Face vs. empathy: the social foundation of Maithili verb agreement

Bickel, Balthasar; Bisang, Walter; Yadava, Yogendra Prasad

doi:10.1515/ling.37.3.481

Cited by 62 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In these cases, non-nominative marking fulfills similar functions as a dutivus (injcommodi (12a) As argued by Bickel et al (1999), non-nominative agreement in Maithili is more an index of social status rather than of a specific GR. By stark contrast, nominative agreement strictly follows the pattern defined in (6) for Nepali.…”

Section: Wimentioning

confidence: 95%

A fresh look at grammatical relations in Indo-Aryan

Bickel¹,

Yadava²

2000

Lingua

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Section: Wimentioning

confidence: 95%

A fresh look at grammatical relations in Indo-Aryan

Bickel¹,

Yadava²

2000

Lingua

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“…In Maithili, the forms in (12) critically involve conflation with second person honorific reference, not others. This directly follows from politeness principles of indexing higher status referents whenever possible (Bickel et al 1999). For the Southern Kiranti languages we are not aware of any direct linguistic coding of social status, and not of any grammaticalized coding by honorifics.…”

Section: Explanations: Natural Forces and Historical Contingency In Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bickel et al (1999) explain this by positing a face-saving constraint that overrides competing principles from empathydriven trends to register first person participants. Face-saving constraints are of course a key dimension of politeness effects (Brown and Levinson 1987), and this is why the constraint in Maithili is operative especially in varieties associated with polite and formal style.…”

Section: Explanations: Natural Forces and Historical Contingency In Imentioning

confidence: 99%

First person objects, antipassives, and the political history of the Southern Kirant

Bickel

Gaenszle

2015

Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics

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Several Kiranti languages (Tibeto-Burman, Nepal) from different genealogical sub-groups show multiple parallel developments from antipassive constructions with generic, non-specific objects into agreement markers registering first person objects. The developments span a relatively contiguous geographical area in the southernmost part of the family. We explain the developments by contact with politeness strategies of speaker-effacement in Maithili (Indo-Aryan) formal style, with which southern Kiranti elites have been in intense contact in about the same time frame as can be assumed for the emergence of the antipassive-based agreement forms. These findings illustrate a particularly tight interaction between natural (functional) strategies of politeness with specific historical contingencies.

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“…English and German. For a more general and interesting system, see Bickel et al 1999 on the Maihtili verb inflection system.…”

Section: Clausal Architecture Ii: Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Argument features, clausal structure and the computation

Sigurðsson¹

2007

Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today

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This paper claims that case is vP-internally interpretable and that high NP-movement is driven by (minimally) two other ‘forces’: Person checking in a position higher than Tense, and EPP (Fin) checking in a still higher position, ‘Spec,IP’. This is evidenced by ‘low’ nominatives, quirky agreement, Stylistic Fronting and expletivedistribution. Another central claim of the paper is that grammar interprets event features in relation to speech features. In particular, Person drives NP-movement because it computes event participants (cased ?-roles) in relation to speech participants, much as Tense links event time to speech time. As evidenced by both tense interpretation and pronoun interpretation, the finite clause is a Speech Phrase, SP, containing syntactic speech features.

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Face vs. empathy: the social foundation of Maithili verb agreement

Abstract: ' (Brown andLevinson 1987[1978]), and a principle of social solidarity defining degrees of ''empathy'' (Kuno 1987)

Cited by 62 publications

References 15 publications

A fresh look at grammatical relations in Indo-Aryan

A fresh look at grammatical relations in Indo-Aryan

First person objects, antipassives, and the political history of the Southern Kirant

Argument features, clausal structure and the computation

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