Abstract :
[en] This paper, based on original fieldwork, focuses on two types of constructional effect of non-visual evidential marking in the underdescribed language Harakmbut, more specifically the Amarakaeri dialect spoken in the Madre de Dios district of Peru. Harakmbut is still considered as an unclassified (Amazonian) language (cf. Wise 1999: 307; WALS), although Adelaar (2000) has argued for a genetic link with the Brazilian Katukina family, which may be further linked to Macro-Jê.
A first type of constructional effect involves constructions with a first person Agent in which the use of non-visual evidential marking leads to an interpretation of involuntary action, cf. (2), an effect that as has been described before for a number of (other) Amazonian, Bodic (Sino-Tibetan), and Athapaskan languages, and Kolyma Yukaghir (DeLancey 1985; Curnow 2003; Maslova 2003; Aikhenvald 2004; see Fauconnier 2012). The non-visual evidential suffixes mark a shift away from the speaker, as s/he is signaled not to have witnessed the action denoted by the verb form in both (1) and (2). In (2) this causes a clash in interpretation, since the speaker is marked as not having witnessed an event s/he is presented to have directly participated in as an agent, and therefore to have first-hand knowledge of. (Note that in (2) the non-visual evidential marker is fused with the distant past tense marker; -tuy is also grammatical in (1).)
(1) O’-wek-uy-ate keme
3SG.IND-pierce-DIST.PST-NVIS tapir
‘He killed a tapir (long time ago).’ (speaker did not see it happen)
(2) Ih-arak-tuy keme
1SG.IND-kill-DIST.PST.NVIS tapir
‘I killed a tapir without realizing it (long time ago).’
The second type has – to my knowledge – not been discussed before. Specifically, finite forms of temporal verbs referring to the cycle of the sun (often subsumed under meteorological predications, e.g. in Malchukov & Siewierska 2011) invariably carry non-visual evidential marking in Harakmbut, although the events referred to are clearly visible to the speaker. An example is given in (3), which has present temporal reference (in earlier work on the language, evidential marking is argued to apply to the past domain only, cf. Helberg 1984: 277-279; Tripp 1995: 222). Incidentally, (3) also serves as a greeting used at dusk, and thus might rate as a fixed expression.
(3) o’-sik-ate
3SG.IND-black-NVIS
‘It is becoming dark.’
I will argue that both types of constructional effect can be explained in terms of endpoint emphasis, which has been proposed for effects like in (2) by DeLancey (1985): evidential marking that shifts away from the speaker implies that knowledge about the phases leading up to the endpoint of the event is not accessible, in (2) because the Agent is engaged non-voluntarily, and in (3) because impersonal constructions lack a clear Agent. The data used comprise audio recordings of elicitation sessions as well as a limited amount of spontaneous speech.
References
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Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford University Press.
Curnow, Timothy Jowan. 2003. Nonvolitionality expressed through evidentials. Studies in Language 27(1). 39–59.
DeLancey, Scott. 1985. Lhasa Tibetan evidentials and the semantics of causation. BLS 11. 65–72.
Fauconnier, Stefanie. 2012. Constructional effects of involuntary and inanimate Agents : A cross-linguistic study. PhD dissertation, University of Leuven.
Helberg, H. 1984. Skizze einer Grammatik des Amarakaeri. PhD dissertation, Tübingen.
Malchukov, Andrej & Anna Siewierska (eds.). 2011. Impersonal Constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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Wise, M. 1999. Small language families and isolates in Peru. In Dixon & Aikhenvald (eds.), The Amazonian languages, 307-340. Cambridge: CUP.
