An egophoric analysis of Dhivehi verbal morphology

Egophoricity is a typologically rare category in which first-person statements and second-person questions share the same marking ("egophoric"), while other contexts generally lack this marking. This chapter presents evidence that certain verbal suffixes in Dhivehi (Indo-Aryan, Maldives) mostly show an egophoric distribution, contrary to previous analyses of these suffixes as first/second person markers. Dhivehi is thus the first Indo-European language reported to show an egophoric pattern. Aside from the distribution of the relevant suffixes in first-person statements and second-person questions, further evidence for an egophoric analysis may be found in contexts where a third-person nominal subject refers to the speaker or addressee ‒ in these contexts the appearance of the relevant suffixes is more consistent with egophoricity than person marking. However, egophoricity in Dhivehi is restricted to finite, volitional stems in certain tenses/aspects/moods, and some relics of an older person-marking system survive. Finally, it is proposed that egophoricity in Dhivehi may have developed from a reanalysis of person markers in reported speech, in a process similar to that described by Widmer & Zemp (2017) for certain Tibeto-Burman languages.