Metapragmatic presentationals: reporting speech with quotatives in Yucatec Maya
Many of the world's languages use special forms to mark directly quoted reports of speech. In contrast to full verbs of speaking (e.g., English say), such quotative forms may consist of bound affixes, free particles, or highly defective verbs. Most analyses of such forms have taken the function...
| Other Authors: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.569.2295 http://home.uchicago.edu/~johnlucy/vitaematerials/RL-Ch4.pdf |
| Summary: | Many of the world's languages use special forms to mark directly quoted reports of speech. In contrast to full verbs of speaking (e.g., English say), such quotative forms may consist of bound affixes, free particles, or highly defective verbs. Most analyses of such forms have taken the function of the quotatives for granted and focused primarily on characterizing their morphosyntactic status- often with ambiguous results. This chapter, by contrast, will concentrate on describing the distinctive paradigmatic and syntagmatic functions of a quotative form in Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language of southeastern Mexico. T h e functions of the quotative will be illustrated by examining its use in a joke rich in reported speech and in commentary on native speech norms. Understanding the functions of the Yucatec quotative in comparison with regular verbs of speaking will suggest a new approach to analyzing the formal status of quotatives. The morphosyntactic structure of the quotative In addition to a full array of ordinary verbs of speaking (e.g., ' 2 a l 'say, ' t'aan 'speak, ' k'aat 'ask, ' nuuk 'answer, ' pooch ' 'insult7), Yucatec Maya includes a |
|---|