Abstract
This paper discusses methods to investigate epistemic marking in Kogi, a Chibchan language of Colombia. The type of epistemic marking prominent in Kogi grammar belongs to the recently proposed category of engagement, which is concerned with signaling shared vs. non-shared access to a discourse object between the speech-act participants. This is manifested on the one hand in an (ad)nominal demonstrative that is licensed by shared visual or cognitive access to a referent, and on the other hand, in a set of verbal prefixes that reflect (a)symmetries in access to states of affairs. Given the relatively abstract meaning of epistemic markers as well as their particular context sensitivity, the study of such forms comes with certain challenges such as, for example, their elusiveness to semantic elicitation or relative scarcity in naturally occurring speech. The present study aims to circumvent these pitfalls by employing methods that constitute a middle ground between controlled elicitation and spontaneous speech, namely stimuli-based, interactional elicitation tasks, in which participants are asked to collaboratively solve a problem or develop a narrative. In addition to the description of the materials and procedures, the tasks are discussed with regard to the occurrence of engagement forms in the obtained data.
Funding source: Swiss National Science Foundation
Award Identifier / Grant number: P0BEP1_165335
Acknowledgements
The research for this paper was made possible by a grant provided through the Swiss National Science Foundation (P0BEP1_165335). I am grateful to Fernando Zúñiga, Henrik Bergqvist, Karolina Grzech as well as to two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version. All remaining mistakes are my own.
- Abbreviations
- 1
first person
- 2
second person
- 3
third person
- addr
addressee authority/proximity
- asym
asymmetrical (non-shared access)
- coref
co-referential
- dem
demonstrative
- gen
genitive
- hab
habitual
- hod
hodiernal
- imm
immediate
- interj
interjection
- intr
intransitive
- iobj
indirect object
- pfv
imperfective
- loc
locative
- neg
negative
- pl
plural
- poss
possessive
- prs
present
- pst
past
- sa
shared access
- seq
sequential
- sg
singular
- spkr
speaker authority/proximity
- sw
switch topic
- sym
symmetrical (shared access)
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