Anti-Logophoricity and Indirect Mode in Mabaan

Abstract

In Mabaan, a Western Nilotic language, indirect speech is characterised by the following three features. Firstly, verbs are inflected in a special way, having an indirect mode as opposed to the direct mode of direct speech. Secondly, in pronominal morphemes a distinction is made between forms that refer to a third person reported speaker (third person forms) and forms which have other third person referents (fourth person forms), a distinction which is coextensive with the use of the indirect mode. Thirdly, third person pronominal forms are identical to the third person pronominal forms used in direct speech, while fourth person pronominal forms are different and, thus, anti-logophoric. Taken together, these features make Mabaan typologically unusual.