Mirative meanings as extensions of aorist in Hindi/Urdu

Abstract

Mirative meanings (surprise, sudden awareness, high degree, polemic) have recently been described as distinct from evidentiality. Languages with evidential markers such as Nepali or Kalasha, Khowar are already known to have grammaticized the expression of such meanings. Hindi/Urdu, which have no specific marker, displays non the less a wide sets of such meanings systematically attached with its aorist (the simple form used for narrative past). The paper attempts to test the claim that mirativity is a category distinct from evidentiality, a claim supported by such languages that attach mirative extensions to verbal forms other than evidentials. I will first define the standard meanings of the -yâ/-â form, argue in favour of the aoristic behaviour of the whole set of meanings, then try to relate the aoristic effect to the special (mirative) meanings, and finally suggest an interpretation derived from the enunciative (utterance) theory of Culioli.Typology started about twenty years ago (Chafe & Nichols 1986, then Guentcheva 1996 and Aikhenvald 2004 to describe evidentiality as a linguistic category 1 . More recently, it started to describe mirativity as a distinct linguistic category (Delancey 1997, Aikhenvald 2004, although evidentials are now well known to display "mirative extensions" (to behave as markers of mirative meanings too). The empirical facts which were described because of the new interest in evidentials is certainly responsible for the change in the representation of the category (less focusing on the distance from the source of information) and eventually for the distinction of two categories. At the same time descriptive grammars now get a proper frame for describing related forms or meanings and are more and more aware of the existence of the category. The reason why this category (or these categories) has long been ignored in languages where it existed is simply because it was unknown in most familiar European languages. Nepalese grammar for instance may now reconsider the "inferential" as a marker for evidentiality and/or mirativity, and there are many other examples of such welcome results of interactions between typology and description. However, Hindi/Urdu have not yet been described as displaying an evidential system, which is understandable since there is no morphologically specific marker for it 2 . As noted by Aikhenvald (2004: 210), "a major argument in favour of mirative meanings as independent from evidentials and information source comes from languages where mirative extensions are characteristic of categories other than evidentials". I will try here to support this claim, pointing at the same time to the difficulties in identifying the "path" and origin of extension due to the labelling of these "other categories".1 Or non-testimonial form, since it is widely used to related events not directly observed by the speaker (reported events). Aikhenwald (2004) however rightly points to the fact that markers for evidentiality relate in many languages to the mode of perception of t...

The aorist in Modern Armenian

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The essence of mirativity

“…In Hindi/Urdu, the aorist (the verb form typically used as a narrative past) may express "surprise" of the speaker (see Montaut 2006). This meaning is mainly attested in "oral interaction", and mostly with a "quasi-exclamative" intonation pattern.…”

“…The speaker is "confronted with an unexpected fact or situation (here the size of the boy)" and uses the "aorist" rather than the perfect or present, "which would only mean a neutral statement". Note that "the use of the same form in the aorist would of course have a different meaning in a narrative, 'he became very tall' " (Montaut 2006 In the variety of Spanish spoken in Andean countries, also known as castellano andino, some compound tenses have mirative overtones (without any link to information source) (e.g., Laprade 1981). In Peruvian Spanish, the pluperfect (pluscuamperfecto) is used this way (Escalante & Valderrama 1992 Taytacha God 'That is how God's will turned out to be.…”

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“…Un des défis de l'étude des évidentiels grammaticalisés, malgré le grand nombre de travaux qui leur sont consacrés, reste de comprendre ce qui fonde leur faisceau de valeurs, allant de la source de l'information (évidentialité prototypique), à la surprise et ses corrélats (sudden awareness, mirativité, cf. Montaut 2006), et aux autres valeurs modales de cette catégorie grammaticale.…”