Indexical shift in Tabasaran

Abstract

The Nakh-Daghestanian language Tabasaran displays indexical shift in the reported speech construction. Having many properties in common with indexical shift attested in other languages, the shift of embedded pronouns in Tabasaran depends strongly on the presence of person clitics on the embedded verb in the reported speech. Pronouns doubled by clitics receive a shifted interpretation, while independent personal pronouns have an indexical interpretation. This behavior of clitics contrasts with their behavior in an affirmative root clause, where they obligatorily double any first or second person subject. The investigation of interrogative sentences draws a link between two different strategies in the behavior of person clitics in the reported speech construction and in the affirmative root clause. I propose that personal pronouns and clitics are separate DPs, specified for different features: pronouns are indexicals, while clitics specified for person features also have the Logophoric feature and therefore indicate the logophoric Speaker and Addressee. In reported speech, when bound by a clitic, personal pronouns receive a shifted interpretation and also refer to logophoric participants that are matrix arguments in the reported speech. The paper also discusses the binding relationship between clitics and personal pronouns in those cases where they do not match in their phi-features and proposes that the binding is based not on the interaction between their morphological phi-features but rather on their referential content, which is generated by the whole feature set of each item.