<div>Dear Jenneke,</div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">That's a fun question!</div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">I have a couple of anecdotes. One is quite vivid in my mind right now. I was talking in Tibetan about Chinese prisons, and said:</div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><p style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);text-indent:0in;text-decoration:none;line-height:14.4px;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;unicode-bidi:embed"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Microsoft Himalaya"; color: black; line-height: normal;">བཙོན་ཁང་དེ་ཚོ་དྲག་པོ་འདུག</span></p><p style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);text-indent:0in;text-decoration:none;line-height:14.4px;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;unicode-bidi:embed"><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">btson</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">khang</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">de-</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">tsho</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">drag po</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; color: red; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">’</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; color: red; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">dug</span></p><p style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);text-indent:0in;text-decoration:none;line-height:14.4px;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;unicode-bidi:embed"><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; line-height: normal;">prison</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 17pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-caps: small-caps; line-height: normal;">dem</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-caps: small-caps; line-height: normal;">-pl</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 17pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; line-height: normal;">harsh</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 17pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-caps: small-caps; line-height: normal;">cop.dperc</span></p><p style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);text-indent:0in;text-decoration:none;line-height:14.4px;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;unicode-bidi:embed"><span style="font-size:17pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";font-variant-caps:small-caps;color:black"></span></p>'Those prisons are harsh.'</div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">The Tibetan friend I was talking to said:</div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><span style="color: black; text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Microsoft Himalaya"; line-height: normal;">ཨ</span><span style="color: black; text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Microsoft Himalaya"; line-height: normal;">།</span><span style="color: black; text-indent: 0in; font-size: 33pt; font-family: "XenoType Tibetan New";"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Microsoft Himalaya"; line-height: normal;">ག་རེ་གནང་པ</span><span style="color: black; text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Microsoft Himalaya"; line-height: normal;">།</span><br></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><p style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);text-indent:0in;text-decoration:none;line-height:14.4px;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;unicode-bidi:embed"><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">a</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 17pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">ga</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 17pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">re</span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 17pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-style: italic; line-height: normal;">gnang-pa</span></p><p style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);text-indent:0in;text-decoration:none;line-height:14.4px;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;unicode-bidi:embed"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-caps: small-caps; color: black; line-height: normal;">inj</span><span style="font-size:17pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; color: black; line-height: normal;">what</span><span style="font-size:17pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span><span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; color: black; line-height: normal;">do.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-caps: small-caps; color: black; line-height: normal;">hon-int</span><span style="font-size:17pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:black"></span></p><p style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0);text-indent:0in;text-decoration:none;line-height:14.4px;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left:0in;unicode-bidi:embed"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-caps: small-caps; color: black; line-height: normal;"></span></p></div><span style="background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);text-decoration:none;display:inline !important">'What?!! What did you do?'</span><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">What happened is that I made a mistake in my choice of evidential. Because I used the direct perception copula '<b>dug</b>, my interlocutor understood that I had experienced Chinese prisons firsthand, so was wondering what I could have done to be sent to one. The form I should have used was<i> yod red=ze </i>(factual copula + hearsay enclitic). </div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">All the best!</div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">Eric</div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Montserrat, montserrat, "Source Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9.75pt; color: rgb(31, 31, 31);"><br></div><div data-bm-signature="d33b51d3-f7b5-40a9-b44a-43fdaae01c7d"><div>Eric Mélac </div><div>Associate professor in linguistics</div><div><br></div><div>Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3</div><div>https://emma.univ-montp3.fr</div></div><br><div class="data-bm-reply-separator"><p>Le mardi 04/03/2025 14:47, Wal, G.J. van der (Jenneke) via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org> a écrit :</p><blockquote style="margin-left: 1rem; padding-left: 1rem; border-left: 2px solid black; border-left-color: var(--neutral-fg-lo1);"><span><span style="font-weight: 600 !important">De : </span>Wal, G.J. van der (Jenneke) via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></span><br><span><span style="font-weight: 600 !important">Envoyé le : </span>mardi 04/03/2025 14:47</span><br><span><span style="font-weight: 600 !important">À : </span>lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></span><br><span><span style="font-weight: 600 !important">Objet : </span>[Lingtyp] Funny situations with epistemics</span><br><br><div class="bm-composer-content-wrapper">
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Dear linguists,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>I am looking for funny situations you encountered in the use and misuse of
</span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0cm" type="disc">
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span>Evidentials</span></li><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span>Miratives</span></li><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span>Egophorics</span></li><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span>Epistemic modality</span></li><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0cm;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span>Information structure</span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>The goal is to use these as illustrations in an online course about the broader field of epistemicity (the knowledge of speaker and addressee as expressed in the linguistically), so that participants in the course see
the relevance of these markers in an engaging way. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>To get us started, I share one from the SIL
<a href="https://www.sil.org/linguistics/stories-field">stories in the field</a>:</span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:15.0pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:15.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:20.4pt;background:white">
<span style="font-family:Lora;color:#2D2D2D">Roger Van Otterloo tells of the time he was discussing translation with his Kifuliiru friends (Democratic Republic of Congo) and he uttered the sentence “Don’t steal from widows!” They started chuckling, and soon
everyone was laughing uproariously. Roger was mystified and wondered if he’d used the wrong tone (Kifuliiru is a tonal language) or what. The Kifuliirus told him, no, the tone was fine, but what he said implied that they </span><em><span style="font-family:Lora;color:#2D2D2D">could</span></em><span style="font-family:Lora;color:#2D2D2D"> steal
from everyone </span><em><span style="font-family:Lora;color:#2D2D2D">besides</span></em><span style="font-family:Lora;color:#2D2D2D"> widows!</span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:15.0pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:15.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:20.4pt;background:white;box-sizing: border-box;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-thickness: initial;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-family:Lora;color:#2D2D2D">Roger found out that day that the last word in Kifuliiru is the focus, the main point, of the entire sentence. So you need to say “Those widows, don’t steal-from-them.” The “from-them” is a suffix on the verb, so
the last word in the sentence is now “steal.”</span><span style="font-family:Lora;color:#2D2D2D"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Looking forward to hearing your field-fun!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Thanks very much,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Jenneke</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">-- </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#151CD1;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Dr G.J. van der Wal</span></b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"> | </span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#08B4C0;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">she/her</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Senior Lecturer at the <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/humanities/leiden-university-centre-for-linguistics"><span style="color:black">Leiden
University Centre for Linguistics</span></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Office: Reuvensplaats</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">
<span>4, room</span></span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">
</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">1.25</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none"><a href="https://jennekevanderwal.com/" title="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjennekevanderwal.com%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cg.j.van.der.wal%40hum.leidenuniv.nl%7C98e00ee322d24eb43d5808dabbdfd3f4%7Cca2a7f76dbd74ec091086b3d524fb7c8%7C0%7C0%7C638028867307988190%7CUnknown%7CTWF"><span style="color:#0563C1">https://jennekevanderwal.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none"></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none">MapLE project:
<a href="https://epistemicity.net/"><span style="color:#0563C1">https://epistemicity.net</span></a></span></p>
</div>
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