Abstract
AbstractThe distinction between direct and indirect speech has long been known not to reflect the crosslinguistic diversity of speech reporting strategies. Yet prominent typological approaches remain firmly grounded in that traditional distinction and look to place language-specific strategies on a universalcontinuum, treating them as deviations from the “direct” and “indirect”ideals. We argue that despite their methodological attractiveness, continuum approaches do not provide a solid basis for crosslinguistic comparison. We aim to present an alternative by exploring the syntax oflogophoricspeech, which has been commonly treated in the literature as representative of “semi-direct” discourse. Based on data from two unrelated languages, Wan (Mande) and Ainu (isolate), we show that certain varieties of logophoric speech share a number of syntactic properties with direct speech, and none with indirect speech. Many of the properties of indirect speech that are traditionally described in terms ofperspectivefollow from its syntactically subordinate status. Constructions involving direct and logophoric speech, on the other hand, belong to a separate, universal type of structure. Our findings suggest that the alleged direct/indirect continuum conflates two independent aspects of speech reporting: the syntactic configuration in which the report is integrated, and language-specific meaning of indexical elements.
Highlights
The distinction between direct and indirect speech has long been known not to reflect the crosslinguistic diversity of speech reporting strategies
We argue that despite their methodological attractiveness, continuum approaches do not provide a solid basis for crosslinguistic comparison
Based on data from two unrelated languages, Wan (Mande) and Ainu, we show that certain varieties of logophoric speech share a number of syntactic properties with direct speech, and none with indirect speech
Summary
The distinction between direct and indirect speech has long been known not to capture the crosslinguistic diversity of speech reporting strategies (Aikhenvald 2008; Coulmas 1986; inter alia). A number of continuum-based approaches, in particular, position themselves as capable of describing non-European speech reporting strategies, yet rely on the same Eurocentric distinction, and treat strategies that do not fit well into the European models as deviations from the ideals of direct and indirect speech. Approaches based on the notion of perspective focus disproportionately on describing language-specific choices of deictic elements within speech reports, and pay little to no attention to the syntactic properties of the corresponding constructions. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach, we take a closer look at a strategy that is commonly described as “semiindirect” and is traditionally placed in the middle of the direct-indirect continuum: the logophoric speech. We argue that a syntactic approach helps us describe different types of logophoric speech more accurately than the vague notion of perspective underlying continuum approaches
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