AUTHOR=Bergqvist Henrik 

TITLE=Egophoricity and Perspective: A View From Spoken Swedish

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Communication

VOLUME=6

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.627144

DOI=10.3389/fcomm.2021.627144

ISSN=2297-900X

ABSTRACT=<p>From the point of view of everyday talk and especially, casual conversation, it is obvious that language use is highly perspectivized with a clear focus on the speech-act participants. This fact is supported by observations regarding the pervasiveness of egophoric pronouns and the frequent use of the modal particles <italic>ju</italic> and <italic>väl</italic> in spoken Swedish. The paper demonstrates how egophoric pronouns, modal particles, and mental verbs are used to signal the epistemic perspective of the speech-act participants, i.e., when the knowledge and attention of the speech-act participants are at stake. These formally distinct resources show patterns of co-distribution that permit an analysis of forms in terms of how they signal shared/private access to events from the perspective of the speaker and the addressee.</p>