The grammar of reported speech and thought in Gooniyandi

Abstract

This paper investigates the grammar of reported speech and thought in Gooniyandi, a Bunuban language of the southern Kimberley, Western Australia. According to a traditional analysis, indirect speech reports would be embedded in the clause of speech; such an analysis cannot be maintained for Gooniyandi. Nor can recent proposals such as those of Foley and van Valin (1984) and Halliday (1985) that subordination or hypotaxis is involved. Instead, a framing analysis of reported speech is elaborated, according to which the quoted utterance is contained within the scope of the clause of speech. This permits a systematic treatment of direct and indirect speech, and an explanation of their contrasting grammatical properties. It is further argued that the syntagmatic relationship involved is a sign, the signified of which is an interpersonal meaning: the clause of speech modifies the reported clause much as the particle utharri ’mistakenly believe’ modified the clause it holds in its scope.