Evening Lecture Notes | Universiteit Leiden Summer School of Linguistics
Category of evidentiality in Abkhaz
Evidentiality category
Evidential 1: verb.base-evidential.suffix-zap’ Evidential 2ː verb.base-evidential.suffix-zaarən
jə-q'a-zaaren xac'a-k'-əj phʷəs-k'-ej.
they-be-EVID2 husband-one-and wife-one-and
"There lived a husband and wife"
Reporting/retelling
d- c'ʷəwa- zaarən
3SG.HUM- cry- EVID2
"apparently (she) cri(ed)"
Commentative
呃呃听不下去。这个教授一直在读稿子。
Addressing gaps in diachronic data
Egophoricity（信息源是否是说话者本人）exist in Kathmandu Newari language, but not in Newari language spoken in other place.
≈ Modern Lhasa Tibetan ego auxiliaries
How languages develop such egophoricitic marks?
Why is diachronic syntax so hard?
- almost only written text, no speech;
- writing started much later than speech.
Data challenge;
Developed Ancient Tibetan handwritting OCR tool!
Developed Tibetan voice recognition (transcription) tool!