Why Not Say It Straight? On the Pragmatics of Indirect Speech in Coptic

Abstract

Indirect speech with full adjustment of person deixis in Coptic is shown to occur exclusively in contexts where the report is not based on an original assertive speech act or when the reporter (i.e. the real speaker) considers its propositional content invalid or unacceptable. As opposed to the much commoner direct speech, indirect speech thus seems to have represented a pragmatically charged and modally marked strategy of reporting at this stage of the Egyptian language.