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It has been noted (Perkins, 2009; Zwaan, 1999; Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998) that causality, character, location, and time are the four main aspects of narrative discourse, even if not attended to by listeners or readers in equal ways. For example, character is highly ranked, and the locational/spatial components have often been underestimated for English narratives (see Perkins, 2009, for a review). Relative to the ranking, there is no inherent reason why character needs to be highly ranked, and locational/spatial information is in fact important in English narrative discourse (Perkins, 2009). I instead suggest that there are linguistic and cultural factors in the ranking of these aspects of discourse. Specifically, I suggest that causality is (probably) the highest ranked component, in languages that have a ranking, with the other three elements being linked to causality more or less strongly, depending on linguistic and cultural factors; it is possible that some languages do not rank narrative elements or that some elements are ranked as highly as others. In English, the strongest link is between causality and character. However, this is not universal.
In a survey of fifty-eight languages from thirty language families, including an in-depth study of Hobongan, an Austronesian language spoken by approximately two thousand people on the island of Borneo that I am in the process of describing, it is found that there is a great deal of cross-linguistic variation, to the extent that it is possible that each logically possible combination of narrative elements is present in the world’s languages.
Representation is a process of making, accepting, or rejecting representative claims (Disch, 2015; Saward, 2014). This groundbreaking insight challenged the standard assumption that representative democracy can be reduced to elections and activities of elected representatives (Pitkin, 1967). It broadened the scope of representative democracy to encompass representation activities beyond those authorized by elections, transformed our thinking and provided a new perspective, putting claims and their reception into the center. This paradigm shift erased the distinction between elected and non-elected representatives and disclosed the potential of non-elected actors’ claims to represent (Andeweg, 2003; Kuyper, 2016; Rosanvallon & Goldhammer, 2008; Saward, 2006, 2009; Van Biezen & Saward, 2008). In spite of this lively debate, we identify an important gap in the literature: while this paradigmatic shift inspired many authors, conceptual frameworks that can be applied for systematic empirical analysis of real-life cases are missing. In this article, we fill this gap and propose frameworks for assessing and validating a variety of real-life claims. Our study provides empirical substance to the ongoing theoretical debates, helping to translate the mainly theoretical ‘claim approach’ into empirical research tools. It helps to transform the conventional wisdom about what representation can (not) be and shines a new light on the potential future of (claims on) representation.
Four main informational elements have been suggested and studied as central aspects of narrative discourse: causality, character, location, time. The research that scholars have previously undertaken on these aspects has been primarily on Indo-European languages, and more specifically on the European side of that language family. The linguistic limitations have indicated that character is the aspect of narrative that readers/listeners attend to most closely. However, in examining narrative discourses from non-Indo-European languages, challenges to the presumed primacy of character emerge. In a partial report on field work conducted in Borneo in 2012-2015, I compare and contrast patterns in the rankings of the four main aspects of narrative in three languages, English, Hobongan and Daqan. I also note the strategies by which the languages make their respective rankings clear, including focus particles (Hobongan), specificity of description (each), and amount of information provided about the aspects (each). I suggest that analyses of the patterns and rankings of information in narrative be included in typological categorizations and linguistic descriptions of languages.
In this paper, I investigate the suppletion patterns that are found in languages that make a clusivity distinction. I will show that in the triple 1SG-1EXCL-1INCL, ABA patterns do not arise, consonant with other work on suppletion patterns (Bobaljik 2012, Smith et al. 2016). That is, it is not possible for the exclusive pronoun to supplete on its own whilst the singular and inclusive share a common base. All other patterns are attested. I will argue that the lack of ABA patterns supports the view that the inclusive is the most marked category in this set (Noyer 1992, Siewierska 2004, Cysouw 2003, a.o.), and propose that there is a containment relation such that the feature set that makes up the inclusive properly contains the features that form the exclusive, following the reasoning laid out in Bobaljik (2012). I further consider the makeup of person features, and argue that the lack of ABA patterns in clusivity suggest that clusivity features are privative, rather than binary ('cf'. Harbour 2016).