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In:Egophoricity
Edited by Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe and Lila San Roque
[Typological Studies in Language 118] 2018
► pp. 79–107

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Chapter 2
“Am I blue?”

Privileged access constraints in Kathmandu Newar

 | Western Oregon University
Published online: 25 April 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.02har
Abstract
Traditionally described as a system of verb morphology (Bendix 1974, 1992; Hale 1980; Hale and Shrestha 2006; Hargreaves 1990, 1991a, 1991b, 2005), “conjunct/disjunct” egophoric encoding in Kathmandu Newar (Tibeto-Burman) is not, in fact, limited to inflectional morphology. Instead, accounting for egophoric distributions synchronically and diachronically in Kathmandu Newar requires positing an interrelated set of semantic and pragmatic principles linked to patterns in verbal morphology, temperature predicates, and the simple/causative alternation of the auxiliary dhun- ‘finish.’ The principles include a semantic feature assigned to arguments of internal state predicates (both agents of intentional action and experiencers), epistemic constraints on the attribution of intentional and internal states, and a discourse function, termed ‘epistemic source,’ which is constructed from the indexical properties of speaker/addressee and the pragmatic preconditions for declarative/interrogative illocutionary types.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Finite verbal morphology
  • 3.Previous accounts
  • 4.Temperature predicates
  • 5.Aspectual auxiliary dhun- ‘finish’
    • 5.1The egophoric patterning of auxiliary -dhun
    • 5.2The causative morpheme -k(al)-
    • 5.3Auxiliary -dhun ‘finish’ in two late classical Newar texts
    • 5.4Assessing the late classical evidence
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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