Thewo Tibetan’s /ta33/ and /nə33

A narrative exploration of how temporal space and verbal semantics interact with evidentiality

Bibliographic Data

ID21756961
AuthorsAbe Powell (Lanzhou University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume25
Issue4
Pages673-709
Publication date2024-10-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage and Linguistics 語言暨語言學 (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1606-822X • E-ISSN: 2309-5067
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/lali.00172.pow
OpenAlexW4401594953
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited23

This paper has three aims. First, in its form, this paper uses a narrative style to overtly highlight the iterative process used to identify the meaning of the two suffixes in question. Second, this paper seeks to describe the intricate workings of two verbal suffixes in Thewo Tibetan. Finally, this paper makes a defense of why these two suffixes belong to the category of evidentiality. Thewo Tibetan is spoken in China on the Gansu-Sichuan border. The suffixes /ta 33 / and /nə 33 / appear either directly after action verbs, or directly after the progressive aspect marker. /nə 33 / is used to express that the speaker has sensory information of their claim at the time of the speech act. The temporal nature of the evidence, whether it is sensory information of the act itself or of the results of the act, is determined in part by the semantics of the verb (telic vs non-telic). In contrast, /ta 33 / is used to express that at the time of the speech act, the speaker no longer has sensory evidence (but formerly did) of the stated action. Based upon these observations, this paper argues that temporal space and verbal semantics are key to understanding the cognition which underlies interpreting /nə 33 / and /ta 33 /. As such, this paper makes the following three contributions: (1) In its form it provides an anecdote of failures and success along the path to identifying the function and meaning of two evidential suffixes; (2) It introduces two suffixes of the hitherto un-described Thewo Tibetan evidential system; and (3) It gives an in-depth analysis of these suffixes and offers evidence to support the claim that they are evidential suffixes

Anecdote · Art · Evidentiality · Grammaticalization · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Verb · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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