phøt- laŋ-la mip-pa bet. TE32
Tibetan-bull-DAT NEG.EXIST-NMLZ.Q AUX ‘If a Tibetan bull and a yak have a bull fight, the bull does not have even half of
yak’s strength.’ Speaker tells as parenthetical information that yak is much stronger than a Tibetan bovine bull. Yet
they often fight and it is the Tibetan bull that wins. Interrogative, descriptive copular clause type with predicate adjective
14 .101 aku tshiriŋ thaŋ-puwa jøk-ken bek=ka?
uncle tshiring health-ADJVZR EXIST-NMLZ;CONJ AUX=Q ‘Is uncle Chiring healthy?’
Speaker assumes that the hearer knows but he himself does not have access to this general knowledge.
Interrogative, equative copular clause type 14.102 aku lhakpa pempu bek=ka?
uncle Lhakpa official COP=Q ‘Is uncle Lhakpa the headman?’
This is normal third person question of the copular verb with predicate nominal. Neither speaker nor hearer has any experiencerkinship relation to the third person.
14.2.6 Speaker’s source of information is direct speech, quotative
This is used very frequently in Lhomi. So much so that indirect speech hardly ever occurs in Lhomi. While reporting, the speaker directly quotes someone else rather than uses any other source for his
information. Quotative in Lhomi involves exact indication of who provided the information see Aikhenvald 2004:25. Within quotes the speaker has the whole repertoire of evidentials at his disposal.
Givón 2001:323 argues, “In many cultures, claiming direct personal responsibility for asserted information may be a serious error, to be strictly avoided in any but most intimate social contexts.” I
believe this is exactly the rationale Lhomis have when they choose to use quotative even if they themselves could assert the information. There are more illustrations of quotatives in section 19.3 on
rhetorical questions.
The grammatical quotation markers at the end of an s-complement are: si- kuk, sit-tɕuŋ, sir-soŋ, sin-
na, sin-ni, tɕhi-pa bet, tɕhi-pen. And they are typically marked for evidentiality. The lexical sense of the finite verb of the matrix sentence is ‘to say, to tell’. The matrix sentence is BT type and it can combine
with most tenseaspect markers and evidentials. And it may also have medial verb markings, e.g. sin-na. The following examples illustrate quotatives the main verb of the complement clause and the finite verb
of the matrix sentence are underlined.
Quotative is higher in the epistemic scale than ‘hearsay’. The complement clause may be either in declarative or interrogative mood. The same is true of the
matrix sentence. Declarative, clause type ST1 in a complement clause
14 .103 raŋ hi-ki ʈhik-la tam ɕøt=tu ɖo sit-tɕuŋ.
2SG this-GEN about-DAT message speak=PURP go[IMP] say-PST.EXP ‘Hethey said to me, “Go to tell them about this”’
Declarative, clause type I in a complement clause 14
.104 aku passaŋ na-ja bet si-kuk. uncle passang get.sick-NMLZ;Q AUX say-PROG;VIS
‘People say, “Uncle Passang has become sick.”’ Speaker has heard it from someone who has seen the patient. The subjects of the matrix clause and
the complement are not co-referential. The embedded quotation is marked for general knowledge. Though the speaker does not state exactly who the source is, someone has given him this factual
information. This is not a ‘hearsay’ report.
Declarative, equative copular clause type in a complement clause 14.105 hi-ki pit
ɕa hi-ko roo-ki hin si-kuk. this-GEN book this-head 3SG-ERG COP.EXP say-PROG;VIS
‘As for this book, he says, “It is mine.”’ The speaker disclaims his own judgment of providing epistemic evidence and therefore uses direct
quotation. The complement clause includes only hin. The subject of the complement clause and the matrix clause are co-referential and therefore the speaker uses COP.EXP hin.
14.106 u-p-e roo- raŋ-so lhomi hin si-kuk.
that-HUM1-ERG 3SG-self-PL1 Lhomi COP.EXP say-PROG;VIS ‘They say about themselves, “We are Lhomis.”’
Just like in 14.105 the subjects are co-referential. The subject of the complement clause is left out because it is not needed, hin implies in this example first person plural.
Declarative 14.107 hi-ni pupu ts
ʏntɕuŋ-ki joŋ tɕhi-pa bet. TE17 this-ABL pupu ts
ʏntɕung-ERG HAP say-NMLZ;Q AUX ‘Then Pupu C
ʏntɕung said, “It is okay.”’ The complement clause in this example is very short, just the hearer’s acceptance particle
joŋ. Even though this is a direct quote, the marker sin-na, which marks the end of the quotation, is optionally left
out. The reason is that the quotation is so short, just a particle. This happens often when there is no potential confusion who says what.
This example illustrates indirect speech in Lhomi: 14.108 [nuk t
ɕhi-pa roo-raŋ u-tu ɕi-køʈ-ʈo ] this.way do;VBZR-NMLZ;Q 3SG-self that-LOC die-PROG;EXP-PROB
nø-na nuk t ɕhi-pa ket mit-dʑak-ken
think-NFNT1 this.way do;VBZR voice NEG-VBZR-NMLZ;CONJ khan
ʈa ak mit-tɕhik-ken what INCLN NEG-do;VBZR-NMLZ;CONJ
u- tu=raŋ jari u-ntuk tɕhi-na ɕi ɖo-ken bet. TE30
that-LOC=FOC some that-ADVZR do;VBZR-NFNT1 die go-NMLZ;CONJ AUX ‘Not thinking that she might die there, she neither uses her voice nor does anything
else but in fact will die right there.’ The referent is a sheep that is tangled up in bushes and dies there. This is an indirect speech. The
complement clause in brackets is the direct object of the matrix verb nø-na which is non-finite. It also
marks the same subject chain which ends with the finite verb ‘die’. Indirect speech is very rare in Lhomi. Direct speech, quotative, is normally preferred. It is the personal pronoun 2SG and 3SG that helps us
see the difference. Another interesting detail in this one is that the negation covers also the preceding verb
nø in the serial chain.
14.2.7 Speaker’s source of information is “hearsay”
