Abstract
In this paper, I analyse the usage of a discourse marker =mari, belonging to the epistemic paradigm attested in Upper Napo Kichwa (Quechuan, Ecuador). I show that the use of =mari indicates that the information is known well to the speaker, but also to some extent familiar to the addressee. In situated language use, the marker contributes to creating a knowing epistemic stance of the speaker. The analysis presented here is based on a 13-h documentary corpus of interactive Upper Napo Kichwa discourse, recorded on audio and video. For the purpose of the paper, the relevant utterances are analysed in their broad interactional context, including not only the surrounding text, but also relationships between the interlocutors, their shared life experience and possible shared knowledge derived from other sources. First, I analyse the semantic and pragmatic contribution of =mari to the conversational turn it occurs in, drawing on conversations extracted from the corpus. Following on from that, I show how tokens of =mari are situated in interactional sequences, and examine how the semantics/pragmatics of the clitic contributes to the discursive actions achieved by the turns which contain it.
Highlights
In the study of minority languages, most attention to date has been granted to distinguishing between formal expressions of evidentiality e the marking of the source of information, or mode of access e and epistemic modality, related to degrees of certainty
These questions were prompted by the initial observation that 1⁄4mari e and, other epistemic enclitics attested in Upper Napo Kichwa e seem to be used when communicative disfluencies occur or are anticipated by the interlocutors
The analysis developed in this paper has shown that the Upper Napo Kichwa 1⁄4mari is an epistemic marker encoding shared access to knowledge by the speaker and the addressee, as well as the speaker's assumption that the addressee has not recognised having epistemic access in the local context of the interaction
Summary
In the study of minority languages, most attention to date has been granted to distinguishing between formal expressions of evidentiality e the marking of the source of information, or mode of access e and epistemic modality, related to degrees of certainty (cf. e.g. Aikhenvald, 2004; Cornillie, 2009; Boye, 2012). Many descriptions of lesser-known languages have contributed data showing that grammaticalised epistemic systems can encode meanings related to authority over knowledge, distribution of knowledge in discourse, its activation and the involvement of discourse participants in the described event (e.g. Bergqvist, 2016; Gipper, 2011, 2015; Grzech, 2016, 2020a; Evans et al, 2018a, 2018b; Floyd et al, 2018, among others; see Section 2.3). This catalogue of epistemic factors is by no means conclusive, and much new epistemic research on lesser-spoken languages is currently underway. N~akas panga-ta riksi-sha kama-kpi ayaj1⁄4mari almost leaf-ACC know-COR try-SWREF bitter1⁄4MARI ‘Almost, knowing the leaf...when you try, it’s bitter.’. NA: Chiraygumari ambinga? chi-raygu1⁄4mari ambi-n1⁄4ga D.DEM-CAUSAL1⁄4MARI heal-31⁄4TOP ‘That’s why it heals?’
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