35.1148, Confs: Workshop on Ego-Evidentiality and the Right(s) to Know (Better)

Thu Apr 4 23:05:02 UTC 2024

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1148. Thu Apr 04 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1148, Confs: Workshop on Ego-Evidentiality and the Right(s) to Know (Better)

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Date: 03-Apr-2024
From: Bettina Zeisler [zeis at uni-tuebingen.de]
Subject: Workshop on Ego-Evidentiality and the Right(s) to Know (Better)

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

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

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

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.

Venue:
Wilhelmstr. 21, Room B004
(University library, Bonatzbau)

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

Thursday, 25.04.2024 – Tibetic languages

09:30-10:00 Address of welcome and introduction
10:00-11:30 Nicola Tournadre & Dickey Tsang Tsering Wangdue: The
grammatical expressions of access to personal knowledge and personal
experience. An illustration of the flexibility of the Tibetic
evidential systems.
break
11:45-12:30 Hiroyuki Suzuki: Towards shaping the egophoric category in
Tibetic languages: Suggestions from the factual evidential expression
emerging in Japanese
12:30-13:15 Rtamgrin Lhamo: Egophoricity of Minyag
lunch break
15:15-16:00 Wang Jiahong: Distribution of egophoricity in Golog: An
investigation of flexibility and inflexibility
16:00-16:45 Juha Yiliniemi: Flexibility of personal and neutral forms
in Denjongke
break
17:00-18:00 Discussion

Friday, 26.04.2024 – Tibetic and beyond

09:45-10:00 Introduction to the second part
10:00-11:30 Ilana Mushin: Managing knowledge asymmetry in grammar and
interaction
break
11:45-12:30 Henrik Bergqvist: Revisiting the origo: a view from the
Andes
12:30-13:15 Christian Huber: Egophoricity, evidentiality and modality
in Shumcho/ Humcho
lunch break
15:15-16:00 Zoe Tribur, Sangsrgyas Tshering & Rtamdrin Lhamo: A
preliminary account of “non-canonical” occurrences of epistemic
markers in spontaneous speech data of Amdo Tibetan
16:00-16:45 Bettina Zeisler: A paradigm of pragmatic flexibility: the
case of the Ladakhi dialects
break
17:00-18:00 Discussion

We warmly welcome guests. Please register with Bettina Zeisler before
April 17. Registration is free of costs. For further questions, please
contact Bettina Zeisler.
zeis at uni-tuebingen.de
DfG Projekt
Evidentialität, epistemische Modalität und Sprecherhaltung im
Ladakischen - Modalität und die
Semantik-Pragmatik-Grammatik-Schnittstelle / Evidentiality, epistemic
modality, and speaker
attitude in Ladakhi - Modality and the interface for semantics,
pragmatics, and grammar

Address of the venue: Wilhelmstr. 21, Room B004 (University library,
Bonatzbau)

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