LINGUIST List 22.3797

Thu Sep 29 2011

Diss: Anthro Ling: Sjoerdsma: 'Evidentiality and Intersubjectivity ...'

Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang <xiyanlinguistlist.org>


        1.     Sonja Gipper , Evidentiality and Intersubjectivity in Yurakaré: An interactional account

Message 1: Evidentiality and Intersubjectivity in Yurakaré: An interactional account
Date: 22-Sep-2011
From: Sonja Gipper <sonja.gippermpi.nl>
Subject: Evidentiality and Intersubjectivity in Yurakaré: An interactional account
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Institution: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Program: Department of Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2011

Author: Edith Sjoerdsma

Dissertation Title: Evidentiality and Intersubjectivity in Yurakaré: An interactional account

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
Dissertation Director:
Pieter C. Muysken Stephen Curtis Levinson Rik Van Gijn
Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation is a study of the evidential markers of Yurakaré, anendangered unclassified language of Bolivia, as they are used in socialinteraction. Using methods from Conversation Analysis, the semantics andinteractional functions of the evidentials are described and analyzed.

The Yurakaré evidentials all have an intersubjective meaning component,which is concerned with expressing the distribution of knowledge betweenthe speakers. It is argued that this semantic component can only bedetected in conversational data, since only in social interaction peoplenegotiate their relative perspectives on the information they are talkingabout. This demonstrates the importance of studying conversational data fora comprehensive understanding of the semantics of grammatical markers suchas evidentials.

In descriptive linguistics, the use of interactional data is not yetstandard. This dissertation demonstrates that the study of socialinteraction can make an important contribution to language description andto the field of linguistics in general.



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