Stephen Watters | SIL International (original) (raw)
Books by Stephen Watters
The northern Magar of Rolpo and Rukum districts of central Nepal speak a linguistically diverse s... more The northern Magar of Rolpo and Rukum districts of central Nepal speak a linguistically diverse set of Tibeto-Burman speech varieties collectively known as Magar Kham. This paper focuses on several related issues surrounding their ethnic identity as it relates to linguistic diversity. Specifically, I describe the local controversy of whether or not their speech varieties should be considered as a family of languages or a family of dialects. The reference to language or dialect is of particular importance in Nepal because language has come to be a proxy for ethnic identity, and in so doing brings hope of representation in the political system. Magar Kham activists are willing to listen to differing perspectives, accepting that there are several major speech varieties in Magar Kham speaking areas. This acceptance, more than anything, gives cause for hope in addressing concerns for the loss of linguistic diversity.
This dissertation is a description of phonetics, phonology, and word and clause-level morphosynta... more This dissertation is a description of phonetics, phonology, and word and clause-level morphosyntax of Dzongkha (dzo), a Southern Tibetic language within the Central Bodish branch of Tibeto-Burman. Dzongkha is spoken as a native language by about 160,000 speakers in Bhutan. The dissertation draws primarily on conversation data, and makes use of elicited and monologic data as noted in specific examples. The dissertation begins with an overview of the language situation of Dzongkha and its speech community, then turns to an overview of the phonetics and phonology of Dzongkha, followed by chapters on select aspects of morphosyntax.
Papers by Stephen Watters
Functions of Language, 2024
The marking on copular verbs in Tibetic languages is regarded as an exemplar of egophoricity, alt... more The marking on copular verbs in Tibetic languages is regarded as an exemplar of egophoricity, although the extent to which it has been grammaticalized varies between languages. Dzongkha, a southern Tibetic language, is somewhat atypical of the egophoric pattern in the sense that the basic opposition in copulas exhibits a mirative pattern, wherein the nonmirative (egophoric) copula occurs with all grammatical persons in declaratives and interrogatives, and the mirative (non-egophoric) occurs with the 3rd person and rarely with 1st and 2nd persons. The conversational data studied for this paper also show that the speaker need not take knowledge stances that bifurcate the world between objectively 'old' and 'new' knowledge and the attendant associations of knowledge with a particular grammatical person. Rather, the speaker's representation of events is subjective, and dependent, in part, on the knowledge stances between speaker and respondent. What is in view in conversational interaction are the social goals of the conversation-assertions, face-saving strategies, and arriving at mutually shared knowledge-and the Dzongkha copulas are a manipulable linguistic resource in achieving these.
Drafts by Stephen Watters
The northern Magar of Rolpo and Rukum districts of central Nepal speak a linguistically diverse s... more The northern Magar of Rolpo and Rukum districts of central Nepal speak a linguistically diverse set of Tibeto-Burman speech varieties collectively known as Magar Kham. This paper focuses on several related issues surrounding their ethnic identity as it relates to linguistic diversity. Specifically, I describe the local controversy of whether or not their speech varieties should be considered as a family of languages or a family of dialects. The reference to language or dialect is of particular importance in Nepal because language has come to be a proxy for ethnic identity, and in so doing brings hope of representation in the political system. Magar Kham activists are willing to listen to differing perspectives, accepting that there are several major speech varieties in Magar Kham speaking areas. This acceptance, more than anything, gives cause for hope in addressing concerns for the loss of linguistic diversity.
This dissertation is a description of phonetics, phonology, and word and clause-level morphosynta... more This dissertation is a description of phonetics, phonology, and word and clause-level morphosyntax of Dzongkha (dzo), a Southern Tibetic language within the Central Bodish branch of Tibeto-Burman. Dzongkha is spoken as a native language by about 160,000 speakers in Bhutan. The dissertation draws primarily on conversation data, and makes use of elicited and monologic data as noted in specific examples. The dissertation begins with an overview of the language situation of Dzongkha and its speech community, then turns to an overview of the phonetics and phonology of Dzongkha, followed by chapters on select aspects of morphosyntax.
Functions of Language, 2024
The marking on copular verbs in Tibetic languages is regarded as an exemplar of egophoricity, alt... more The marking on copular verbs in Tibetic languages is regarded as an exemplar of egophoricity, although the extent to which it has been grammaticalized varies between languages. Dzongkha, a southern Tibetic language, is somewhat atypical of the egophoric pattern in the sense that the basic opposition in copulas exhibits a mirative pattern, wherein the nonmirative (egophoric) copula occurs with all grammatical persons in declaratives and interrogatives, and the mirative (non-egophoric) occurs with the 3rd person and rarely with 1st and 2nd persons. The conversational data studied for this paper also show that the speaker need not take knowledge stances that bifurcate the world between objectively 'old' and 'new' knowledge and the attendant associations of knowledge with a particular grammatical person. Rather, the speaker's representation of events is subjective, and dependent, in part, on the knowledge stances between speaker and respondent. What is in view in conversational interaction are the social goals of the conversation-assertions, face-saving strategies, and arriving at mutually shared knowledge-and the Dzongkha copulas are a manipulable linguistic resource in achieving these.