra-lku
nganm-lu rdaku-ju pangurnu
w e s t ~ S E Q PP -3PL hole-DEL dug
-NgaYI. Kulanganm
yat i ja rra
::I've heard they dug the darn ~ u t west ."
Really. thought
i t
was north."
Similarly, in Guugu Yimidhirr a related P -N 1
utterance final clitics
ba
and
ga
both giossed again
: ; t n d ~ ~ ~ ~ ;nruage
the
on the matter of whether the speaker is a eein
or
disa in . n ~ preCisely
~ ~ ~ o ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ j ~ : t been said, as tt l 6 ~ , but
o = m ~ s : : : p a ~ l ~ ~
(16) (talk
about
a countryman)
- j ; yubaal
guugu
nhanu-um-i yirrgaalgay?
" . 2DuNOM
word
2sGEN-CAT-LOC
were
speaking
D ~ d you two t a lk in
your language?"
- r ; nyulu guugu ngadhun-gal ngadhuu-m-ay yirrgaalgay
nyu
lu
-ugu ba.
3sNOM
wor d ls-ADES lsgGEN-CAT-LOC
3sNOM-EMPH
indeed
"He spoke to me in
my language,
yes he did "
(17) (myth ~ b o u t two feuding
kinsmen)
- ~ ~ nyulu
ngiinggirr
nhaadhi
gurra
3sNOM
snoring
saw
then
"(for a
long
time) . . he l istened for h
h
' t at
snoring."
- 0
n g ~ i n g g i r r
bulngaalngal ba
snoring
pulling indeed
nOh, so he
f inal ly
snoring "
(18)
(lost
countrymen unexpectedly return)
-dhanaan banydyi
3plACC waited
"He
waited
for them ( to corne up)."
-a bama yurra ga,
waarmbaadhi
man
2plNOM
indeed returned
' Ah, so
i t
S you al l You carne back. '"
-a waarmbaadhi nganhdhaan duday gurra
returned IplNOM ran th
.. 'y h en
es, we
ave come back. W ran away (from
there) ."
: : : r e : : ~ an: ~ C O r d with or < > n t r a ~ i c t not only verbal propositions.
that th
d
r an c ~ p a , ut also expectatIons:
In
(17) the confmned expectation
oth
e versary wlll fall asleep,
In
,(18) the d isconfmned presumption that the
ers would not return. The sense In whlch these particles can anticipate or invite a
positive
or
negative response is particularly clear in the stock Guugu Yimidhirr
evidential tag questions: yuu b "Isn't that soT'--which fishes for confirmation-
and
gaari ga
"No, that's not so "--bracing for further contradiction.
I have suggested th at evidentials are potent tools in verbal battle, as well as
in ordinary conversation, in part because they help negotiate common ground and
the universe
of
(moral) discourse. We know that some things (such as, say,
psychological states in Japanese) are by definition not part of common ground: they
are, in the unmarked case,
out
of bounds for shared or interpersonal scrutiny. In
this sense, evidentials help keep the fences in pl ace and in good repair, partitioning
the world
of
who is in a position to know, who has the right to know, who can
even claim to know about, the crucial facts
of
a situation. This brings me to my last
examples, from somewhat closer to home.
In fragment (19), from a deliciously violent
argument between
two
housemates (which end ed
in
their dissolving their agreement
to
share an apartment),
there is a striking use of evidential markers (applied with heavy sarcasm) to fan the
flames of argument. Notably, these Spanish speakers tum Japanese psychology on
its head: P denies L access to her own declared inner states. Note also the explicit
metalinguistic tactic, again with an evidential flavor: "I have been very worried
about you, and i you want me to tell you so, I'll tell you so,
(19)
(roommates squabble
in Mexico
City)
1; y
me
preocupe mucho por
ti
y
1;
p;
1;
p;
"and was very worried about you"
[
"yeah yeah yeah"
-10 diga
te
10
di:go:
[
y s i quieres que te -
"and i f
you want
me
to"
" te l l
you
so,
I ll t e l l you
so"
[
y
desde
que regrese
"and since I have come back"
[
he estado
muy preocupada por
ti
Pi lar
"I
have been very worried about
you"
p r e o c u p a d ~ i m a
mano
"very worried, friend"
[
SI pero
"yeah"
Finally, have a look at the whimpering evidentials of a disputed volleyball
serve, among a bunch of American academics. In an ambience of constant ironic
joking, and self-mocking put-downs, complaints, and criticism, when a real
disagreement emerges, the players must search for different rhetorical techniques.
Here the players take refuge in an increased dose of sincerity ("honestly"), coy
evidential framing ("saw t out"), token expressions of affect ("what a pity ), and
even explicit evidential meta-commentary ("I believe him"), to preserve their
civilized immunity from overt hostilities.
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(20)
p;
n;
r ;
n;
db;
c ;
b;
r ;
p;
c ;
352
<academics
adjudicate a l ine
ca l l
in volleyball)I3
that
was good
bri l l iant
serve
No I honestly
didn ' t
think so
I thought
it
was out
I honestly thought it was out myself
what a pity
it s your cal l
what'd
you
think
Robert
it s your cal l '
I saw it out, Carol
huh
I believe him
I have tried to illustrate the multifunctionality
of
the ,
c e ~ n
evidential categories, in the sense that they act = ~ ~ expressl?D
discursive, and transactional levels simultaneou sly' more th th'
th
' pragmatic,
be a common m
ltif
al
an
IS ere seems to
; ~ i ~ ~ ~ n ~ j : ~ u
~ ~ r ~ ~ ~ i f ~ £ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ t i ? ~ ~
a ; ~ o ~ ~ ~ ~ : s ~
~ ~ ~ e i ~ ~ ;
implicit comment on moral d " ge, m . e c ~ n t e x t of speech; they
permit
prothbes
anthd
barbs in the m i n : r : : : f J ~ ~ : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ e ~ ~ ~ : o ~ p e r T h a e t e g a e n S einrtealractiral ve
IS at e nographic richn fid rd . mo
~ Y S i S , if we are to take ~ ~ ~ U ~ I ; ~ ; n c f ; f : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ g ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ : s ~ n ~
~ ~ g ~ :
Notes
I All original I .
are taken from
t r a n s c J ~ : : r g o ~ e ~ a t i : ~ I l , Guugu
Yimidhirr, Spanish
and
English,
2 In Tzotzil the d b' tati i . .
th
bY
a separate f o ~
~ ~ n . ~ h ~ f o ; : e C o ? ~ o : : : , ~ : : : K ~ a ~ ~ : ~ ~ : ~ o ~ a t i : J d s e n t e n c e s ,
at from a
proposillon p
one can fo . e ressee, so
question-marker) which means Do
rm
a
questl°thn
Ml p van? (where
mi
is the
3 B ' . ' you Suppose
at
p?
lah which, ~ : r : t : : g ~ v : : : ~ ~ I J ; s ~ ~ I I s 7 ~ ~ e a , ~ i m i l a r o b s e r v ~ ~ o n about Tzeltal
on illocutionary force. ' ge not on proposItiOnal c ontent but
4 T h d . ,
e
secon
poSItIon" formulation as in rna I .
elaborate statement of what can
constitute'
he s'
lnr
a n g u a d ~ e s , requI eS an
Moreover some membe f th· I mg e prece mg constituent.
"second s i t i o n " clitics a ~ e
a ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a l s ~ p p e a r
~ l s e w h e r e in
c l ~ u s e ,
Other
evidentials. Within each se . u empo meanIngs, and ordmanly precede
least in "second position." mantic class, the members
are mutually
exclusive,
at
( m i S t a k : ~ o m , e : h e r
infrequent mem >ers are kik 'I guess, maybe,'
ka
'I thought
than nan J ~ o u g t ~ ~ ~ m s to h ~ v e a shghtly more positive or optimistic tone to it
, sometimes occur together.
6 See for example Sil t (1978)
which p p e ~ t . ,vers , " on the Wasco passive of evidence. .
th . .
0
mcorporate an explICIt deiCtic
-ix
'there"
Hanks(l984)
describes
W ~ V I ~ ~ , t I a l
n a t l f ~
of
s t e n ~ i v e
deictics in Yucatec; and Laughren(l981) cites the
e v i d e ~ ~ , , ) X ~ s l t I ( ~ ~ , a l
Pf
hcle
" kari which indicates "supposition from direct
in
i s c o u ~
. un 'de
iS
vo ume) makes related observations
about
demonstratives
e, ll a WI range of languages. .
353
Len Talmy, in comments on the oral presentation of this talk, pointed out
that Russian vot, a presentational form meaning 'This (and here
it
is)' is difficult to
translate because
of
the situational vividness it conjures; it s usually restricted, even
in narrative. to present tense sentences. The phenomenon may be related to deictic
(directive evidential) force. Terry Kau fman suggests, in a simil ar spirit, the English
equivalent
10
7 Compare the evidential flavor (accompanied again by a presentational
vividness) in the colloquial English form of words
I
saw/see where p --which,
as
Len Talmy observes, does not easily admit a 2nd person subject (except in
questions. as in the
case of
Japanese psychological predicates), and which seems
otherwise pragmatically restricted.
8 The nature
of
quoted and reported speech is clearly
of
related interest.
Tzotzil uses the verb chi 'say' to bracket quoted or dramatized dialogue, and the
particle-like inflected form xi 'he says, one says' interacts with the hearsay clitic b
in a complicated way.
9 Nonetheless, there is persistent programmatic optimism in some semantic
circles. See Wierzbicka 1976, 1980, and Goddard 1979,
I
have
not
attempted to
provide semantically uniform and well-motivated formulas for the Tzotzil
evidentials described here, despite urgings from
Tim
Shopen that such an attempt is
necessary.
10 The confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine
idling, not when it is doing work"(1958 section 132).
11
DeLancey
(1986) shows
that
Tibetan
evidentials interact
with
interlocutors' assumptions about expected, predictable, contextually "normalized"
background knowledge,
a
phenomenon which he relates to the old/new
distinction.
12
Tzotzil speakers can articulate certain metapragmatic intuitions about these
particles;
I
can remember being criticized and mocked for misusing
a
a, both in
isolated fIrst-turns,
and in
situations where it was obvious that I could not know
enough about the topic at
hand to
be in a position to
agree
in the way that the
particle required.
In comments after the talk, a psychoanalyst in the audience pointed out his
own strategic, pragmatically ill-formed, use
of of
course as a provocative
and
deliberate prod to patients' frnmings of absolute certainty on some matter, which
could be challenged or cast into doubt by the analyst's
covert
suggestion that
he
too
was in possession
of
some
of
the relevant facts. .
Compare the pragmatic misfire involved with the misuse of the particle oh
(typically associated with news receipt, or, in a parallel way, with just remembering
something one was going to say) in a turn where deliberate and pre-planned matters
are mentioned.
13
These volleyball transcripts, and some of these thoughts, were collected
during
my
stay at the
Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
at
Stanford in 1985-86. I
am
grateful for support from the Harry Frank Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation and NSF Grant #BNS-8011494, Fieldwork in Zinacantan
and Hopevale
has been supported by the Australian National University, the
Universidad
Nacional
Aut6noma
de Mexico,
and the Australian Institute of
Aboriginal Studies. I thank David French for helpful comments.
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ibliography
Aissen, Judith in press. Tzotzil Clause Structure. Reidel.
Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson 1978. Universals in language usage:
politeness phenomena. In Esther N. Goody (00.), Questions and Politeness:
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Press.
DeLancey, Scott 1985. Lhasa Tibetan evidentials and the semantics of causation.
Proc. of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society
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and Johana Nichols (OOs.), Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding
of
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Goddard, Cliff 1979. Particles and illocutionary semantics. Papers in Linguistics.
12:1-2:185-230.
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Drogo, Veena Mishra and David Testen (eds.),
CLS 20: Papers from the
Twentieth Regional Meeting of he Chicago Linguist ics SoCiety 154-72.
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and
Kings: Tales from Zinacantan.
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(ed.), Papers in Warlpiri Grammar: In Memory of Lothar Jagst. S,I.L.,
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Silverstein, Michae11978. Debds and deducibility
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X Bar alantics
Ray
Jackendoff
Brandeis Un;versity/Univ. of Arizona
I take the major concerns of semantic t ~ o r y to be
(1) the
form
of the mentally e n ~ o d ~ d
; n f o r m a t ~ o n t h ) a t
we
« t and (2) the pr1nc1ples usee ln a
call c ~ n c e ~ s, the basis of this information
and
perform1nQ 1nferences on f f
(b) relat1nQ
this
information
o t h ~ r
orms
0 t 1
information' used by
t h ~
human m1nd, 1 ~ C 1 U ~ i ~ ~ f ~ ~ m a ~ ~ 0 ~ (a
i ~ n ~ ~ ; : t ~ ~ 9 ~ ~ ) ) e ~ ~ ~ t ~ i t ~ ~ t ~ h s ~ : ~ ~ ~ ; : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i t ~ ~ : s i a ~ ~ ~ ; ~ e s .
A semant1c theory mus e
formal components: , rules that collectively describe
(1) a set of formatlon f the lanQuaqe of
in finite form the e x p r e s s 1 ~ e power 0 f
thouQht para11elinQ, for 1nstance, the
set
0 'b1e
f o r m a t i ~ n
rules (the ~ r a m m a r ) that,de11neate POSS1
syntactic structures 1n lanquaqe, . . f te
(2)
a set
of
inference rules that descr1be
1n 1n1
form the a 1l0v/able der ivation s f r ~ m one
c o n c ~ P t u ~
1
expression
to
a n o t ~ e r ( t ~ e s e ~ a Y t . ' n ; ' l ~ ~ e ~ e ~ ~ ~ 0 1 0 Q i C a 1
invited inference
and
heur1S
1CS
,
entailments);
f . formation that conceptual
(3) for each other form 0 1n ,. f
information
can
be related
to,
a f1n1te s ~ t 0
correspondence rules that define the
~ a p p 1 n q .
. not
Under s u c ~ a ~ o n ~ e p t i o n , m u c h i ~ ~ e s ~ ~ : n ~ ~ ~ c ~ ~ ~ ~ { S
part
of
1 1 n g ~ ~ ~ t 1 ~ ~ c ~ e ~ h : e t h ~ O r y
is concerned are not
structures
Wl
d w
t
(Only
the correspondence rule
lanquage-depen en : . th lanQuaQe.) 1
component has spec1f1ca11
Y
l
dnoaryW'conservatism, that
e on
Qrounds
of
evo
u
10
.
assuf 1 ' . , - - bo t h hiqher animals
and
bab1es--
non11nQU1st1c
orQan1sms i th
r
mental
also p o ~ s e s s c o n c e P t ~ ~ ~ ~ ; r ~ ~ ~ ~ r : ~
o ~ r s , e ~ u t
formally
r e p ~ r t o 1 ~ e ,
perhaps
Th d fference
between
us
and
s
im1l
ar ,n
many
respects. e 1 , 1 d
the beasts is
that we
evolved a capac1ty to
e a r ~
~ ~ e
rocess
syntactic
and phonological structures an
~ a p i n Q S from them to conceptual structures
.and
to t ~ ~ us
auditor
and
motor peripheries. These mapp1nqs
perm
a r e 1 a t ~ v e l y overt
realization
of conceptual
structure
unavailable to o ~ h e r
organtiSms.
th t linQuists should not
However
th1S does no mean
a
'd s the
be
concerned'with semantic theory. LanguaQe provl e
1987 Ray Jackendoff
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ERKELEY LINGUISTICS SOCIETY
Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting
February 14-16 1987
GENER L SESSION
l ~ T I
P R SESSION
O
GR MM R ND
COGNITION
edited by
Jon Aske
N
atasha
Beery
Laura
Michaelis
Hana
Filip
Berkeley Linguistics
Society
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MITHUN,
MARIANNE
.
The Grammatical Nature and
Discourse Power of Demonstratives 184
NORVIG, PETER and G EORGE LAKOFF
Taking: A Study in Lexical Network Theory ............................................... 195
OHALA, JOHN
Experimental Phonology ................................................................................... 2 7
PULLUM, GEOFFREY K.
see Zwicky and Pullum
RHODES, RICHARD
Paradigms
Large
and
Smal l .............................................................................
223
SCHILLER, ERIC
Which Way Did They Grow?
(Morphology and
the
Austro -Tai/( Macro )Austri c Deba te) ....................... 235
SHANNON, THOMAS F.
On
Some Recent Claims of Relational
Grammar
........................................ 247
SHAUL, DAVE
Pragmatic Constraints
on Hopi Narrative Discourse .................................. 263
SZATROWSKI, POLLY
A Discourse Analysis of Japanese Invita tions ............................................... 270
TAN,
FU
The Predicate
Argument
Structure of
Bei .................................................. 285
TUITE,
KEVIN
Ind irect Transitives in Geor gian ..................................................................... 296
VIJAYAKRISHNAN, K.G.
Hierarchical Representation of Phonological Features ............................... 310
WILSON, STEPHEN A.
The Deve lopment of Tones in Heiltsuk .......................................................... 321
ZWICKY, ARNOLD M.
and GEOFFREY
K. PULLUM
Plain
Morphology and Expressive Morphology ............................................ 330
R SESSION
HAVILAND, JOHN B.
Fighting Words: Evidential particles, Affect, and
Argument
.................... 343
JACKEt-. DOFF , RAY
X-Bar Seman tics ................................................................................................. 355
LAMBRECHT, KNUD
Aboutness as a Cognitive Category:
The
Thetic-Categori cal Distinction Revi sited .............................................. 366
LANGACKER. RONALD W.
Grammatical
Ramifications of
the
Setting/Participant Distinction ...... 383
LEE, MICHAEL
The Cognitive Basis of Classifier Systems ..................................................... 395
POTEET,
STEPHEN
Paths Through
Different Domains:
A Cognitive Grammar Analysis
of
Mandarin Dao .................................... 408
RICE, SALLY
Towards a Transitive Prototype:
Evidence from Some Atypical Engl ish Passives ........................................... 422
SLOBIN, DAN
Thi nki ng for Speaking ....................................................................................... 435
SWEETSER, EVE
Metaphorical Models of Thought and Speech:
A Comparison of Historical Directions
and
Metaphorical Mappings in
the
Two Domai ns ............................................... 446
WILKINS, WENDY
On the Linguistic Function
of Event
Roles ................................................... 460
* 4:
The
following papers were presented
at
the conference but do
not appear
in
this volume:
BATES, ELIZABETH
Function and Form in Language Acquisition
CLARK, EVE V.
Why
Comprehension Leads
Production
in Acquisition
KAY, MARTIN
Finite
State Morphology
MATSUMOTO, YO, ET AL.
The Japanese Reflexive Zibun-zishin
and the
Supposed Relatedness of Anaphora and
NP-trace
MORDECHAY, SUSAN
Pragmatic Scales
and
the Semantics of
Already
R l ; ~ t E L H A R T DAVID
Some Speculations on
the
Microstructure
of
Linguistic Info rmation Processing
THOMPSON, SANDRA
That-deletion in English from a Discourse Perspective
ZERNIK, URI
Acquiring Idioms from Examples in Context: Learning by
Explanation
The following papers were not presented at the conference but are included
in this volume:
POTEET, STEPHEN
Paths Through Different Domains:
A Cognitive
Grammar
Analysis
of Mandarin
Dao
VIJAYAKRISHNAN,
K.G.
Hierarchical Representatio n of Phonological Features