Beyond definiteness: exploring epistemic and relational accounts of e-marked formulations in Persian interactions

Abstract

In spoken colloquial Persian, there exists the particle ‘e’, which can be suffixed to the bare nominals (as in pesar-e: boy-e), nominals with some definite markers like demonstratives (as in in pesar-e: this boy-e) and some nominals with indefinite markers (as in ye pesar-e: a boy-e) (Nikravan, 2014; Heusinger and Sadeghpoor, 2020). This particle, termed as ‘enclitic -e’, has been insufficiently described in the literature and even this insufficient description predominantly draws on constructed sentences. The empirical investigation that underlies the present study revisits the ‘e’-marked nominal formulations in the context of making references to nouns in naturally occurring conversations to identify its multifaceted functions. It is demonstrated throughout the paper that the enclitic e marks a noun or a nominal group to denote both the speaker and recipient's (assumed) equal epistemic access to the referent, although the speaker may need some interactional work with the recipient to share his epistemic access with them. Furthermore, through this marked way of reference formulations, the speakers do more than simply referring by orienting to some measure of relational separation with the referent. Overall, the analyses reveal delicate moments of interactional work in terms of epistemic and relational functions of the e-marked formulations of the referents, and as such contribute to the research on the pragmatic and interactional view of definiteness in light of epistemics and relating theories.