Abstract
Mainstream approaches to the typology of reported discourse have been based on the notion of a direct-indirect continuum: reported speech constructions are traditionally analyzed as conforming to or deviating from the “ideals” of European direct and indirect speech. This study argues that continuum-based approaches fail to distinguish between two dimensions of variation that are systematically discriminated in a number of African languages and should therefore be treated separately. First, different constructions can be recruited for speech reporting, ranging from paratactic to subordinate structures. Second, languages differ in the way pronouns in speech reports are interpreted. In European languages two different deictic strategies are associated with different syntactic types of speech report (‘indirect’ and ‘direct’ deixis is correlated with subordination and parataxis, respectively). In Kakabe, we argue, the choice of pronominal values is independent of the construction’s syntax. Dissociating the construction’s structural properties from the behavior of indexicals allows us to describe the Kakabe strategies of speech reporting as well as account for the seemingly puzzling behavior of reported commands. Our data shows that speech reporting strategies of Kakabe should be treated as a type in its own right: a type characterized by loose syntax and flexible pronominal indexicality.
Acknowledgements
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 758232).
Abbreviations
- art
-
referential article
- bnf
-
benefactive
- cop
-
copula
- dim
-
diminutive
- disc
-
discourse particle
- emph
-
assertive emphasis marker
- fp
-
focus particle
- foc.c
-
focus of contrast
- ger
-
gerund
- H%
-
high boundary tone
- id
-
identificational copula
- intr
-
intransitive
- itj
-
interjection
- lg
-
long form of personal pronoun
- L%
-
low boundary tone
- neg
-
negation
- obl
-
Oblique
- of
-
operator focus
- poss
-
possessive linker
- pfv.i
-
perfective in intransitive clauses
- pfv.of
-
perfective with operator (auxiliary) focus
- pfv.tr
-
perfective in transitive clauses
- pl
-
plural
- pst
-
past
- qu
-
quotative
- sbjv
-
subjunctive
- sg
-
singular
- tr
-
transitive
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© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Contact-induced change in Surgut Khanty relative clauses
- From constructions to functions and back: Contrastive negation in English and Finnish
- Copula functions in a cross-Sinitic perspective
- Reported speech in Kakabe: Loose syntax with flexible indexicality
- Demonstratives as spatial deictics or something more? Evidence from Common Estonian and Võro
- The syntax and semantics of Modern Standard Arabic resumptive tough-constructions
- Book Reviews
- Anja Šarić, Nominalizations, double genitives and possessives
- Geoff Thompson, Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine & David Schönthal (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics
- Fernando Zúñiga & Seppo Kittilä, Grammatical voice
- Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, Constructing feminine to mean: Gender, number, numeral, and quantifier extensions in Arabic
- Bodo Winter, Sensory linguistics: Language, perception and metaphor
- Hussein Abdul-Raof, Text linguistics of Qur’anic discourse: An analysis,
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Contact-induced change in Surgut Khanty relative clauses
- From constructions to functions and back: Contrastive negation in English and Finnish
- Copula functions in a cross-Sinitic perspective
- Reported speech in Kakabe: Loose syntax with flexible indexicality
- Demonstratives as spatial deictics or something more? Evidence from Common Estonian and Võro
- The syntax and semantics of Modern Standard Arabic resumptive tough-constructions
- Book Reviews
- Anja Šarić, Nominalizations, double genitives and possessives
- Geoff Thompson, Wendy L. Bowcher, Lise Fontaine & David Schönthal (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics
- Fernando Zúñiga & Seppo Kittilä, Grammatical voice
- Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, Constructing feminine to mean: Gender, number, numeral, and quantifier extensions in Arabic
- Bodo Winter, Sensory linguistics: Language, perception and metaphor
- Hussein Abdul-Raof, Text linguistics of Qur’anic discourse: An analysis,