Indologie

International Workshop April 25-26, 2024

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

 

⇨ Call for abstracts

Short meeting description

The modern Tibetic languages are known to have developed quite a particular type of ‘evidential’ marking, their basic principles having beec 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.

Preliminary Program

⇒ Preliminary Program

Thursday 25.04.2024 – Tibetic languages

09:30-10:00

Address of welcome and introduction

10:00-10:30

Nicolas Tournadre

t.b.a.

 

break

 

10:45-11:30

Hiroyuki Suzuki,

Towards shaping the egophoric category in Tibetic langua­ges: Suggestions from the factual evidential expression emerging in Japanese

11:30-12:15

Rtamgrin Lhamo

Egophoricity of Minyag

 

lunch break

 

14:15-15:00

Wang Jiahong

Distribution of egophoricity in Golog: An investigation of flexibility and inflexibility

15:00-15:45

Juha Yiliniemi

Flexibility of personal and neutral forms in Denjongke

 

break

 

16:00-17:30

Discussion

 

Friday. 26.04.2024 – Tibetic and beyond

09:45-10:00

Introduction to the second part

10:00-10:30

Ilana Mushin

t.b.a.

 

break

 

10:45-11:15

Henrik Bergqvist

Revisiting the origo: a view from the Andes

11:15-11:45

Sh. Singh Shresta

Formality, status & egophoricity in Kathmandu Newār

11:45-12:15

Christian Huber

Egophoricity, evidentiality and modality in Shumcho/ Humcho

 

lunch break

 

14:15-15:00

Zoe Tribur et al.

A preliminary account of “non-canonical” occurrences of epistemic markers in spontaneous speech data of Amdo Tibetan

15:00-15:45

Bettina Zeisler

A paradigm of pragmatic flexibility: the case of the Ladakhi dialects

 

break

 

16:00-17:30

Discussion