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1 Chapter 29 Evidentiality in Nambikwara Languages David M 1 Chapter 29 Evidentiality in Nambikwara Languages David M. Eberhard 29.1 Introduction The epistemological world of the Nambikwara peoples of west-central Brazil is reflected in a robust system of evidentials. All of the Nambikwara languages documented thus far have them, each with a slightly different set. These various sets of ‘knowledge markers’ orally codify how it is the Nambikwara speakers know what they know, making this knowledge immediately accessible to addressee as well as to the speaker. This chapter will give a broad outline of evidentiality as it is expressed in the various Nambikwara languages. The focus will be on the distinct components of these evidential systems, while pointing out the similarities and differences found in each. In the conclusion I will review the distinctives of this morphological category within the Nambikwara family, and what this family contributes to the global mosaic we call evidentiality. 29.2 Language Family The Nambikwara language family is comprised of two major branches, Northern and Southern, and a single independent speech variety, Sabanê. The Northern Branch in turn has two clusters. The first of these is the Roosevelt River cluster, home to the Lakondê and Latundê languages, and the second is the Guaporé River cluster, where we find Mamaindê and Negarotê. The 2 languages within each of these two clusters are mutually intelligible, but communication across the clusters is difficult and uncommon.1 The Southern Branch, on the other hand, is comprised of a larger set of closely related lects, all mutually intelligible. As the variation between these is slight, we will refer to these jointly as Southern Nambikwara. The list of Southern Nambikwara languages in Figure 1 is taken from Telles and Wetzels (2011). However, defining the exact number of Southern Nambikwara speech varieties is confusing, as the list varies according to author. While Telles and Wetzels list 12 such varieties in 4 groupings, Price (1972: 111) includes 18 speech varieties, grouped into 3 clusters (Juruena – 9 lects, Galera/Guaporé – 8 lects, and Sararé – 1 lect), Lowe (1999: 269) lists 12 varieties without any subgroupings, and Kroeker (2001:1) gives a list of 11 varieties in 2 clusters, 5 Guaporé valley lects, and 6 Juruena valley lects.2 1 All Nambikwara language communities are small. The total population of the entire Nambikwara family was 2232 in 2013 (Socioambiental- http://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/c/quadro-geral). Of the four languages documented thus far, one exhibits strong oral vitality (Southern Nambikwara)̠ another threatened vitality (Mamaindê), while the other two are either moribund or extinct. There was only one elderly speaker of Lakondê in 2002. This scenario reminds us not only of the urgency of describing and documenting such languages before they are gone, but also of the importance of guiding endangered language communities along the challenging journey of making their own informed decisions about the future of their traditional language repertoires and unique identities in the face of massive language and cultural shift. 2 In figure 1, I have intentionally omitted those variants which are virtually extinct and whose structures we know very little about or nothing at all (Tawandê, Sowaintê, Tawendê, and Yalapmundu). 3 <insert Figure 1 here> Figure 1. The Nambikwara language family tree 29.3 Shared traits of the Nambikwara evidential systems Evidentials have been attested in all four of the Nambikwara speech varieties documented thus far: Southern Nambikwara (Kroeker 2001:62-65; Lowe 1999: 274-276); Lakondê (Telles and Wetzels 2006; Telles 2002: 288-290); Sabanê (Araujo 2004:138-140); and Mamaindê (Eberhard 2012: 468-487; 2009; Kingston 1971a/b).3 Note that both north and south branches of the family exhibit evidentials, as well as the one language which stands alone, Sabanê. The well- documented use of evidentials across such a representative portion of languages instantiates this grammatical category as a salient characteristic of this family.4 So far, the Nambikwara family 3 As data on evidentiality from Latundê is not yet available, it is not included here. We are also missing data from a number of other languages in the family. A few evidentials have been found in some of the Negarotê texts collected by the author, but this system (apparently similar to Mamaindê) has not been documented sufficiently to include at this time. Likewise, there is data missing from many dialects of Southern Nambikwara. Lowe’s description of Southern Nambikwara (1999:270) focuses exclusively on the Kithãulhu lect, and Kroeker’s (2001:2) study is a compilation of data from six Southern Nambikwara dialects: Kithãulhu, Halotesu, Saxwentesu, Wakiletesu, Wasusu, and Katitaulhu. Even so, these omit any mention of a large number of other varieties, leaving us with questions as to the differences between the various Southern lects in terms of much of the grammar, including any possible differences in their use of evidentials. 4 Lakondê and Latundê are distinct but closely related languages in the northern branch of this family. Telles (2002) includes many elements of Latundê in her in-depth description of Lakondê grammar (as her title ‘Fonologia e Gramática Latundê/Lakondê’ suggests). However, her 4 includes only large evidential systems (6 evidentials or more: Lakondê, Southern Nambikwara, Mamaindê) or mid-range systems (4 evidentials: Sabanê). The remainder of this chapter will be a comparison of the evidentials found in these four languages: Southern Nambikwara, Lakondê, Sabanê, and Mamaindê. Table 1 lists the evidentials of each, as well as the secondary extensions and other distinctive properties.5 Characteristics in the table will be touched upon at various points in the discussion that follows. Table 1. Evidential Systems of four Nambikwara Languages <insert Table 1 here > 29.4 Southern Nambikwara Marking a fairly common set of four sources of information (visual, inferred, reported, and general knowledge)6, Southern Nambikwara evidentials do not at first stand out (Kroeker treatment of evidentiality in that work is restricted to the Lakondê language alone (Telles, p.c.). Thus the study of Latundê evidentiality is still incomplete and will not be considered here. As they are very similar languages in many other respects, the Latundê system could well be the same as the one in Lakondê, but that has not been confirmed. 5 A [] in the table indicates that researchers have identified the item as a property of a given system. The lack of a [] does not necessarily mean that it doesn’t occur in that system, but simply that this property was not included in that language's description. If a language has only a single reported evidential, this is indicated in the reported 2nd hand row, with the implication that it combines both 2nd and 3rd hand. 6 Kroeker (2001:62-65) refers to these four evidentials respectively as ‘observation’, ‘deduction’, ‘narration’ and ‘customary’. I have used a set of standardized terms to make the comparison 5 2001:62-65). However, the remarkable complexity of this system lies in the fact that most sources of information are also inflected for the perspectives of two different ‘knowers’, effectively creating two paradigms with separate evidentials. These will be referred to as the ‘individual perspective’ and the ‘dual perspective’.7 Individual perspective refers to information known only to the speaker, and dual perspective to information known to both speaker and addressee.8 Aikhenvald (2004: 234) points out that systems which grammaticalize this level of differentiation between a single first person observer and a first plus second person observer are quite rare in the world. between languages more straightforward. Kroeker’s ‘customary’ evidential I am recasting as ‘general knowledge’, a term that is similar (but not identical) to ‘assumed’ in the literature. A more detailed account of this evidential within the Nambikwara languages will be discussed at the end of this article. 7 Kroeker (2001) uses the terms ‘individual verification’ and ‘collective verification’ instead, but these simply refer respectively to an individual speaker’s point of view versus a speaker + addressee combined point of view. These terms are also not to be confused with the double and joint perspectives found in Evans (2005: 103). 8 Lowe’s (1999: 274-276) analysis of Southern Nambikwara, somewhat different from Kroeker’s, involves 4 evidentials (visual, inferred, reported, and internal support), as well as two subcategories of inferred (inferred from actions or from circumstances), and an interaction between evidentiality and a sub-system which marks given and new information. He makes no mention of Kroeker’s individual versus collective verification paradigms. Unquestionably the most interesting of Lowe’s claims is his ‘internal support’ evidential, which he defines as a ‘gut feeling’ that something is true. Unfortunately, the single example given is not glossed in sufficient detail, and we can only be left wondering how this interesting evidential might fit in with Kroeker’s more comprehensive analysis. Due to this lack of information, I do not include ‘internal support’ as an attested Southern Nambikwara evidential in Table 2. It is enclosed in parenthesis in Table 1 to indicate its ‘incomplete’ status, suggesting an area for further study. 6 To better understand such evidentials, it is instructive to consider the broader notion of multiple perspective. Evans (2005: 99) introduces multiple-perspective constructions as “constructions that encode potentially distinct values, on a single semantic dimension, that reflect two or more distinct perspectives or points of reference”. Due to this very broad definition it can apply to temporal, spatial, social, or epistemic domains. Epistemic perspective, the viewpoint from which something is known, is most often realized in speech through a single perspective, that of the speaker (Evans 2005: 93). This single (or individual) perspective can shift from speaker to addressee, and from first person to second person, as is the case in certain declaratives and interrogatives.
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