Evidence and certainty in Lisu

This paper presents data on epistemic and evidential markers in three main varieties and several subvarieties of Lisu, a Tibeto-Burman language with over a million speakers in China, Burma, Thailand and India. It is shown that the original system had a number of epistemic markers and a reporte...

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Main Author: Bradley, David
Other Authors: La Trobe University
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177712
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1777122024-06-03T08:16:22Z Evidence and certainty in Lisu Bradley, David La Trobe University Arts and Humanities Epistemics Evidentials This paper presents data on epistemic and evidential markers in three main varieties and several subvarieties of Lisu, a Tibeto-Burman language with over a million speakers in China, Burma, Thailand and India. It is shown that the original system had a number of epistemic markers and a reported speech marker, along with various imperative and question markers, all in clause-final position. These markers have similar meanings in those varieties which have not undergone change. In some varieties and subvarieties, evidential systems have developed separately over the last couple of hundred years, grammaticalising some verbs and redeploying some epistemics into evidentials. The corresponding systems in the most closely-related languages show cognates for the reported speech marker, some epistemic markers and some other final markers for imperatives and questions, and for the verbs which grammaticalise into evidentials in Lisu. It is clear that the direction of change in Lisu is from epistemic to evidential, and that these developments are relatively recent and separate, for example from the development of the evidential system of Akh Published version 2024-06-03T08:16:22Z 2024-06-03T08:16:22Z 2010 Journal Article Bradley, D. (2010). Evidence and certainty in Lisu. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 33(2), 63-83. https://dx.doi.org/10.32655/LTBA.33.2.02 0731-3500 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177712 10.32655/LTBA.33.2.02 2 33 63 83 en Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area © 2010 The Editor(s). All rights reserved. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Arts and Humanities
Epistemics
Evidentials
spellingShingle Arts and Humanities
Epistemics
Evidentials
Bradley, David
Evidence and certainty in Lisu
description This paper presents data on epistemic and evidential markers in three main varieties and several subvarieties of Lisu, a Tibeto-Burman language with over a million speakers in China, Burma, Thailand and India. It is shown that the original system had a number of epistemic markers and a reported speech marker, along with various imperative and question markers, all in clause-final position. These markers have similar meanings in those varieties which have not undergone change. In some varieties and subvarieties, evidential systems have developed separately over the last couple of hundred years, grammaticalising some verbs and redeploying some epistemics into evidentials. The corresponding systems in the most closely-related languages show cognates for the reported speech marker, some epistemic markers and some other final markers for imperatives and questions, and for the verbs which grammaticalise into evidentials in Lisu. It is clear that the direction of change in Lisu is from epistemic to evidential, and that these developments are relatively recent and separate, for example from the development of the evidential system of Akh
author2 La Trobe University
author_facet La Trobe University
Bradley, David
format Article
author Bradley, David
author_sort Bradley, David
title Evidence and certainty in Lisu
title_short Evidence and certainty in Lisu
title_full Evidence and certainty in Lisu
title_fullStr Evidence and certainty in Lisu
title_full_unstemmed Evidence and certainty in Lisu
title_sort evidence and certainty in lisu
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177712
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