Ke yox hitamtaaycaqa ciiqinpa (that which is reported in talk): reported speech in Nez Perce

Abstract

This paper is a study of reported speech in Nez Perce (Sahaptian), an endangered language presently spoken in the southern Columbia Plateau region of western North America. This paper will focus on the use of reported speech in Nez Perce narrative to determine 1) the range and types of reported speech registers, and 2) discern how such reported speech registers might be patterned so as to indicate their cultural functions.