Intersubjectification revisited : a cross-categorical perspective

• The article offers three illustrations of how the process of “intersubjectification” (Traugott & Dasher 2002) can be observed in the development of time deictics, person markers and sentence-type markers to encode aspects of the speaker’s assumptions concerning the addressee’s epistemic access to an event. First-hand data from Lakandon Maya (Yukatekan, Mexico), Kogi, and Ika (Arwako-Chibchan, Colombia) is discussed in order to offer a potentially more nuanced view of intersubjectification in language. While suggested in previous accounts of intersubjectification, the article argues that this process of language change only involves categories and expressions definable as “shifters” (Jespersen 1922), i.e. expressions that at the same time refer to aspects of the speech situation and the proposition.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

intersubjectivity

time deictics

person markers

sentence-type

grammaticalization

Linguistics

lingvistik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kap (subject category)