In:Egophoricity
Edited by Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe and Lila San Roque
[Typological Studies in Language 118] 2018
► pp. 173–196
Chapter 6Egophoricity in Wutun
Published online: 25 April 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.06san
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.06san
Abstract
This paper discusses the category of egophoricity in Wutun. Drawing from first-hand field material, I show how markers of egophoricity in Wutun interact with person. In the introductory section, I provide basic information on the Wutun language and on its areal context, typological profile and verb structure. I then introduce Wutun basic egophoric morphology and discuss manipulations of the basic system. It will be shown that pragmatic factors like volitionality, mirativity, the speaker’s degree of certainty concerning the truth value of the statement, and the speaker’s expectations of access to information by the addressee play significant roles in the interaction between egophoricity and person in Wutun. Finally, I discuss egophoricity in Wutun as an areal feature and suggest some possible diachronic sources for egophoricity markers.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1The Wutun language and the Amdo Sprachbund
- 1.2Typological profile
- 1.3Verb structure
- 2.The egophoricity system
- 2.1The basic system
- 2.2The egophoricity system and reported evidentiality
- 3.Manipulations of the basic system
- 3.1Ego evidentiality and non-first persons
- 3.2Sensory-inferential evidentiality and first person
- 3.3Factual evidentiality in first person statements and question-answer sequences
- 4.Egophoricity in Wutun from diachronic and areal perspective
- 5.Summary and discussion
Acknowledgements Notes Abbreviations References
References (39)
Bickel, Balthasar. 2000. Introduction: Person and evidence in Himalayan languages. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 23(2): 1–11.
. 2008. Verb agreement and epistemic marking: A typological journey from the Himalayas to the Caucasus. In Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek: Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, Brigitte Huber, Marianne Volkart, Paul Widmer & Peter Schwieger (eds), 1–14. Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.
Chen, Naixiong. 1986. Guanyu Wutunhua (An outline of Wutun linguistic structure). Journal of Asian and African Studies 31: 33–52.
Creissels, Denis. 2008. Remarks on so-called “conjunct/disjunct” systems. In Proceedings of Syntax of the World’s Languages III. Berlin, 25–28 September.
DeLancey, Scott. 1986. Evidentiality and volitionality in Tibetan. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology [Advances in Discourse Processes 20], Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (eds), 203–213. Norwood NJ: Ablex.
. 1990. Ergativity and the cognitive model of event structure in Lhasa Tibetan. Cognitive Linguistics 1: 289–321.
. 1992. The historical status of the conjunct/disjunct pattern in Tibeto-Burman. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 25: 39–62.
. 1997. Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information. Linguistic Typology 1: 33–52.
Dickinson, Connie. 2000. Mirativity in Tsafiki. Studies in Language 24(2): 379–421.
Evans, Nicholas. 2007. View with a view: Towards a typology of multiple perspective. Proceedings from Berkeley Linguistics Society 1: 93–120. Berkeley, CA: University of California.
Fried, Robert Wayne. 2010. A Grammar of Bao’an Tu, a Mongolic Language of Northwest China. PhD dissertation, The University of Buffalo, State University of New York.
Garrett, Edward J. 2001. Evidentiality and Assertion in Tibetan. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Georg, Stefan. 2003. Huzhu Mongghul. In The Mongolic Languages [Routledge Language Family Series 5], Juha Janhunen (ed.). 286-306London: Routledge.
Hale, Austin. 1980. Person markers: Finite conjunct and disjunct forms in Newari. In Papers in South-east Asian Linguistics 7 [Pacific Linguistics Series A. No. 53], Ronald L. Trail (ed.), 95–106. Canberra: Australian National University.
Janhunen, Juha. 2005. The role of Turkic languages in the Amdo Sprachbund. In Turks and Non-Turks. Studies in the History of Linguistic and Cultural Contacts [Studia Turcologica Cracoviensia 10], Ewa Siemienic-Golaš & Marzanna Pomorska (eds), 113–122. Kraków: Institute of Oriental Philology, Jagiellonian University.
. 2012. On the hierarchy of structural convergence in the Amdo Sprachbund.In Pirkko Suihkonen, Bernard Comrie and P. Solovyev (eds.) Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, 177-189. Amsterdam: John Benjamin's.
Janhunen, Juha, Peltomaa, Marja, Sandman, Erika & Dongzhou, Xiawu. 2008. Wutun [Languages of the World/Materials 466]. Munich: Lincom.
Lee-Smith, Mei W. & Wurm, Stephen A. 1996. The Wutun Language. In Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas [Trends in Linguistics. Documentation 13, Vol. II(2)], Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler & Darrell R. Tryon (eds), 883–897. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Li, Charles N. 1983. Languages in contact in Western China. Papers in East Asian Languages 1: 31–51.
1984. From verb-medial analytic language to verb-final synthetic language: A case of typological change. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Claudia Brugman & Monica Macaulay (eds), 307–323. Berkeley CA: BLS.
1986. The rise and fall of tones through diffusion (1). In Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, Vassiliki Nikoforidou, Mary VanClay, Mary Niepokuj & Debora Feder, 307–323. Berkeley CA: BLS.
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1981. Mandarin Chinese. A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.
Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roos, Martina Erica 2000. The Western Yughur (Yellow Uygur) Language. Grammar, Texts, Vocabulary. PhD dissertation, University of Leiden.
Sandman, Erika 2012. Bonan grammatical features in Wutun Mandarin. In Per Urales ad Orientem. Iter Polyphonicum Multilingue. Festskrift tillägnad Juha Janhunen på hans sextioårsdag den 12 februari 2012 [Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 264], Tiina Hyytiäinen, Janne Saarikivi, Lotta Jalava & Erika Sandman (eds), 375–387. Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne.
San Roque, Lila 2008. An Introduction to Duna Grammar. PhD dissertation, Australian National University.
San Roque, Lila & Loughnane, Robyn. 2012. The New Guinea Highlands evidentiality area. Linguistic Typology 16: 111–167.
Sun, Jackson T.S. 1993. Evidentials in Amdo Tibetan. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 63(4): 945–1001.
Tournadre, Nicholas 2008. Arguments against the concept of ‘conjunct’/’disjunct’ in Tibetan. In Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek: Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, Brigitte Huber, Marianne Volkart, Paul Widmer & Peter Schwieger (eds), 281–308. Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.
Cited by (8)
Cited by eight other publications
Hölzl, Andreas
Khachaturyan, Maria, Erika Sandman & Thera Marie Crane
Zhang, Sihong & Jie Chen
2024. A typological study on person sensitivity in Ersu. Asian Languages and Linguistics 5:2 ► pp. 337 ff.
Sandman, Erika & Karolina Grzech
2022. Egophoricity and evidentiality: Different categories, similar discourse functions. Interactional Linguistics 2:1 ► pp. 79 ff.
Floyd, Simeon
Grzech, Karolina, Eva Schultze-Berndt & Henrik Bergqvist
Hyslop, Gwendolyn
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
