The research colloquium offers all students, researchers and interested parties the opportunity to exchange views on linguistic topics, their own research work and current projects.
BeLing is open to all researchers in Linguistics in all language departments, from advanced MA students to professors. If you are interested in presenting your research, please send an email with your title to danielle.tod@unibe.ch by Tuesday 21 May (no abstract needed). Presentations in languages other than English are welcome!
Information regarding the next event:
Date: 28th of May 2024
Time: 09:45 - 17:00h
Place: B-102, UniS
given by: Linda Konnerth
Around 40% of the world’s languages feature an inclusive form in their paradigms of person markers. The inclusive is a dedicated form that refers to the speaker, addressee, and possibly others, and as such represents one subgroup of first person plural forms, such as English ‘we’ (the other subgroup being the ‘exclusive’, i.e. reference to the speaker plus others, while excluding the addressee). The inclusive is absent in languages of Eurasia but is firmly anchored in the Americas and Southeast Asia. From a sociopragmatic point of view, the inclusive is an intriguing category. In languages that have it, it typically can be used to variously refer to either speaker or addressee, both or neither in constructing social groups while expressing politeness, negotiating responsibility or seeking empathy. The inclusive bundles the speech act participants and also bridges over to third persons. In examining inclusive forms across the South-Central branch of the Trans-Himalayan language family, we see that this functional versatility has left a diachronic footprint in these languages, as person forms in different languages have shifted by apparently using the inclusive as a gateway for change. This talk combines insights from corpus studies and historical investigation to paint the picture of a dynamic and sociopragmatically versatile person category.
