Deixis in narrative: a study of Kamaiurá, a TupíGuaraní language of Upper Xingu, Brazil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26512/rbla.v9i1.19104Keywords:
Linguística AntropológicaAbstract
The current paper describes the deictic system of Kamaiurá, a language of the Tupí-Guaraní family. The Kamaiurá system of deictic demonstratives and adverbials has a high degree of complexity, including at least 17 different forms, of which several have different functions. The system codes four levels of Participant deixis, with proximal, medial, distal and far distal deixis. Forms can also code anaphora and highly specialized locations of the referent, such as ‘moving away’ and ‘located beside something’. A further peculiar and unusual characteristic of the Kamaiurá system is the coding of Modal and Evidential deixis, which is found among the forms marking far distal deixis. Our study has two foci: the first part describes the system in its independent or exophoric use, and this part is based on deep interviews with native speakers and a deixis elicitation study. The second part of the paper represents the core of our study. Here, we investigate the uses of the deictic system in a recorded frog story, looking at anaphoric and cataphoric usages of the forms as well as how they are used to mark topic and focus in the narrative discourse. The text is very rich in deictic forms, and out of the 17 different forms recorded for Kamaiurá, 9 occur in our frog story. We notice a tendency where the hierarchy of increasing distance from the ego in the independent forms is transferred into increasing focus of the narrative. Epistemic modality of the independent forms is used to mark uncertainty in the narrative, i.e., to indicate lack of terms for a specific item, whereas anaphoric deixis of the independent forms marks general reference in the narrative.Downloads
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2012. The languages of the amazon: New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2012. Non-fiction.
Berman, Ruth Aronson, Dan Isaac Slobin, and Ayhan Aksu-Koç. 1994. Relating events
in narrative: a crosslinguistic developmental study: Hillsdale : Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates ; New York : Psychology Press, 1994.
Burenhult, Niclas. 2008. “Spatial coordinate systems in demonstrative meaning.”
Linguistic Typology (12):99-142. Doi: 10.1515/LITY.2008.032.
Burenhult, Niclas. in press. “The Jahai multi-term demonstrative system ”“ what’s
spatial about it?” In Demonstratives in cross-linguistic perspective, edited by S. C.
Levinson, S. Cutfield, M. Dunn, N. Enfield, S. Meira and D. Wilkins. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Diessel, Holger. 1999. Demonstratives [Elektronisk resurs] form, function, and
grammaticalization. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
Diessel, Holger. 2011. “Deixis Demonstratives”. In Semantics: An International
Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, edited by Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von
Heusinger and Paul Portner, 2407-2432. Berlin, Germany: de Gruyter Mouton.
Diessel, Holger. 2014. “Demonstratives, frames of reference, and semantic universals
of space.” Language and Linguistics Compass 8 (3):116-132. Doi: 10.1111/
lnc3.12066.
Dixon, Robert M. W. 2010a. Basic linguistic theory [Elektronisk resurs]. Vol. 2,
Grammatical topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dixon, Robert M. W. 2010b. Basic linguistic theory. Vol. 2, Grammatical topics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dixon, Robert M. W. 2012. Basic linguistic theory. Vol. 3, Further grammatical topics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Drude, Sebastian. 2011. “Aweti in relation with Kamayrá. The two Tupian languages
of the Upper Xingu.” In Alto Xingu. Uma Sociedade Multilíngue, edited by Bruna
Franchetto, 155-192. Rio de Janeiro: Museu do Ãndio - Funai.
Duchan, Judith F. 1995. Deixis in narrative : a cognitive science perspective. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
Frawley, William. 1992. Linguistic semantics: Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Galbraith, Mary. 1995. “Deictic shift theory and the poetics of involvement in narrative.”
In Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Perspective, edited by Judith F. Duchan,
Gail A. Bruder and Lyne E. Hewitt, 19-60. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Gumperz, John Joseph, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1997. Rethinking linguistic relativity,
Studies in the social and cultural foundations of language: 17: Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. Non-fiction.
Hanks, WilliamF. 2005. “Explorations in the Deictic Field.” 191.
Hegarty, Michael. 2016. Modality and Propositional Attitudes. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hinton, Leanne, Johanna Nichols, and John J. Ohala. 1995. Sound Symbolism
[Elektronisk resurs]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jensen, Cheryl. 1999. “Tupí-Guaraní.” In The Amazonian Languages, edited by R.
M. W. Dixon and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, 125-164. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Johansson, Niklas. 2014. “Tracking Linguistic Primitives: The Phonosemantic
Realization of Fundamental Oppositional Pairs.” MA, Centre for Lagnuages and
Literature, Lund University.
Johansson, Niklas, and Gerd Carling. 2015. “The de-iconization and rebuilding of
iconicity in spatial deixis.” Acta Linguistica Hafniensia: International Journal of
Linguistics 47 (1):4.
Levinson, Stephen C. 2003. Space in language and cognition : explorations in cognitive
diversity, Language, culture and cognition: 5: Cambridge : Cambridge University
Press.
Mayer, Mercer. 1967. A boy, a dog and a frog. New York: Penguin.
Mushin, Ilana. 2000. “Evidentiality and deixis in narrative retelling.” Journal of
Pragmatics 32:927-957. Doi: 10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00085-5.
Ozcaliskan, Seyda, and Dan Isaac Slobin. 1999. “Proceedings of the 23rd annual Boston
University Conference on Language Development.” In Proceedings of the Boston
University Conference on Language Development., edited by Annabel Greenhill,
Heather Littlefield and Cheryl Tano, 541-552. Boston: Cascadilla Press.
Palmer, Frank Robert. 2001. Mood and modality, Cambridge textbooks in linguistics:
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. 2. ed.
Rodrigues, Aryon D. I., and Ana S. A. C. Cabral. 2012. “Tupían.” In The Indigenous
Languages of South America: A Comprehensive Guide, edited by Lyle Campbell
and Verónica Grondona, 59-166. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Seki, Lucy. 2000. Gramática do Kamaiurá. Lingua Tupi-Guarani do Alto Xingu.
Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.
Sidnell, Jack, and N.J. Enfield. 2017. “Deixis and the interactional foundations of
reference.” In Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics, edited by Yan Huang. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Strömqvist, Sven, and Ludo Th Verhoeven. 2004. Relating events in narrative: Mahwah,
N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, cop.
Webber, Bonnie L. 1997. “Structure and Ostension in the Interpretation of Discourse
Deixis.”
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish in RBLA agree to the following terms:
a) Authors maintain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, and the work is simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows the sharing of the work with recognition of the authorship of the work and initial publication in this journal.
b) Authors are authorized to assume additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (eg, publish in an institutional repository or as a book chapter), with recognition of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
c) Authors are allowed and encouraged to publish their work online (eg, in institutional repositories or on their personal page) at any point before or during the editorial process, as this can generate productive changes, as well as increase impact and citation of the published work.
