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Part of
Egophoricity
Edited by Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe and Lila San Roque
[Typological Studies in Language 118] 2018
► pp. 139–152

Chapter 4
Interactions of speaker knowledge and volitionality in Sherpa

| University of Melbourne

This chapter investigates evidentiality and egophoricity in Sherpa, spoken in eastern Nepal. It seeks to build on existing accounts of Sherpa evidentials through an investigation of what triggers evidential and egophoric markers. I show that in some instances the trigger appears to be grammatically and temporally-based, in others it is speaker knowledge or evidence-based and in others it is motivated by the volitionality of the agent. The relations between each of these factors is examined here as part of an overall investigation into the Sherpa verbal system.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Sherpa system
    • 2.1The Sherpa language & data collection
    • 2.2Typological properties
    • 2.3Evidentiality in Sherpa
  • 3.Earlier analyses of the Sherpa verbal system
  • 4.Functions of utterance-final verbal forms in Sherpa
    • 4.1Functions of the evidential ĩ
    • 4.2Functions of suŋ
    • 4.3Functions of nok
    • 4.4Functions of wi
    • 4.5 Suŋ and ĩ in reported speech and interrogatives
  • 5.A closer look at volitionality
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 25 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.04kel
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Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Kelly, Barbara & Aimée Lahaussois
2021. Chains of influence in Himalayan grammars: Models and interrelations shaping descriptions of Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal. Linguistics 59:1 ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo

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