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Direct and indirect speech in Mambila

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Mona Perrin
Mona Perrin
Affiliation:
Summer Institute of Linguistics
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Extract

The categories of DIRECT SPEECH and INDIRECT SPEECH may be distinguished by differing policies of pronoun reference. Direct speech takes its pronoun orientation from the clause in which it is immediately embedded: for example, in the following sentence: (I) John Said to Peter, ‘I Can see you’, the first person pronoun I refers to the participant who is identified as speaker in the preceding clause (John said to peter) and the seconf person you refers to the participant identified as addressee. Of the two clauses involved, the second or embedded clause (‘I can see you’) May conveniently be referred to as the quotation content. The first or main clause may be referred to as the Reporting Clause; this correspondes ti the use of the term Margin in recent studies from the Summer Institute of Linguistics (Lowe, 1969; Pike, 1966; Pike & Lowe, 1969) from which the inspiration for this paper has been taken. Any third person reference in the quotation content in direct speech must refer to a participant who is neither speaker nor addressee in the reporting clause.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 27 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

REFERENCES

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