Constructional effects of non-visual evidential marking in Harakmbut

• Main Author: Van linden, An
• Other Authors: Lilith - Liège, Literature, Linguistics - ULiège
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Arts & humanities; Languages & linguistics; Arts & sciences humaines; Langues & linguistique; Kolyma Yukaghir; Yukaghir
• Online Access: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/211249; https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/211249/1/160901_SLE_nvis_har_AVL.pdf

peer reviewed This paper, based on original fieldwork, focuses on two types of constructional effect of non-visual evidential marking in the underdescribed language Harakmbut, more specifically the Amarakaeri dialect spoken in the Madre de Dios district of Peru. Harakmbut is still considered as an unclassified (Amazonian) language (cf. Wise 1999: 307; WALS), although Adelaar (2000) has argued for a genetic link with the Brazilian Katukina family, which may be further linked to Macro-Jê. A first type of constructional effect involves constructions with a first person Agent in which the use of non-visual evidential marking leads to an interpretation of involuntary action, cf. (2), an effect that as has been described before for a number of (other) Amazonian, Bodic (Sino-Tibetan), and Athapaskan languages, and Kolyma Yukaghir (DeLancey 1985; Curnow 2003; Maslova 2003; Aikhenvald 2004; see Fauconnier 2012). The non-visual evidential suffixes mark a shift away from the speaker, as s/he is signaled not to have witnessed the action denoted by the verb form in both (1) and (2). In (2) this causes a clash in interpretation, since the speaker is marked as not having witnessed an event s/he is presented to have directly participated in as an agent, and therefore to have first-hand knowledge of. (Note that in (2) the non-visual evidential marker is fused with the distant past tense marker; -tuy is also grammatical in (1).) (1) O’-wek-uy-ate keme 3SG.IND-pierce-DIST.PST-NVIS tapir ‘He killed a tapir (long time ago).’ (speaker did not see it happen) (2) Ih-arak-tuy keme 1SG.IND-kill-DIST.PST.NVIS tapir ‘I killed a tapir without realizing it (long time ago).’ The second type has – to my knowledge – not been discussed before. Specifically, finite forms of temporal verbs referring to the cycle of the sun (often subsumed under meteorological predications, e.g. in Malchukov & Siewierska 2011) invariably carry non-visual evidential marking in Harakmbut, although the events referred to are clearly visible to the speaker. An ...