CECILIA MIHAELA POPESCU
DOI: 10.33993/dr.2024.2.208.223
Author's coordinates: Université de Craiova, Craiova, 13, rue A. I. Cuza
Email: cecilia.popescu@edu.ucv.ro
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1340-8032
WHO IS TALKING ABOUT WHO OR ABOUT WHAT? TOWARDS THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SOURCE OF INFORMATION IN THE DIALECTS OF DACOROMANIAN
(Abstract)
The paper aims at presenting the grammaticalization/pragmaticaliza-
tion processes as well as the semantic and functional behavior of certain lexical items in Romanian, such as: cică (< zice că „it is said that”), cea că (< zice că „it is said that”), ceancă (< ziceam că „I said that”), oz(â)că (< o zâs că „he/she said that”) and ozâncă (< o fi zâcând că „he/she maybe says that”). In fact, we are going to highlight that all these words configure in the spoken Romanian language and in particular in its dialectal register, a real microsystem of marking indirect citational evidentiality, while updating the tripartite distinction proposed by Willet (1988, p. 96) between: Second-hand evidence (hearsay) (ceancă) vs. Third-hand evidence (hearsay) (oz(â)că, ozâncă) vs. Information from the folklore (cică, ce că, cea că). Furthermore, all these discursive units found most often in the Oltenian sub-dialect of Dacoromanian and, in particular, in the patois of Oltenia area, implement a model of grammaticalization and pragmaticalization, obtained by the combination of a dicendi verb agglutinated with the conjunction că „that”, extremely productive not only in Romanian, but also in other Romance languages (see, for example, Popescu & Duță 2023).
In this context, our empirical and analytical approach, situated at the interface of linguistic pragmatics and dialectology, is composed of two large parts (except the introductory segment and the final considerations): (i) a first part which outlines the theoretical framework in the area of evidentiality and describes the model of grammaticalization/pragmaticalization of the lexical units of our research, also regarded from a Romance typological perspective and (ii) a second part which analyzes the semantic and functional behavior of these five words, while categorizing their uses and their discursive values according to the theoretical framework presented above.
Keywords: grammaticalization/pragmaticalization processes, Romanian language, pragmatic and discourse analysis, dialectology, indirect citational evidentiality.
Cuvinte-cheie: gramaticalizare/pragmaticalizare, limba română, analiză pragma-discursivă, dialectologie, evidențialitate indirectă citațională.
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