CHAPTER 13

Insubordination in interaction: The Cha’palaa counter-assertive

Simeon Floyd
Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen

Abstract
In the Cha’palaa language of Ecuador the main-clause use of the otherwise non-finite morpheme -ba can be
accounted for by a specific interactive practice: the ‘counter-assertion’ of statement or implicature of a
previous conversational turn. Attention to the ways in which different constructions are deployed in such
recurrent conversational contexts reveals a plausible account for how this type of dependent clause has come
to be one of the options for finite clauses. After giving some background on Cha’palaa and placing -ba
clauses within a larger ecology of insubordination constructions in the language, this chapter uses examples
from a video corpus of informal conversation to illustrate how interactive data provides answers that may
otherwise be elusive for understanding how the different grammatical options for Cha’palaa finite verb
constructions have been structured by insubordination.

1 Introduction

This chapter illustrates how, in the Cha’palaa language of Ecuador, an aspect of morphosyntax,
namely the main-clause use of the otherwise non-finite morpheme -ba, can be accounted for by a
specific interactive practice, the action of ‘counter-assertion’ of a previous conversational turn in
the next turn. First, it discusses the different morphosyntactic possibilities for Cha’palaa finite
clauses when viewed synchronically as a linguistic system, presenting some hard-to-explain
problems raised by the data on the language. Then it shows how an attention to the ways in which
different constructions are deployed in interaction reveals a plausible account for the structural
linguistic facts, because it uncovers the contexts in which insubordinate constructions have ‘lost’
their main clauses and come to be one of the options for finite clauses themselves.
Understanding these interactional factors is not only crucial for making sense of how the
present system came to be, but also for arriving at a satisfying grammatical description of the
language’s predicate system in its current state, because it resolves a tricky problem that has
puzzled the few fieldworkers to have taken a shot at describing Cha’palaa’s complicated verbal
morphology (e.g. Vittadello, who glossed ~-ba clauses as “commenting, without giving much
reason”, as opposed to other morphemes for more “serious” discourse (1988: 60; my translation)):
there are a great many morphemes that compete for a single verb-final slot, in that sense
constituting a structural paradigm, but they do not form a semantic paradigm of contrasting
meanings in a single domain like tense, person or other familiar values (Floyd and Bruil 2011).
While some of its neighbouring languages like Ecuadorian Quechua have full tense/person
paradigms (Cole 1982), Cha’palaa has no person agreement and only limited, optional tense and
number marking. Instead, its verbal morphology encodes a heterogeneous set of knowledge- and
discourse-based meanings which structurally compete with each other for the verb-final slot, but do
not come from a coherent semantic domain. Their meanings are often so deeply dependent on the
pragmatics of the speech situation that they become frustratingly difficult to pin down in elicitation.
Taking insubordination into account provides an entry point into this system because it shows
how finite verbal morphemes with diverse meanings proliferated, as previously non-finite
morphemes edged their way into the finite verb system by conventionalizing interactional
meanings. This ‘depragmatization’ is motivated by particular recurrent conversational contexts that
can make the initial use of dependent clauses without main clauses possible, and that can then
make this usage conventional in the more advanced stages of insubordination (Evans 2007: 270–
2. Simeon Floyd

276). This conclusion leads not only to a better account of Cha’palaa finite morphology, whose
verbal ‘paradigmaticity’ involves choosing between different conversational actions as well as
between contrasting semantic categories, but also stresses that, if similar motivations are
presumably behind processes of insubordination in other languages, then the interactive function of
insubordinated constructions may be the key to making sense of them cross-linguistically as well.
After giving some background on Cha’palaa and placing -ba clauses within a larger ecology of
insubordinated constructions in the language, this chapter uses examples from a video corpus of
informal conversation to illustrate how interactive data provides answers that may otherwise be
elusive.1

2 The Cha’palaa language

Cha’palaa is one of the five Barbacoan languages of Ecuador and Colombia (along with Tsafiki in
Ecuador, Awa Pit in both countries, and related varieties Guambiano and Totoró, or Nam Trik, in
Colombia [Curnow and Liddicoat 1998; Adelaar with Muysken 2004: 141–151; Aikhenvald 2007]),
and is spoken by about 10,000 Chachi people living along the rivers between the Andes and the
northwest Ecuadorian coast. The language is predominantly verb-final and highly agglutinative, and
it has a complex predicate system in which verbs, coverbs and verb classifiers can combine
productively (Floyd 2014). Clauses usually end with predicates, and the finite morphology occurs
immediately to the right of the last verb root. Finite clauses can be marked for aspectual values,
illocution, and knowledge-based categories including evidentials and epistemics, which occupy the
final slot(s) of the predicate (followed occasionally by focus marking). There is no person marking,
optional tense marking, and optional plural number agreement. Dependent clauses usually precede
main clauses, and can be marked for switch-reference, temporality, relativization, and trans-
sentential contrast, among other values. One important point for understanding insubordination
processes in Cha’palaa is that when dependent clauses take non-finite morphology, this neutralizes
the possibility of marking the other distinctions available from finite morphology, particularly most
knowledge-based marking. This begins to explain why much of the finite verb morphology appears
to show structural but not semantic paradigmaticity.

3 Finite clause morphology in Cha’palaa

There are too many distinct morphological possibilities for Cha’palaa finite clauses to review
comprehensively here, but egophoric marking provides a good example of the kinds of marking
neutralized in insubordinate constructions. Egophoric marking is a kind of knowledge-based
morphology that reflects epistemic asymmetries in the speech situation, associated with the
perspective of a primary ‘knower’ involved in an event, in contrast to other perspectives (Evans
1996). Similar markers turn up in unrelated languages around the world and have been referred to

1
The video corpus of Cha’palaa interaction consists of over 80 hours of transcribed conversation
collected between 2010 and 2014 in several different Chachi communities in the Rio Cayapas
region of Ecuador with support from the ERC project ‘Human Sociality and Systems of Language
Use’ (dir. N. Enfield) hosted by the Language and Cognition Department of the Max Planck
Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where the corpus is archived (accessible
for serious research or community-based activities through contact with the author). The corpus was
recorded by setting up a camera in a household or workplace, leaving it in situ without giving
specific instructions other than to go about business as usual, and returning in about an hour to
retrieve it. The age and gender of the participants varied, and both dyadic and complex, multi-party
interactions are represented. The unique identifiers after the examples specify the file name, date,
and millisecond time code from which the example was selected.
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
3

with a range of different terms (most commonly ‘conjunct/disjunct’, as in Hale 1980). They are
sometimes analyzed as a kind of evidentiality based on knowledge from active experience (‘I know
about it because I did it’) or, less accurately, as a kind of agreement. While the markers associate
with specific speech act participants, the relationship between person and morpheme is usually
much looser than in a person agreement system. A basic pattern commonly seen with many
egophoric markers is that the speaker’s perspective is contrasted with all others in statements, while
the addressee’s perspective is marked the same way relative to all others in questions (‘I ask with
the expectation that you know because you did it’). In Cha’palaa the ego-marked predicate pipe-yu
(bathe-EGO) can mean either “I bathed” or “Did you bathe?”, while ‘non-ego’ morphology can
associate with any of the other speech act participants. This summary oversimplifies the system, but
for present purposes it is enough to note that while knowledge-based marking is prominent in the
language, most of these otherwise important distinctions are neutralized when a morpheme of some
other category occupies the verb-final slot. For example, for non-speaker arguments (2nd/3rd
person) predicates frequently take the non-egophoric marker -we, as in (1b), but can also take -ba,
as in (1a), and the two morphemes mutually exclude each other, as shown in (1c). In elicitation
speakers offer the same Spanish translation in both cases, and have difficulty specifying the
difference between the two forms.

(1a) inchee juba

in-chi-ya ju-ba
1-POSS-FOC be-CNTR
‘Mine are there.’ (‘I have some.’)
CHSF2011_01_11S2_845791

(1b) inchee juwe

in-chi-ya ju- we
1-POSS-FOC be-N.EGO
‘Mine are there.’ (‘I have some.’)

(1c) *inchee jubawe

in-chi-ya ju-ba-we
1-POSS-FOC be-CNTR-N.EGO

At first glance it is difficult to understand why a set of morphemes including -ba neutralize
egophoric distinctions which, while not technically obligatory, are frequently marked at many levels
of the grammar. In addition, the neutralizing morphemes are in a different semantic domain from
the knowledge-based markers. When looking at cases in which speakers selected -ba in a
conversational corpus, it becomes evident that speakers systematically select -ba in specific
interactive contexts when they are countering some part of another speaker’s previous turn.
Example (2) shows the same clause as in (1a) in its original sequential context.

(2) L: Ju-tyu-shee chinkiña-a ju-tyu, ju-tyu

be-NEG-AFF banana.type-FOC be-NEG be-NEG
‘There are no more chinkiña bananas, there are none, there are none.’

B: In-che-e ju-ba
1-POSS-FOC be-CNTR
‘Mine are there.’ (‘I have some, contrary to what you say’)
4. Simeon Floyd

The interactive move accomplished by -ba clauses has these basic elements: it introduces some new
proposition (‘asserting’ it, or ‘informing’ co-participants) that, if true, conflicts with some element
of the previous turn, including its presuppositions and implicatures, preventing it from being ratified
in the common ground of the interaction. This explains why speakers selected -ba instead of other
morphology in specific instances, if not why it neutralizes the other morphological options. For that,
we can turn to a related construction in which -ba regularly occurs and which does not permit finite
morphology: concessive complement clauses. If we consider that finite -ba clauses originated as
nonfinite, this provides a likely explanation for why -ba cannot co-occur with other finite
morphology. Example (3) illustrates how -ba marks trans-sentential contrast between two clauses,
the main clause asking why someone would try to plug a radio in, and the dependent clause
introducing a contradictory proposition: that the radio actually runs on batteries.

(3) ña-a coriente-chi nenña-a pu’-ka-nu, bateriya-chi ne ju-u-ba

2-FOC electricity-INS why-FOC put-get-INF battery-INS INCS be-be-CNTR
‘Why are you going to plug it in (even though) it should be with batteries?’

One of the main places where interrogatives like the ‘why’ question in (3) commonly occur in
interaction is in a sequential position in which they target something about the previous speech or
behavior as unexplained, soliciting an explanation. When concessive clauses with -ba occur
alongside an interrogative clause in this context, they inform about some kind of background
condition that accounts for why the question is being asked, clarifying how it contradicts some
element of the previous turn. From observing the full two-clause construction in this sequential
position, it is possible to see how the interrogative element, if omitted, could be recovered from the
concessive clause because the ‘counter-assertion’ of a contradictory proposition alone can convey
the conversational action of ‘questioning’ the previous turn. This can explain how the main clause
counter-assertive meaning of -ba arose, and its connection to its dependent clause homophone.

4 Insubordination in Cha’palaa grammar

Based on the above discussion of the morpheme -ba, three criteria emerge that can be applied to
Cha’palaa’s verbal morphemes more generally to assess to what extent their distributions can be
accounted for by processes of insubordination. If all of the following are true, the morpheme in
question is likely to be part of an insubordinated construction.

(1) A single morpheme can occupy the verb-final slot in both dependent and finite clauses.
(2) When that morpheme occurs in finite clauses, it neutralizes other finite morphology.
(3) There is some semantic connection between the morpheme’s use in dependent and finite
clauses (or, put another way, it is possible to identify a usage context that bridges its two
meanings).

If one or both of the first two criteria are true but the third does not seem plausible, then it may be
difficult to distinguish insubordination from coincidental homophony. Several of Cha’palaa’s finite
morphemes other than -ba do in fact clearly satisfy all three criteria, and reveal that insubordination
processes have been recurrent in the language, and that they can explain a great deal about the verb
morphology system. This section briefly describes two other cases of insubordinated constructions
in order to illustrate the extent of insubordination processes in the grammar of the language, before
turning back to the discussion of the counter-assertive -ba.
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
5

4.1 Case 1: the ‘infinitive’ marker -nu

One of the functions of the marker that in Cha’palaa has usually been labelled ‘infinitive’
(Vittadello 1988: 59) is to form complement clauses for a set of modal auxiliary verbs that take
finite morphology. This particular morpheme is of interest because a homophonous marker is used
in main clauses, in those cases getting a future tense reading. The modal verbs with which it occurs
in dependent complement clauses include:

 ju, ‘be’ for obligation/necessity (deontic). kenu juyu ‘(I) must do it’
 ten, ‘feel’ for volition. kenu tenwe ‘(I) want to do it’ (‘feel like doing it’)
 pude (Spanish borrowing), ‘to be able’ for ability. kenu pudeyu ‘(I) can do it’

Cha’palaa’s most closely-related language, Tsafiki, also uses the cognate morpheme -no in a similar
deontic construction, which Dickinson describes as also conveying a future tense meaning (2002:
114–117, 370–378), indicating that links between these types of constructions and future tense are
significant in the Barbacoan languages beyond Cha’palaa. Speakers of Cha’palaa currently use this
marker for both dependent and finite clauses; (4) shows it with the modal auxiliary ju, with a
deontic meaning.

(4) ke’ kuwanu jushima

ke-tu kuwa-nu ju-shima
do-SR give-INF be-AFF
‘(He) must make (food) and give (it to him).’
CHSF2012_08_04S3_2809790

Without the auxiliary verb, predicates marked with -nu have a future tense reading, as in (5).

(5) tsai faakeenu

tsa-i fale-kera-nu
SEM-become come.out-see-INF
‘We will appear (in the recording).’
CHSF2012_08_04S3_3005060

When -nu occurs on a finite predicate no further morphology, such as knowledge-based egophoric
marking, can be added (6).

(6) *faakeenu-yu (appear-INF-EGO)

*faakeenu-we (appear-INF-N.EGO)

To return to the criteria for probable cases of insubordination, the marker -nu occurs on both finite
and dependent clauses, it cancels other finite morphology, and it is not difficult to imagine contexts
in which one or more of its modal uses could come to have a future tense implicature, as modals
often deal with potential future events. This grammaticalization path for future tense has long been
identified for languages like English, for which an early article on the topic by Fries points out that
future marking tends to develop from forms related to “volition, purpose, obligation, necessity, and
the modal inflections carrying the idea of possibility”, as these forms “naturally looked to the future
for fulfillment” (1927: 88).
6. Simeon Floyd

4.2 Case 2: The subjunctive/polite imperative ‘-sa’

The second case I will discuss in which insubordination processes are likely to have been a factor is
the polite imperative marker -sa, which is homophonous with a marker that occurs on complements
of dependent clauses that might be labelled ‘subjunctive’. In contrast to desiderative/volitional
modal constructions in which the argument of both clauses is the same (‘X wants X to do Z’), as in
the constructions featuring -nu discussed above, when the arguments of the clauses are different (‘X
wants Y to do Z’), the ‘subjunctive’ marker -sa is used (7). Another way to think about this marker
with a more cross-linguistically general sense is in terms of referent tracking, distinguishing the -nu
and -sa modal complements as same subject and different subject markers that occur on purpose
clause, as Cole does for similar markers in Ecuadorian Quechua (1983).

(7) achuwashaa faatyusa tenshee.

achuwa-sha-ya fale-tyu-sa ten-shima
hair-LOC-FOC go.out-NEG-SBJV feel-AFF
‘(I) don’t want (the child’s) hair to come out.’
CHSF2012_08_04S1_849875

This marker is used with a range of different purposive-type dependent clauses. Example (8) shows
it with an imperative as the man clause. Here the clause with -sa gives a reason for why the
imperative is being issued (‘Wait so that I can groom you.’), which can be related to interactional
principles of ‘accountability’ (Garfinkel 1967; Sacks 1992; Buttny 1993) that in specific situations
make explanations for imposition relevant.

(8) keedi keedi mu keesa

kera-di kera-di mu kera-sa
see-POS see-POS louse see-SBJV
‘Wait, wait, so I can groom (you).’
CHSF2012_08_04S1_ 2797440

Sometimes in these kinds of directives and requests providing a reason alone can accomplish the
entire speech action, and the formal imperative can be foregone and implied. Example (9) is such a
case, in which the activity that was being requested was obvious from the pragmatics of the
situation.

(9) iya ñunu kisa

i-ya ñu-nu ki-sa
1-FOC 2-ACC do-SBJV
‘(Move over) so that I can do (that) to you.’
CHSF2012_01_07S2_3082454

Cases in which imperative meanings are left up to pragmatics rather than conveyed with overt
clauses are the likely types of contexts in which -sa could take on an imperative-type meaning.
When used as a finite morpheme this imperative meaning has become conventionalized (10), and -
sa constitutes one of the possible formats that speakers can select for imperative constructions,
being considered a more polite form. Its incorporation into the imperative paradigm is reflected
formally, since it can take the same plural inflection as the other imperative morphemes, which also
include a general imperative -de (‘do it’), an imperative in which the speaker is the beneficiary -ka
(‘do it to/for me’), and a hortative -da (‘do it with me/let’s do it’). All these, including -sa, can be
inflected for plurality with the marker -i (-dei, -kai, -dai, -sai) (although given the optional nature of
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
7

plural marking in Cha’palaa they should be thought of as emphasis or disambiguation rather than
number agreement).

(10) aamama’ junka jisai

aa-mama-chi jun-ka ji-sa-i
AUG-mother-POSS DM.PRX-LOC go-IMP.P-PL
‘let’s go to grandma’s place’
CHSF_2012_0625S2_3067398

While the unmarked form -sa often has a hortative-type meaning, implying that the stated goal of
the directive is for some mutual project, when it is pluralized it is explicitly a hortative, suggesting a
joint activity involving the speaker and the addressee. This form stands in contrast to the more
direct hortative -da(i). There is much precedent for connections between subjunctive-type forms
and polite speech, as subjunctive or other cross-linguistically comparable modals dealing with
possibility are often used for more delicate requests (Brown and Levinson 1987; Curl and Drew
2008). To recapitulate, -sa also satisfies the criteria for reflecting insubordination processes in that it
occurs in both finite and dependent clauses, cancels other verbal morphology in main clauses, and
shows a semantic and pragmatic link between both types of usage.

4.3 Summary

Considering both of the cases reviewed above along with the case of -ba, we can see how processes
of insubordination have enriched Cha’palaa’s inventory of finite verbal morphology. Each case
showed a different trajectory: -nu went from a modal complementizer to a future tense marker, -sa
from a subjunctive (or ‘switch reference complementizer’) to a polite hortative/imperative, and -ba
from a trans-sentential contrast marker to a counter-assertive marker. In main clauses, speakers
select among these morphemes in competition with the other finite morphology in the language, and
whether they choose one of them or one of the egophoric markers, for instance, will depend on
specific interactive contexts. Other morphemes in the language that compete for the same slot
satisfy some, but not all, of the criteria for likely insubordinators, suggesting that forms of
insubordination are just one type of process in play. For example, the non-finite switch-reference
marker -ñu (‘same referent’) is homophonous with the inferential evidential -ñu, but the latter does
not block other finite morphology in main clauses, and a semantic connection between the two is
elusive. Additionally, several morphemes satisfy the criterion of neutralizing other finite
morphology in main clauses but do not also occur on dependent clauses (like the marker of
immediate intention -chi, which only occurs on main clauses), suggesting that some other factors
are behind this neutralization. Considering the entire inventory of morphemes, it is clear that many
different factors have interacted to shape the current system, but also that insubordination processes
are one of the most important.

5 The morpheme -ba in nominal and verbal contexts

The next sections take an in-depth look at the morpheme -ba across its different uses in Cha’palaa,
identifying aspects of the different current functions of the morpheme that reveal something about
the processes behind them. Perhaps the most common use of the form ‘-ba’ is as a comitative,
marking noun phrases to convey that their referent accompanies the main argument, as in (11).

(11) Rebecaa yaba taawash kemaa tijtiee

Rebeca-ya ya-ba taawash ke-mu-ya ti-ti-we
Rebeca-FOC 3-COM work do-AG.NMLZ-FOC say-say-N.EGO
‘Rebeca said that (she) works with him.’
8. Simeon Floyd

CHSF2012_01_20S6_635430

The comitative meaning of -ba is fairly narrowly limited to accompaniment, in that it does not have
overlaps with functions like the instrumental (a separate morpheme, -chi) that are seen in many
languages (Narrog and Shinyo 2007; Narrog 2008; Stolz 1996; Stolz et al. 2008). Another of its
nominal uses is with the meaning ‘in addition’ or ‘also’; another morpheme with a similar meaning,
-bain, is likely to be historically related to -ba ((12) and ((13)).

(12) inuba Rebee tsantintsusaa

i-nu-ba Rebe-ya tsan-ti-ntsu-shima
1-ACC-COM Rebe-FOC SEM-say-PROG-AFF
‘Rebe was saying that to me also.’
CHSF2012_08_04S3_785316

(13) Leisabain Cinthiabain tinka tenshee

Leisa-bain Cinthia-bain ti-nka ten-shima
Leisa-also Cinthia-also say-SPEC feel-AFF
‘(I) think both Leisa and Cinthia would say (so).’
CHSF2012_08_04S3_2843399

What is common to these two meanings of accompaniment and additivity is that they link two noun
phrases, with -bain conveying a more symmetrical relation like the English “and”, often marked on
both noun phrases, and with -ba conveying a more asymmetrical relation like the English “with”,
marked on just one noun phrase. Stolz et al. (2006) discuss this asymmetry in terms of how
comitatives can ‘subordinate’ one noun phrase to another. This is the asymmetrical relationship that
can be extended to include subordination in the verbal domain as well, and a number of languages
show evidence of grammaticalization paths in which nominal comitative marking has come to be
used with verb phrases, shifting its meaning from spatial accompaniment of two things to temporal
coincidence of two events or states of affairs (König 1985a, 1985b, 1988). Furthermore, the
expression of coincidence of these two states of affairs can sometimes be used to convey
“remarkable co-occurrence/co-existence” (König 1985b: 268); even though normally both might be
assumed to conflict, both are presented as true. In cases where this meaning becomes
conventionalized as part of the construction, a temporal ‘connective’ becomes a ‘concessive
connective’ (274–278). In Cha’palaa, this path from nominal concomitance to verbal concessive
marking provides the most likely account for -ba’s nonfinite use on dependent clauses, leaving us
one step away from its insubordinated finite clause usage. However, there is one complication to
this last step, because as a finite morpheme -ba does not combine with most other verbal
morphology, while on dependent clauses it combines with other dependent clause morphology such
as switch reference marking, shown in (14), a typical two-clause concessive.

(14) laachi naa lushiba kerajtu escuela winu keñuba

lala-chi naa lushi-ba kera-jtu escuela wi-nu ke-ñu-ba
1COL-POSS how money-COM see-NEG school enter-INF do-DR-CNTR
‘Although (we are) trying to enter school, there is also no money for us.’
CHSF2011_06_25S2_1005110

In (14) the speaker makes two propositions, that she is trying to get her children into a school that
requires fees, and that they have no money to pay these fees, asserting both even though they are in
conflict. The arguments of the two clauses differ, so -ba is used together with the switch-reference
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
9

marker -ñu. In (15) both arguments are the same, and -ba occurs with the same-reference marker -tu
(reduced to a glottal stop here).

(15) tsen nejtaa katsu’ba waantsun aantsa

tsan nejta-a katsu-tu-ba ware-ntsu-n aan-tsa
SEM why-FOC sleep-SR-CNTR cry-PROG-Q DM-SEM
‘Why is he crying even though he was asleep?’
CHSF2011_06_25S2_2485079

The examples in (14) and (15) show -ba in its concessive complement function which
provides a basis for counter-assertive usage, particularly when, as in (15), the -ba clause depends on
an interrogative that targets something ‘questionable’ about the previous turn. While its dependent
clause usage differs from its main clause usage in that in dependent clauses -ba occurs with other
verbal morphology, it is specifically with interrogative main clauses that morphology like switch
reference markers do not occur. In these contexts, -ba is usually the only verb-final morpheme of
the clause, which makes such clauses formally identical to the insubordinated clauses in which - ba
is a finite morpheme. One interrogative format that often occurs with a concessive clause with -ba
uses what I call the ‘speculative’ interrogative marker -nka, which occurs in questions which
broadcast a lack of knowledge without directly holding anyone accountable for producing an
information-providing answer (without strongly ‘mobilizing response’; Stivers and Rossano 2010)
from the addressee. When interrogatives in general—and this speculative question format in
particular—occur as the main clause of a concessive, there is a different effect than with two
declarative clauses: the declarative proposes two states of affairs that, while in contrast, are
purported to be true, while the interrogative asks or wonders how one state of affairs can be the case
if a conflicting state of affairs is also true. For example, in (16) the speaker speculates about
whether the children will learn to read if, in contrast, their parents do not know how, and in (17) the
speaker speculates how anything good could come of men getting in a fight.

(16) lennu mijtuba naa ketaa lenkamunka

len-nu mi-jtu-ba naa ke-tu-ya len-ka-mu-nka
read-INF know-NEG-CNTR how do-SR-FOC read-get-AG.NMLZ-SPEC
‘(As the parents) do not know how to read, how will (the children) learn to read?’
CHSF2011_02_15S3_2481520

(17) jeruchi kelaba uukemudeenka

jeru-chi ke-la-ba ura-ke-mu-de-i-nka
metal-INS do-COL-CNTR good-do-AG.NMLZ-PL-become-SPEC
‘Hitting with metal, how could they do any good?’
CHSF2011_01_11S3_5538790

This specific interrogative construction is the key to how -ba developed its counter-assertive
meaning as an independent finite morpheme, because the questioning actions that it conveys
constitute a particular structural intersection of morphosyntax and interactive sequences:
immediately following one speaker’s turn in which some proposition, presupposition or implicature
is introduced, in the next turn another speaker (a) uses the speculative interrogative construction to
question how the proposed state of affairs can hold when (b) another contradictory state of affairs
also holds, proposed via a concessive -ba clause. In some cases simply raising the contradictory
state of affairs may be enough to accomplish the action of ‘questioning’ the previous turn without
any overt interrogative morphosyntax, and in those cases the interrogative may not occur. This is a
similar analysis to that of Schwenter (1999: 8) who explains how Spanish conditional clauses can
10. Simeon Floyd

stand alone as main clauses specifically in contexts of disagreement where the implied main clause
is presumably something like ‘How can you say that?’ Spanish opted for conditional counter-
assertion (‘How can you say that – if some contradictory state of affairs is true?’) while Cha’palaa
opted for concessive counter-assertion (‘How can you say that – even though some contradictory
state of affairs is true?’), but the conditions for omitting the main clause and the conventionalization
of the insubordinated construction appear to have been similar in both languages. Adding the final
step of conventionalization of main clauses with -ba as a format for a specific conversational action
completes the account of how -ba moved from a comitative on noun phrases, to a nonfinite
concessive, to part of a special counter-assertive construction with an interrogative main clause, and
finally to a counter-assertive marker with main clause status. The next section expands the
discussion of counter-assertion as a conversational action accomplished in sequential interaction by
deploying the morphosyntactic resources described above.

6 Counter-assertion as a morphologically-marked interactive meaning

Returning to the problem posed above, the issue of finite verb ‘paradigmaticity’ in Cha’palaa can be
partially resolved by the observation that verb-final morphology not only contrasts meanings from
the same semantic domains—like the different egophoric values, or (optional) past and future tense
—it also contrasts interactive meanings such as ‘asserting’ or ‘informing’ in a sequence-initial
position versus ‘counter-asserting’ in a specific contingent, next turn position. As discussed
previously, the difference between examples (1a), ‘I have some’ with the counter-assertive marker,
and (1b), the identical phrase with an egophoric marker, is that in the former another speech act
participant has just stated or implied that ‘there are none left’, and the speaker has grounds for
asserting something to the contrary. Other formats besides -ba are used for non-responsive
sequence-initial assertions that begin their own courses of action (like an offer sequence: ‘I have
some – do you want any?’), or sequence-contingent elements such as information-providing
answers that follow questions (Q: ‘Are there any?’ A: ‘I have some’), and so on. All cases in the
corpus in which speakers select -ba are instances of this specific type of ‘backwards looking’ action
that targets the previous talk, blocking or complicating the turn it follows by introducing some
conflicting background information (perhaps in some ways comparable to the ‘backgrounding’
function of insubordination constructions more generally; see Mithun 2008 for how this works for
scene-setting in narrative). In some cases the contradiction is direct, in that the -ba clause restates
some or all of the previous assertion, a kind of repetition that been called ‘format tying’ (Goodwin
and Goodwin 1987; Goodwin 1990), and which in arguments links later turns to previous turns by,
for example, countering an opponent in the same terms he or she used. Example (17) illustrates this
strategy.
This kind of repetition of material from the previous turn to convey a connection between the
two turns can be used to directly contradict a proposition, as in (18), but it can also be used in other
ways, such as in following questions that do not include any proposition, at least not an overt one.
In (19) L is able to make a counter-assertion following J’s question “Doesn’t he have a wife?”
because its particular negative interrogative format is associated with a preference for a positive
answer (Heritage 2002), and generates the assumption that J believes that the person in question did
in fact have a wife. This assumption is what is then contradicted by L through the repetition of the
interrogative predicate from the previous turn in the form of an assertion.

(18) G: in papaa lushi tanatyu’mitya ka’ kunu

in papa-ya lushi ta-na-tyu-‘mitya ka-tu ku-nu
1POSS father-FOC money have-POS-NEG-because get-SR give-INF
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
11

pudejtaa tii
pude-jtu-ya ti-i
be.able-NEG-FOC say-IMP

‘Because my father does not have money he can’t get any, ok’

B: lushi ta’mitya ka’ kunu pudee tinu juba

lushi ta-‘mitya ka-tu ku-nu pudee ti-nu ju-ba
money have-because get-SR give-INF be.able say-INF be-CNTR

‘Because he does have money (he/you) should say that he can buy (some).’
CHSF2011_06_25_S2_1175944

(19) J: supu miyajtuu juntsa

supu miya-jtu-u jun-tsa
female have.kin-NEG-Q DM.DST-SEM
‘Doesn't he have a wife, that one?’

L: miyajtuba (.) umaa tsai’ deji

miya-tju-ba uma-ya tsa-i-tu de-ji
have.kin-NEG-CNTR now-FOC SEM-become-SR PL-go

‘He doesn’t have (a wife), (we) recently went (and saw) like that.’
CHSF2011_01_11S3_5102291

While such examples of counter-assertion including direct repetition of linguistic material

from the previous turn can be found, it is more common for counter-assertions to deal with some
more loosely-related presupposition or implicature rather than contradicting the previous turn so
directly, using the same linguistic material. For example, in (20) a girl asks her father whether she
can take out a piece of the camera equipment, and her father counter-asserts “it can get damaged”.
The contrast here is not directly with the girl’s question, which does not overtly assert anything, but
with the background assumption that it might be desirable to play with the equipment, which is
countered with the fact that this might lead to its getting damaged (if an interrogative main clause
were present, the full meaning might be something like ‘Why would you take it out even though it
might get damaged?’).

(20) V: kalaatyu Mimi

ka-lare-tyu Mimi
get-CAUS-NEG Mimi.
‘Don’t take it (camera equipment) out Mimi.’

N: entsa entsa
en-tsa en-tsa
DM.PRX-SEM DM.PRX-SEM
‘This this.’ ((pointing))
V: aa
‘huh?’

N: entsa entsa kalaanaa apa

e-ntsa e-ntsa ka-lare-nu-a apa
12. Simeon Floyd

DM.PRX-SEM DM.PRX-SEM get-CAUS-INF-Q father

‘This, taking this out father?’

V: tsenmala mushaimuba.
tsan-mala musha-i-mu-ba
SEM-when damage-become-AG.NMLZ-CNTR
‘But when (that happens) it gets damaged.’
CHSF2011_02_15S5_07:09

In other instances, the counter-assertion can be linked to the previous turn by offering a
competing explanation, rather than a direct contradiction, as in (21). In this excerpt a family is
sitting downstairs and hears someone stomping around upstairs, leading G to offer a non-serious
explanation that it is a monster. Then S counter-asserts an alternative explanation, that it is in fact
her sister Mirian that appears to be making the punkaa punkaa sounds.

(21) G: ura bu’chulla juntsa kai’sha ne pudi’

ura butyu-chu-lla jun-tsa kai’-sha ne pu-di-tu
good mountain-live-COL DM.DST-SEM above-LOC just put-POS-SR

ne tsantsaishee
ne tsan-tsa-i-shima
just SEM-SEM-become-AFF

‘It is a monster that is upstairs just doing like that (stomping around).’

S: Mirianya punkaa punkaa kiñuba

Mirian-ya punkaa punkaa ki-ñu-ba
Mirian-FOC IDEO IDEO do-EV:INF-CNTR

‘It is Mirian that seems to be doing punkaa punkaa.’

CHSF2011_01_10S2_09:15

The exact types of relations between turns that -ba conveys are varied, but even without any
repeated linguistic material between turns, speakers work out how the different propositions
contrast with each other, because any time a turn features a finite clause marked with -ba addressees
know to understand it as counter-assertive and will try to make sense of it as such. Counter-
assertion, then, is one of a set of available actions that speakers can perform through combining a
specific turn design with a specific sequential position, and -ba is the main linguistic resource in
Cha’palaa for performing this action. The usage of this marker, along with any other morphemes
whose meanings concern conversational actions more than traditional inflectional semantics, is
governed not just by the norms of grammaticality, but additionally by a ‘discourse placedness
condition’ (Evans 1993). A traditional semantic account of -ba that contrasts its meaning with the
other possible verb-final morphemes does not lead very far, and it is difficult to define the meaning
of -ba on main clauses apart from its interactive function. In that sense -ba represents one of the
later of Evans’ stages of insubordination (2007: 370–376), because for most purposes it is a finite
morpheme and does not depend on the possible recovery of a main clause, even though some of the
‘questioning’ element of the presumed historical main clause is retained by the interactive meaning
of -ba. That being said, Cha’palaa in its current state still features the ‘full’ construction, in which -
ba marks a dependent concessive clause; the next section looks at how the subordinate and
insubordinate functions of -ba are used in interaction.
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
13

7 Insubordination in interaction

To summarize up to this point, the evidence that the counter-assertive use of -ba on main clauses
originates in its use as a dependent concessive clause marker is the following: the speculative
interrogative construction with the morpheme -nka can be used to call into question some
inappropriate, incorrect or inexplicable state of affairs, including problematic assertions of other
speech act participants in the previous turn. In these delicate contexts, since this format does not
carry the expectation that the addressee should necessarily respond, it can be thought of as a
relatively less direct form of interrogative, and its usage can also be considered to reflect an
orientation to face-threatening situations like disagreements (Brown and Levinson 1987) and to
mitigate potential disaffiliative collateral effects of asking questions in general (Levinson 2012).
Disaffiliation may also be mitigated by offering explanations or accounts designed to support
or justify the speaker’s behavior (Antaki and Leudar 1992; on accountability in general see
Garfinkel 1967; Sacks 1992; Buttny 1993). When concessive -ba clauses occur with speculative
interrogatives, they tend to assert some background state of affairs that explains why the speaker is
asking the question. One step further in this mitigation of disaffiliation is to eliminate the
interrogative altogether, since the stand-alone -ba clause in the appropriate sequential position can
convey a ‘questioning’ action without an overt interrogative. At first this would have occurred only
in contexts in which the question could be recovered, but at present -ba can be considered a fully
finite verbal morpheme with a conventionalized counter-assertive meaning. However, since the
speculative interrogative main clause with a concessive dependent clause was the construction that
provided the context for this development, the two-clause format is also still available for speakers
as an alternative for counter-assertion. The factors influencing the selection of formats are complex
and cannot be fully accounted for here, but this final data section takes a look at how these different
pieces of the interactional economy are used together in conversation.
Example (22) shows a case in which the full two-clause format is used for counter-assertion,
occurring in the type of sequential context which allowed -ba to become a counter-assertive marker
on main clauses. V and T are husband and wife. Here V uses an impersonal deontic modal
construction (see Ogiermann and Zinken 2011) which is unspecified as to who must go to take care
of some agricultural task before dark, leading T to initiate repair to determine if V is suggesting that
she do the task. Once it is established by V’s answer that he is indeed requesting that T do the task,
she refuses in a turn including two clausal elements: (1) a speculative interrogative (“Who could I
go with?”) calling into question the request; and (2) a concessive clause (“alone I’m afraid”) giving
an explanation for her rejection of the request.

(22) V: kepentyu jei jinuushu tsananuu

kepe-n-tyu jeke ji-nu-u-shu tsa-na-nu-u.
night-IMPFV-NEG fast go-INF-be-DECL SEM-POS-INF-Q
‘It's not dark yet, hey, (someone) should go (before) then.’

T: mun
mu-n
who-Q
‘Who?’

V: ñuaa
ñu-ya
2-FOC
‘You.’
14. Simeon Floyd

T: mubaa jinaanka maali jeetenba

mu-ba-a ji-nu-wa-nka maali jee-ten-ba.
who-COM-FOC go-INF-EGO-SPEC alone fear-feel-CNTR
‘Who could I go with, alone I’m afraid.’
CHSF2011_02_15S5_3076000

Example (22), then, shows the counter-assertive use of the concessive construction in the
context of a real disagreement in conversation. In the terminology of conversational analysis,
however, the term ‘concession’ has a meaning that is distinct from the syntactic meaning invoked in
‘concessive clause’, so it is worth taking a moment to make this distinction clear. Syntactic
concession establishes a trans-sentential contrast of some kind, in this case between the ideas that
“There is nobody to go with me” and that “If I go alone I will be afraid” (König’s concept of
‘remarkable co-occurrence’, 1985b: 268). As it has been applied in the conversation analysis of
arguments, on the other hand, the term ‘concession’ also has to do with contrast, but in the sense
that a speaker may ‘concede’ some point to his or her interlocutor, giving in and no longer
advancing a counter-argument. One thing that this can accomplish is to end the argument through
one party’s acceptance of defeat, but Antaki and Wetherell (1999) show how concession can also
strengthen the speaker’s argument by pre-emptively airing possible objections in a ‘show
concession’ before the addressee can raise them, and proceeding to discount the objections. This
practice has a three-part structure of assertion-concession-reassertion (or ‘proposition-concession-
reprise’, in Antaki and Wetherell’s words). To illustrate with a paraphrased case from Antaki and
Wetherell (1999: 22), an English speaker might first make an extreme statement like “I disagree
with special legal rights for indigenous people” but since they may be held accountable for their
broad statement and be accused of cultural insensitivity, he or she could quickly concede (using a
preface such as ‘of course’ or ‘well’ or ‘OK’) “OK, I think the culture is important” but then
reassert (usually prefaced with ‘but’ in English): “but special legal treatment is unfair”.
‘Concession’ in an argument and ‘concession’ in grammatical description (as in ‘concessive
clause’) both have to do with the idea of contrast between two propositions, but otherwise they have
quite distinct meanings. However, there is a strong conceptual connection between the two uses: the
defensive ‘show concessions’ that Antaki discusses can be thought of as the mirror of the offensive
counter-assertions accomplished with -ba in Cha’palaa. Counter-assertion in Cha’palaa is
‘concessive’ in that it contrasts (overtly or covertly) two propositions, but it does not concede a
point in an argument; instead, it maintains a position. The relationship between these two kinds of
‘concessive’ actions in conversation can be summed up in the following principle:

 what is not conceded first by one party may be counter-asserted later by another.

For example, in (22), to avoid counter-assertion V might have said, “I need you to go and do the
task – well, you may be afraid to go alone but there is nothing to be afraid of.” This would have left
T in a weaker position for counter-asserting this point, because it has already been conceded and
discounted.
Returning to the Cha’palaa conversational data, example (23) shows how speaker D twice
makes herself vulnerable to counter-assertion by suggesting something that M, her mother, knows is
contradicted by some background information (in lines 3 and 9). What is at issue between the
mother and the daughter is who might help them to sell popsicles. First, D suggests that someone
named ‘Ernesto’ might be able to do it (line 3), and M counters “Ernesto had to go upriver”,
marking -ba on the main clause (line 4). Then, a few turns later, D suggests that Ernesto’s son
might be able to help (line 9), and M counters “(As) his son is studying, how will he sell?” (line 10),
using the full two-clause construction in which -ba marks a dependent clause stating that Ernesto’s
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
15

son is studying (presumably in another town) in overt contrast with the implied idea that “he could
sell”.

(23) M: ai’miren yabain nunbaala tane’ ai’nutsu 1

ai’-mi-ren ya-bain nu-nmala-ya ta-ne-tu ai’-nu-tsu
sell-DECL-exactly 3-also where-when-FOC have-walk-SR sell-INF-PROG

juntsa tsaaren yaa chutyushee mija 2

jun-tsa tsaa-ren ya-ya chu-tyu-shima mija
DM.DST-SEM SEM-exactly 3-FOC live-NEG-AFF my.daughter

‘Finishing selling, so that he also can go around selling somewhere, but he is not
here daughter.’

D: Ernestu-u? 3
Ernesto-Q
‘Ernesto?’

M: Ernestu piyaishaa miinu juba 4

Ernesto pi-yai-sha-ya ma-ji-nu ju-ba
Ernesto water-above-LOC again-go-INF be-CNTR
‘Ernesto had to go upriver.’

(2.1 second pause) 5

yaa (.) ña’paba tablon chiintsu 6

ya-ya ñu-chi-apa-ba tablon chii-ntsu
3-FOC 2-POSS-father-COM board saw-PROG
‘he (.) is sawing boards with your father.’

D: mm 7
oh?

(1.6 second pause) 8

ya’ na? 9
ya-chi na
3-POSS child
‘His son?’

M: ya’na kiika keemuba tane’ ai'munka 10

ya-chi-na kiika ke-mu-ba ta-ne-tu ai’-mu-nka
3-POSS-POS paper do-AG.NMLZ-CNTR have-walk-SR sell-AG.NMLZ-SPEC

‘(As) his son is studying, how will he sell?’

CHSF2012_08_07S1_3022314

What is most interesting about example (23) is that the same speaker uses -ba as both a finite (line
3) and nonfinite (line 9) morpheme in successive turns that accomplish similar counter-assertive
16. Simeon Floyd

actions. Since speakers take -ba clauses as well-formed without needing to recover a deleted main
clause, and since they use such independent clauses frequently, it does not seem correct to assume
that -ba relies on ellipsis for its counter-assertive meaning, but there is still a sense in which the
two-clause format has a meaning that is similar to—but more explicit than—stand-alone counter-
assertion. In the former, however, counter-assertive meaning arises compositionally out of the
contrast between the two overt clauses and the questioning action carried by the interrogative
clause, while in the latter these elements of questioning and contrasting meanings can be thought of
as interactive meanings that are carried by the morpheme itself.
Another example from the video corpus of Cha’palaa conversation will help to bring out this
tension between cases of ‘omission’ of the main clause and fully finite clauses with -ba. In (24) the
speaker makes the counter-assertion that “The pot is dirty”—not countering a previous turn but
instead dealing with an interactive situation that led her, the grandmother of the family, to go to the
kitchen with the assumption that the pots were ready to use. When nobody responds to the
grandmother, she tries to get the family members’ attention again (to ‘pursue a response’;
Pomerantz 1984), this time with a speculative question asking what they might use to clean the pots.
Given the long pause between the two clauses, it does not seem appropriate to treat them as
morphosyntactically connected, but in some sense they constitute a well-formed two-clause
concessive interrogative, if only in an emergent way.

(24) piyamaba kuchindeeba (3.2 second pause)

piyama-ba kuchinu de-i-ba
pot-also dirty PL-become-CNTR

tichee piyama macha’kenaanka

ti-chi-ya piyama ma-chaya-ke-nu-wa-nka
what-INS-FOC pot again-clear-do-INF-EGO-SPEC

‘The pot is dirty (3.2) what can (we) clean the pot with?’
CHSF2011_01_10S1_1221910

Pushing this problem one step further, in (25) speaker U makes an assertion that is responded
to by two different speakers in succession, the first with the counter-assertive -ba, and the second
with a speculative question marked with -nka, exactly the construction that typically serves as the
main clause for -ba concessive clauses. In doing this, D and L divide the labor of counter-assertion
between the two of them, one of them asserting a state of affairs that contrasts with that proposed in
the previous turn, and the other questioning the previous turn directly.

(25) U: te’ kalare’ fifikinkai timaa

te-tu ka-lare-tu fi-fi-kin-kayu ti-mu-ya
choose-SR get-CAUS-SR eat-eat-do-IMPFV-EV:DIR say-AG.NMLZ-FOC

tsantintsushee Elenaa
tsan-ti-ntsu-shima Elena-ya
SEM-say-PROG-AFF Elena-FOC

‘(She) said (she) picked out something to eat, that is what Elena said’

D: explica ketyuba mati

explica ke-tyu-ba matyu
explain do-NEG-CNTR so
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
17

‘But she does not explain anything.’

L: tseimunka
tsa-i-mu-nka
SEM-become-AG.NMLZ-SPEC

‘How could (she) do that?’

CHSF2012_08_04S3_1071665

Examples like (25) raise a number of questions: At what point are insubordinated
constructions entirely independent of main clauses? Is the historical main clause—a speculative
interrogative in the case of the Cha’palaa counter-assertive—always available for a speaker to add
as an increment to their own turn, or for a third speaker to pick up on and invoke? Is there such a
thing as cross-speaker syntax? What might the implications of this kind of distributed
grammaticality be for analysis of insubordination processes? This section has shown the same
speaker deploying both the insubordinated and two-clause -ba constructions for similar actions in
subsequent turns in the same stretch of conversation. It has also shown how a speaker might begin
with an insubordinated construction and then add a ‘main clause’ incrementally in pursuit of a
response. And it has shown how two separate speakers can produce the two clauses of the ‘full’
construction in sequence. So while -ba can be thought of in grammatical terms as a marker which
conveys the semantic value of ‘counter-assertion’ in the appropriate sequential position, looking at
counter-assertion as a kind of social action in conversational data brings up new issues that both
complement and complicate a semantic, grammatical account of the morpheme.

8 Discusssion

This chapter has brought together a set of morphosyntactic issues about inter-clausal relationships
and verbal morphology with a set of interactional issues about the management of common ground
and disagreements in conversational sequences. My goal was to show how a number of difficult
questions about the structural facts of the language can be resolved by considering the
conversational actions that the morphosyntactic formats can accomplish, and in what sequential
position they occur.
The first of these difficult questions is about the synchronic state of the language: when
speakers consider main clauses marked with -ba in isolation from the speech situation in elicitation
sessions they are not able to specify its meaning in the usual linguistic sense of its basic semantics.
However, when one looks at a corpus of interactive data, it emerges that this construction is always
used in counter-assertive contexts, and its meaning is determined in relation to previous talk in
interaction. This is confirmed if one notes that when the right questions are asked in an elicitation
session, and speakers are offered not isolated examples but are asked to consider speech scenarios
and relations between conversational turns, they are able to make clear judgments about the
meaning of -ba relative to other morphemes.
The second difficult question concerns the historical relationships behind the development of
such meanings: several apparently-homophonous morphemes with the form -ba have a number of
diverse meanings and uses in the language, and at first glance it may seem unlikely that they are
connected. However, there are patterns to this homophony, and while the main focus of this chapter
was the morpheme -ba, the brief survey of other relevant morphemes in Cha’palaa illustrated how
in several other cases ‘homophonous’ forms are used both for nonfinite dependent clauses and for
finite clauses. The implication of this repeating pattern is that in multiple cases processes of
insubordination have had similar effects on distinct morphemes, nonfinite markers of inter-clausal
18. Simeon Floyd

relationships becoming finite markers in competition for the verb-final slot. Here we must turn to an
interaction-based account again, because the most likely way that these dependent clauses became
‘free’ was through their use in specific interactional contexts that allowed for their main clauses to
be omitted, eventually conventionalizing some element of the pragmatic meaning. By tracking the
intersection of formal features and conversational actions in excerpts of interaction, it is possible to
see where dependent clauses marked with -ba function in ‘action’ terms as ‘explanations’
accompanying, and accounting for, questions that perform a kind of ‘correction’ of the previous
turn. Comparing this usage of -ba to its main clause usage for ‘counter-assertion’, it is then possible
to see how the omission of the main clause could compress the backwards-looking function of the
question into the explanatory function, so that the explanation itself can counter the previous turn
without explicitly questioning it. Additionally, further excerpts showed how speakers select among
all of these different formats as they finely tune them to the interactional economy.
While the present discussion has focused on a single morpheme, my analysis also has broader
implications, because it gets to the root of persistent problems perpetuated by the various
langue/parôle or ‘competence/performance’ dichotomies that attempt to radically separate language
structure and usage. The Cha’palaa data provide one example (among many) of a situation in which
the only way to understand particular morphosyntactic forms as well as their usage in interaction is
to analyze both together. Processes of insubordination provide an especially relevant case because
the crucial step of omitting a main clause requires specific recurrent sequential positions in
interaction. In this way the study of something apparently so abstract as inter-clausal syntactic
relationships can be shown to be directly connected to concrete instances of interaction in which
participants pursue social actions that manage the common ground of the speech situation and
issues of affiliation and disaffiliation amongst each other. So while the double-meaning of the
grammatical term ‘insubordination’ puns on the incongruence of its technical linguistic meaning
and its original socio-political meaning, perhaps there is an accidental connection to be found
between a term referring to a ‘challenge to authority’ and a morpheme that can be used for
challenging the authoritativeness of another’s statement, in one language at least. In any case,
micro-political issues of sociality turn out to be more relevant for understanding the grammar of
insubordination than might have been suspected.

Abbreviations

ACC accusative
AFF affirmation/best possible grounds evidential
AG.NMLZ agent nominalizer
AUG augmentative
CAUS causative
CNTR counter-assertive
COL collective
COM comitative
DECL declarative
DM demonstrative
DM.DST distal demonstrative
DM.PRX proximal demonstrative
DR different referent
EGO egophoric
IDEO ideophone
EV:DIR direct sensory evidential
EV:INF inferential evidential
 Chapter 13. Cha’palaa counter-assertive
19

FOC focus
IMP imperative
IMP.P polite imperative
IMPFV imperfective
INCS inconsequential
INF infinitive/future
INS instrumental
LOC locative
NEG negation
N.EGO non-egophoric
PL plural
POS positional
POSS possessive
PROG progressive
Q question
SEM semblative
SPEC speculative interrogative
SR switch reference
SBJV subjunctive

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