Reported speech and its extensions in Beserman

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a descriptive account of reported speech, understood in terms of Spronck & Nikitina (2019), in Beserman (Uralic > Permic). Two phenomena are described in particular. First, it is demonstrated that, although Beserman generally prefers the direct speech strategy, the interpretation of indexicals in certain contexts may be affected by pragmatic factors. Second, Beserman allows for agreement mismatch between the subject and the predicate of the reported clause, known as “monstrous agreement”. This phenomenon has not been attested in Permic languages before. Apart from that, extended uses of two Beserman reported speech markers are described, whereby they convey pragmatic meanings that resemble English kind of or like. This semantic development reverses a well-known grammaticalization path that turns such pragmatic elements into reported speech markers. The study is based on both corpus and elicited data.