1 Evidentiality in Denaʼina Athabascan
Dena’ina evidentials are enclitics with a complex paradigmatic morphology. Their first component varies with person, while the second component varies with animacy and number, thus marking source and nature of knowledge. While evidentiality in Dena’ina is not coded as an obligatory inflectional cate...
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.593.9034 http://www.lithophile.com/olga/holton_lovick_090506.pdf |
| Summary: | Dena’ina evidentials are enclitics with a complex paradigmatic morphology. Their first component varies with person, while the second component varies with animacy and number, thus marking source and nature of knowledge. While evidentiality in Dena’ina is not coded as an obligatory inflectional category on the verb, it is also not “scattered ” throughout the grammar. The existence of an incipient inflectional evidential system demonstrates the ability of Athabascan languages to innovate morphological structures outside the verb. The uniqueness of the Dena’ina system demonstrates the heterogeneity of Athabascan grammar beyond the verb word. 1. Introduction. Dena’ina and other Athabascan languages are justifiably famous for their elaborate systems of templatic verbal morphology. As noted by Sapir, in Athabascan “a single word expresses either a simple concept or a combination of concepts so interrelated as to form a psychological unity” (1921:82). While this observation is often assumed to be characteristic of Athabascan (and other |
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