34.2423, Calls: Workshop on Ego-Evidentiality and the Right(s) to Know (Better)

Tue Aug 8 07:05:02 UTC 2023

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2423. Tue Aug 08 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2423, Calls: Workshop on Ego-Evidentiality and the Right(s) to Know (Better)

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Date: 08-Aug-2023
From: Bettina Zeisler [zeis at uni-tuebingen.de]
Subject: Workshop on Ego-Evidentiality and the Right(s) to Know (Better)

Full Title: Workshop on Ego-Evidentiality and the Right(s) to Know
(Better)

Date: 25-Apr-2024 - 26-Apr-2024
Location: Tübingen, Germany
Contact Person: Bettina Zeisler
Meeting Email: zeis at uni-tuebingen.de

Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation
Subject Language(s): Tibetan (bod)
Language Family(ies): Tibeto-Burman

Call Deadline: 31-Oct-2023

Meeting Description:

The modern Tibetic languages are known to have developed quite a
particular type of ‘evidential’ marking, their basic principles having
been described for quite a few of them, see the volumes Evidential
Systems of Tibetan Languages, ed. by Lauren Gawne and Nathan W. Hill.
(TiLSM 302, Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2017) and Person and evidence
in Himalayan languages, ed. by Balthasar Bickel. (Linguistics of the
Tibeto-Burman Area, 23.1-2, 2000). One of the key features is the
subjective involvement of the epistemic origo (the speaker in
statements, the addressee in questions, and the original speaker in
reported speech) in the events relayed. The ‘system’ is thus also
known under the key terms of ‘egophoricity’ and ‘conjunct/disjunct’,
both concepts often mistaken for a somewhat weird syntactic person
category (ego vs. non-ego).

However, at a closer look, the ‘system’ is extremely flexible,
allowing, in principle, most if not all forms for all persons, albeit
in different frequencies and for different motivations. It further
does not only deal with the source of information (firsthand vs.
second-hand) or the access channels (self-centred knowledge,
perception, and inferences), but also or even predominantly with the
subjective assessment of the situation and/or socio-pragmatic factors.
These factors appear to be related to a speaker’s rights to treat a
particular piece of knowledge as belonging to his or her ‘territory of
information’; this also means that speaker-hearer (a)symmetries may
play a crucial role. Apart from ‘epistemic rights’, other key words
may be ‘empathy hierarchy’ and ‘engagement’.

Another key term, used for languages outside the realm of the Tibetic
languages (and those languages under their immediate influence), is
‘participatory knowledge’. Nothing, has been yet said about how
flexible such systems are in the languages so described.

The workshop aims at discussing the ‘unsystematic’ aspects of
‘ego’-evidentiality or participatory knowledge marking. The main
questions are:

– What are the various motivations for using the ‘egophoric’ marker(s)
for a person other than the epistemic origo.
– What are the various motivations for using any other than the
‘egophoric’ markers for the epistemic origo, and are there differences
between the three types of epistemic origo?
– How common, predictable, or even regular are such ‘transgressions’
of the underlying paradigm?
– Are the speakers merely ‘manipulating’ a grammatical system for
their subjective needs or is exactly this subjectivity or the
speaker’s attitude – towards the communicated content and towards the
addressee – part of, or underlying, the grammaticalised system?
– Which role does the so-called factual marker of the Tibetic
languages play with respect to the question of a speaker’s attitudes
and/ or rights. Does it, as often has been stated, present the
respective information in a way that the addressee simply has to
accept it, that is, in quite an authoritative manner? Or could its
usage, by contrast, be described as a strategy for downgrading one’s
authority?
– How helpful is the notion of ‘territory of information’ for
explaining at least part of the observable flexibility.

Call for Papers:

We invite papers for presentations of 30min plus 15min discussion. The
presentations should specifically address some of the above questions.
Expressive abstracts may be up to 4 pages including examples and
references (A4, Times Roman 12pt, overall margins 2.5 cm).
Presentations about languages outside the realm of the Tibetic
languages including languages with non-grammaticalised evidential
strategies are very welcome. Abstracts that do not address any of the
above questions will not be considered. Exceptions can be made for
first descriptions of threatened languages, if the pardigm described
shows some interesting features relating to the main topic. In such
cases, presenters will have a standard time slot of 20min plus 10 min
discussion.

The workshop will be hold in physical presence. Depending on the
number of participants it may be extended to Saturday, 04/27/2024.

Invited speakers:
Ilana Mushin, Professor of Linguistics, Deputy Head of School, School
of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Australia.
Nicolas Tournadre, Professor emeritus, Department of Linguistics,
Aix-Marseille University and CNRS, France.

For any questions, please contact:
Bettina Zeisler
Department of Indology,
Eberhard Karl Univertät Tübingen
zeis at uni-tuebingen.de

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