The evidential category of mutual knowledge in Quechua

• Published in: Lingua Vol. 186-187; pp. 88 - 109
• Main Authors: Hintz, Daniel J., Hintz, Diane M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.01.2017; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Beliefs; Clitics; Conversation; Epistemicity; Evidentiality; General knowledge; Grammatical categories; Information sources; Knowledge; Mutual knowledge; Negotiation; Peru; Quechua; Quechua language; Peru; Mutual knowledge; General knowledge; Evidentiality; Epistemicity; Peru; Quechua
• ISSN: 0024-3841; 1872-6135
• DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2014.07.014

•We examine the notion of mutual knowledge as an evidential category.•Mutual knowledge is jointly constructed through linguistic interaction.•We report Quechuan languages with 3-, 5-, and 6-choice evidential systems.•The larger systems encode a contrast between individual and mutual knowledge.•Diffusion of mutual knowledge gives rise to a type of general knowledge. In this paper we examine the notion of mutual knowledge, an evidential category that has remained largely unexplored in the relevant literature. Mutual knowledge principally refers to knowledge which is jointly constructed through linguistic interaction and shared perceptual experience. Sources of information for mutual knowledge include the contributions of conversational participants, together with their jointly held beliefs and assumptions. Interlocutors use individual knowledge evidentials to introduce information and use mutual knowledge evidentials to establish facts by consensus. Once established, this shared knowledge is marked as such in subsequent speech. Evidentials are thus shown to be part of a system for building up the epistemic base shared between speakers in dynamic, interactive discourse. In South Conchucos Quechua and in Sihuas Quechua the individual and mutual knowledge categories are formally distinguished via dedicated enclitics in paradigmatic contrast. We describe and illustrate the five-choice evidential system of South Conchucos and the six-choice system of Sihuas, then compare the two systems with each other and with the more well-known three-choice system of Cusco Quechua, a system in which mutual knowledge forms have not been attested. The comparison of the three evidential systems suggests a sequence of stages in the development of mutual knowledge as a grammatical category. The findings presented here are primarily based on spontaneous conversation, the setting in which mutual knowledge forms principally reside and in which epistemic authority is carefully negotiated.