Epistemic primacy, Common Ground management and epistemic perspective

In this chapter, I discuss the epistemic discourse clitics attested in Upper Napo
Kichwa, a Quechuan language spoken in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I show that contrary to how they have been described in other Quechuan dialects, in Upper Napo
Kichwa the enclitic =mi and =cha should not be treated as evidentials, but as markers related to the (lack of) epistemic authority/primacy, i.e. origo’s relative right to
know a certain piece of information. I also demonstrate that although Quechuan evidentials have previously been analysed as focus markers, this analysis, too, cannot
be sustained for Upper Napo Kichwa, where the markers in question are associated
with focal constituents, but cannot be said to “mark” focus.
With examples from a corpus of Upper Napo Kichwa monolingual discourse, I show
that the considerations related to ownership and distribution of knowledge play a
role in the management of Common Ground in interaction. I show that by using
the two enclitics, speakers can indicate whether or not at a given point in interaction the information they convey should be integrated into Common Ground. In
order to generalise this analysis, I propose situating linguistic items dedicated to
Common Ground management, such as =mi and =cha, within the cross-linguistic
functional domain of epistemic perspective.