Complex Epistemic Perspective in Kogi (Arwako)

Abstract

This paper analyzes a form of epistemic marking in Kogi (Arwako-Chibchan) that positions information between the speech participants from the perspective of the speaker. This form of epistemic marking is tentatively labeled “complex epistemic perspective” and is found with five prefixes that attach to the auxiliary verb. Relevant meaning contrasts are between speaker-perspective and addressee-perspective forms, which may in turn be separated into symmetric and asymmetric forms that signal shared and exclusive knowledge access. The meaning dimension of knowledge access is also subject to a private/public distinction that parallels the notion of “territory of information” (Kamio 1997 and Heritage 2012), where information may belong more to one of the speech participants than the other. The analyzed forms thus share a core function in specifying two simultaneous perspectives as part of the referential ground (e.g., Hanks 1990; 2009). The paper builds on firsthand data collected in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of northern Colombia and offers the first comprehensive analysis of epistemic marking in this language.

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