Nanti evidential practice: Language, knowledge, and social action in an Amazonian society

487 Pages·2008·1.36 MB·English

Copyright
by
Lev David Michael
2008
The Dissertation Committee for Lev David Michael
certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:
Nanti evidential practice: Language, knowledge, and
social action in an Amazonian society
Committee:
Joel F. Sherzer, Supervisor
Anthony C. Woodbury, Supervisor
Nora C. England
Patience L. Epps
Elizabeth L. Keating
Margaret A. Syverson
Nanti evidential practice: Language, knowledge, and
social action in an Amazonian society
by
Lev David Michael, BA; MA
Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
The University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin
May 2008
For Montetoni
Acknowledgments
This dissertation is born from the relationship that individuals in the Nanti com-
munities of Montetoni and Marankehari tentatively began, then extended, strength-
ened, negotiated, and renegotiated with me and Christine Beier from 1995 through
the present. The work before you was made possible by the trust that these people
have given me the opportunity to earn, and by the patience that they have steadily
evinced – even during my systematic inquiry into minutiae, like the details of mi-
gration routes or syllable stress. Most of the residents of these two communities
have taken time out of their days to talk with us, have answered questions we have
posed, and have visited us as part of their daily visiting rounds. Some individuals,
however, have contributed substantial portions of their time to help us with our
research, and I want to thank them by name: Ajorora (†2003), Anteres, Barentin,
Bisarota (†2005), Esekera, Chabera, Teherina, Hosukaro, and Hoha. My greatest
debt, however, is to Bikotoro, Migero, and Tekori, each of whom I thank for their
friendship as well as the unwavering interest they took in my work.
My debt to Christine Beier, my partner in working with the Nanti commu-
nities and in life more generally, is incalculable. With respect to the present work,
Chris has been my interlocutor in innumerable conversations in which many of the
ideas presented here were first hatched. It is difficult to say, in many instances,
where my ideas begin and where those that arose from our fruitful interactions end.
Without Chris’ support and able partnership both in the field and at home, it is
v
unlikely that I would have been able to achieve a small fraction of what we have
accomplishedtogether. Andindeed, thecompletionofthepresentworkowesagreat
deal to her unflagging support and assistance.
My advisor Joel Sherzer directed my inchoate fascination with the nexus of
language, cognition, and social interaction and has provided me with what I believe
is a rare mixture of guidance, encouragement, and freedom to explore that I very
much value. My co-supervisor Tony Woodbury has on many occasions brought my
to attention new ways to think about the phenomena I examine in this study, and
has been a steady source of encouragement during the long process of bringing this
work to term. Nora England has contributed significantly to my development as a
descriptive linguist and has provided guidance on both this project and my study
of Iquito. Pattie Epps provided detailed and invaluable comments on the present
dissertation, and as a fellow Amazonianist, brought me to think about the areal
dimensions of the phenomena I discuss in this work.
Over the years, numerous colleagues have provided invaluable insights and
suggestions to me, based on their own areas of expertise. Among these, I wish to
acknowledge and thank Elizabeth Keating; Margaret Syverson; Nathaniel Gerhart
(†2007); Glenn Shepard; Carolina Izquierdo; Conrad Feather and those at Shinai;
CharlesMunn; DavidandJudyPayne; andBettyandWayneSnell. Iwouldalsolike
to thank Alexandra Aikhenvald for a number of stimulating interchanges regarding
evidentiality and the comparative linguistics of the Arawak family; I have benefited
greatly from her expertise in these disparate areas.
Not least of all, I wish to acknowledge and thank those institutions that
have, at various times, provided the financial support that made possible the re-
search upon which this thesis is based. A University of Texas Research Internship
Fellowship that I completed with Joel Sherzer in 1999-2000 provided me with full
support for graduate studies while allowing me to learn a great deal about the
vi
preservation and digital archiving of indigenous Latin American language materi-
als. A University of Texas Liberal Arts Graduate Research Fellowship for research
during the summer of 2001 supported research on this and other topics related to
the Nanti language. A Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, through the
US Department of Education, provided full support for my graduate studies of the
Nanti language during the 2000-2001 academic year. A National Science Founda-
tion Graduate Research Fellowship facilitated three academic years of concentrated
graduate studies, for which I am most grateful. The principle phase of fieldwork
on which this thesis is based was supported by a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship
(2003-2004) and an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (BCS
#0318039); and was carried out in affiliation with the Centro para la Lingu¨´ıstica
Aplicada at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru; I am
grateful to Gustavo Sol´ıs and Elsa Vilchez, the center’s directors, for their support.
A Harrington Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, awarded through the University
of Texas at Austin, provided full support for dissertation writing in 2005-2006.
Finally,IwishtothankallofthesupportersofCabecerasAidProject. While
Cabeceras has never directly supported my research activities, this organization has
madepossiblemyworkwiththeNanticommunitiesoftheupperCamiseaonmatters
ofgreatimportancetothem,whichinturnhasmademyacademicresearchpossible.
Cabeceras’ work has been of incredible importance in building relationships of trust
with the communities, without which my ongoing research would be impossible.
Lev David Michael
vii
The University of Texas at Austin
May 2008
viii
Nanti evidential practice: Language, knowledge, and
social action in an Amazonian society
Publication No.
Lev David Michael, Ph.D.
The University of Texas at Austin, 2008
Supervisors: Joel F. Sherzer and Anthony C. Woodbury
This dissertation examines the strategic deployment of evidential resources in com-
municative interactions among Nantis, an Arawak people of Peruvian Amazonia. In
particular, this work focuses on Nantis’ uses of evidentials to modulate representa-
tions of responsibility, and shows that two distinct types of responsibility must be
distinguished in order to account for the socially instrumental properties of eviden-
tialresources: eventresponsibilityandutteranceresponsibility. Eventresponsibility
concerns praiseworthiness or blameworthiness for happenings in which the relevant
individualiscausallyimplicated; whileutteranceresponsibilityconcernsthesocially
salient attributes of an utterance (e.g. truthfulness), and not the utterance’s con-
sequences. Evidential resources are shown to mitigate event responsibility in Nanti
ix
interactions by serving as a pragmatic metaphor, whereby the sensory directness or
indirectness encoded by evidentials yields inferences regarding individuals’ partici-
pation in, and responsibility for, events. The use of evidential resources, principally
quotative resources, to modulate utterance responsibility operates on quite differ-
ent principles. Specifically, quotative resources serve to individuate utterances by
attributing them to a particular source, thereby rendering explicit that individual’s
commitment to the stances expressed by the quoted utterance. In doing so, the
use of the quotative resource emphasizes that individual’s responsibility for the ex-
pressed stance. Quotative resources are also employed to decrease a first party’s
responsibility for a stance, by attributing it to a third party. In this case, inferences
based on the Maxim of Quantity lead interactants to infer reduced commitment on
the part of the first party on the basis of the attribution of strong commitment to
a third party. Both epistemic stance and a variety of moral and evaluative stances
are relevant to utterance responsibility. Significantly, utterance responsibility is one
of the few areas in which a pragmatic tie exists between evidentiality and epistemic
modality, indicating the relative marginality of epistemic modality to evidentiality
in Nanti, even at the level of pragmatics. An ethnographic and historical sketch of
the Nanti people is provided, and a grammatical description of the Nanti language
is also included.
x