SIL EXTRA: Pritha Chandra

Speaker: Pritha Chandra (IIT Delhi)

Title: The syntax of politeness in Eastern Indo-Aryan
Time/place: 4pm, Muntstraat 2A, room 1.11/MS Teams

Abstract

Recent years have seen considerable research around the representation of discourse-related constructs such as Speech Act Participants, politeness/honorificity etc in the syntactic tree (cf. Speas and Tenny 2003; Miyagawa 2012; Portner et al 2019; Wiltschko 2021). Two specific concerns that one often finds in the literature are about (i) the structure of the Speech Act Projection located in the left periphery and (ii) the mechanisms underlying honorificity agreement.

In this talk, I present data from some Indo-Aryan languages that provide interesting insights on both (i) and (ii). Using data from Bangla, I argue for a more nuanced SAP, positing two commitment phrases, each catering to the Speaker and the Addressee. By doing so, I add one extra projection to the SAP posited by Miyagawa and Hill (2023). I then go on
to talk about referent honorificity, allocutivity and their interaction in three different EIA languages – Maithili, Magahi and Bangla. The patterns clearly attest that the locus of both kinds of honorificity agreement is T. However, there is considerable cross-linguistic
variation that arises from the differential featural composition of T within the EIA sub-family, affecting not just how honorificity agreement is realised, but with repercussions for other domains of grammars.

For those of you who are not able to join us in person, the talk will be streamed as per usual on our SIL team on MS Teams. If you are already a member of our team on MS Teams and/or are affiliated with UU, please use this link to join the talk.

If you experience trouble with the link above and you are NOT affiliated with UU, please email us (syntax.interface@uu.nl) so that we can add you to the team.

*** We kindly ask you to request to join the Syntax Interface Lectures team by 15:30 on the day of the talk***, as we have experienced some accessibility issues in the past and want everyone to be able to enjoy the talk in its entirety.

For further information, including the abstract for the talk, check out our website: https://syntaxif.wp.hum.uu.nl/extra-pritha-chandra-iit-delhi/

We’re looking forward to seeing lots of you on June 17!