International Workshop April 25-26, 2024

Ego-Evidentiality and the right(s) to know (better)

Wilhelmstraße 21 (Bonatzbau), Schulungsraum B004

Short meeting description

The modern Tibetic languages are known to have developed quite a particular type of ‘evidential’ marking, their basic principles having been described for quite a few of them. One of the key features is the subjective involvement of the epistemic origo (the speaker in statements, the addressee in questions, and the original speaker in reported speech) in the events relayed. The ‘system’ is thus also known under the key terms of ‘egophoricity’ and ‘conjunct/disjunct’, both concepts often mistaken for a somewhat weird syntactic person category (ego vs. non-ego).

However, at a closer look, the ‘system’ is extremely flexible, allowing, in principle, most if not all forms for all persons, albeit in different frequencies and for different motivations. It further does not only deal with the source of information (firsthand vs. second-hand) or the access channels (self-centred knowledge, perception, and inferences), but also or even predominantly with the subjective assessment of the situation and/or socio-pragmatic factors. These factors appear to be related to a speaker’s rights to treat a particular piece of knowledge as belonging to his or her ‘territory of information’; this also means that speaker-hearer (a)symmetries may play a crucial role. Apart from ‘epistemic rights’, other key words may be ‘empathy hierarchy’ and ‘engagement’.

The workshop aims at discussing the ‘unsystematic’ aspects of ‘ego’-evidentiality or participatory knowledge marking.