Salar-Tibetan Contact and the Evolution of the Salar Verbal

(Evidential) Categories

Uppsala - 4 nov 2014 Camille Simon

I. Sociolinguistic features of the Salar speaking area

I.1. Geography

I.2. History and language contacts

I.3. Language endangerment (based on Ma Wei 2007)

I.4. Multilingualism

Salar speaking areas in Qinghai Province

Xunhua

Hualong

Estimated Degree of Endangerment of Salar Language (based on UNESCO 2003:20)

4: Shifts in Domains of Language Use

« The non-dominant language loses ground and, at home, parents begin to use the dominant language in their everyday interactions with their children. »

7: Governmental Language Policy

Active assimilation (grade 2):

« The government encourages minority groups to abandon their own languages by providing education for the minority group members in the dominant language. Speaking and/or writing in non-dominant languages is not encouraged. »

8: Community’s Attitude toward their Language

Grade 2:

« Some members support language maintenance; others are indifferent or may even support language loss. »

Ma (2007: 48)

« It is necessary to help Salar people understand the importance of their mother tongue and build up their positive attitudes toward their language. Many Salar people, especially some who are less educated, do not realize that their language is declining now. There is not much attention paid even by highly educated people. »

II. Evidentiality and the imperfective suffix

II.1. Grammaticalization from the

existential copula

II.2.Two imperfective suffixes

II.3. Semantic and pragmatic values of the suffixes: egophoric vs. non-egophoric

Imperfective and Future suffixes

« Direct » and « Indirect » evidentiality

(Dwyer 2000 : 45)

« The source of information may be direct (‘I see/hear/taste/smell/feel/do’) or indirect (‘I hear it reported / I infer / I discover ; it happened), […] speakers may choose indirect/less certain means of coding this information even though the evidence is direct/more certain. »

Tournadre (2008: 295)

« Egophoric’ expresses personal knowledge or intention on the part of the actual speaker »

Tournadre (2008: 296)

« Final auxiliary verbs include several kinds of egophoric: intentional, receptive, habitual, experiential and allocentric.

Tournadre (2008: 296)

« Final auxiliary verbs include several kinds of egophoric: intentional, receptive, habitual, experiential and allocentric.

Oisel (2006: 45)

« The « principle of transfer » (or speaker’s duplication) occurs when the speakers watchs himself a if he was another person. The sensory modality is used in the context of a dream […] a picture, a movie, or imagination. »

Tournadre (2008: 296)

« Egophoric auxiliaries are used with the first person […] regardless of its function in a given clause (subject, object, indirect object, locative complement, etc.). »

Tournadre (2008: 295)

« Egophoric […] in the case of direct questions, expresses the next speaker’s (the addressee’s) personal knowledge or intention, as anticipated by the actual speaker. »

References

• Dwyer, Arienne M. 2007. Salar: A Study in Inner Asian Language Contact Processes. Part I: Phonology. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

• Dwyer, Arienne M. 2013. “Tibetan as a Dominant Sprachbund Language: Its Interactions with Neighboring Languages.” In The Third International Conference on Tibetan Language Volume 1: Proceedings of the Panels on Domains of Use and Linguistic Interactions, Gray Tuttle, Karma Dare & Jonathan Wilber (eds), 259-302. New York: Trace Foundation.

• Johanson, Lars & Eva Csato. 1998. The Turkic Languages. London: Routledge.

• Ma, Jianfu 2006. “Sala, Zang, Han, Hui minzu guanxi diaocha baogao – yi Qinghai Xunhua Salazu zizhixian wei lie [Research report on ethnic relations between Salar, Tibetan, Chinese and Hui – taking Qinghai Xunhua Salar Autonomous County as an example].” In Huizu, Dongxiangzu, Salazu, Baoanzu minzu guanxi yanjiu Research on Ethnic Relations between Hui, Dongxiang, Salar and Baoan], edited by Ding Hong, 209–343. Beijing:

Zhongyang minzu daxue.

• Ma Wei, Ma Jianzhong & Kevin Stuart. 2001. The Folklore of Chinese Islamic Salar Nationality. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press.

• Ma, Wei. 2007. Socioeconomic Change and Language Endangerment. Submitted to the Department of Anthropology and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Kansas In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master’s of Arts. Under the supervision of Prof. A. Dwyer.

• Oisel, Guillaume. “Emplois particuliers des suffixes médiatifs non-égophoriques dans le tibétain parlé de Lhasa.” Mémoire présenté en vue de l’obtention du Master 2 de recherche en linguistique théorique et descriptive. Sous la direction de Nicolas Tournadre

• Tournadre Nicolas. 2008. « Arguments against the Concept of ‘Conjunct’ / ‘Disjunct’ in Tibetan » in Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek. Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag. B. Huber, M. Volkart, P. Widmer, P. Schwieger, (Eds), Vol 1. p. 281–308.

• UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages. 2003. Language Vitality and Endangerment. Document approved at the International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages. Paris. 10-12 March. Online at: http://lesla.univ-lyon2.fr/IMG/pdf/doc-461.pdf.