A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticization of Evidentiality

Evidentiality in language and cognition

“…First, despite the considerable variability of evidential systems cross-linguistically (Aikhenvald & Dixon, 2001;Anderson, 1986;Chafe & Nichols, 1986;Cinque, 1999;Delancey, 2002;Faller, 2002;Garrett, 2000;Givón, 1982;De Haan,1998Ifantidou, 2001;Izvorski, 1998;Johanson & Utas, 2000;Kratzer, 1991;Mayer, 1990;Mushin, 2001;Palmer, 1986;Papafragou, 2000;Speas, 2004;Willett, 1988), the semantics of evidential morphology seems to draw in systematic ways from a relatively restricted range of basic evidential concepts. According to Willett (1988), who surveyed data from 32 languages, there are three main types of source of information that are encoded grammatically: direct access (in particular, perception), reports from others, and reasoning (where the last two fall under indirect access). When additional distinctions are found, these seem to arise from subdivisions of the three major notional categories (or from the interaction of these distinctions with other grammatical features such as tense and aspect).…”

“…Here we take up both of these 1 As the earlier examples in (2) and (3) show, Quechua follows the basic three-way distinction in grammaticizable evidentiality, while Tuyuka makes use of a more elaborate system of five distinctions. 2 There is disagreement about how the two types of indirect access should be ranked relative to each other (De Haan, 1998;Oswalt, 1986;Willett, 1988). We cannot see any a priori reason for such a ranking: an expert's inference about the origins of a wine may override the information provided by its seller, but the inference of a novice wine taster will not.…”

Evidentiality in Early Modern English Medical Treatises (1500–1700)

“…Boye (2012: 183-275) disagrees, arguing that an item's ability to scope over a proposition -regardless of whether it is considered lexical or grammatical -is the key to determining its status as an evidential marker. Earlier treatments of evidentials (Anderson 1986;Willett 1988) were not very concerned with strictly distinguishing evidentiality from the related category of epistemic modality, which concerns the speaker's assessment of the likelihood of a proposition being true or not (as in Jane must have missed the train, where the speaker considers it highly likely that the proposition Jane missed the train is true). Palmer (2001) groups both evidentiality and epistemic modality under "propositional modality," whereas Aikhenvald (2004) and Boye (2012) argue for clear notional separations between the two categories (although Boye [2012] subsumes both under the broader category of "epistemic meaning").…”

“…As a field of study in linguistics, evidentiality has received systematic attention only in the last three decades, beginning with papers in Chafe and Nichols (1986). Anderson (1986) and Willett (1988) are early attempts to delineate the category typologically. Palmer (2001: 35-52), Aikhenvald (2004), and Boye (2012) are more recent contributions to the field of typology.…”

El evidencial con humor entra. Acerca de su uso en los monólogos humorísticos

“…Teniendo en cuenta el dominio de la evidencialidad comúnmente aceptado (Willet, 1988;Plungian, 2001;Dendale y Tasmowski, 2001), los evidenciales indirectos reproducidos (según, según dicen, dicen que, se ve que) se usan en la tesis del monólogo, mientras que los evidenciales atestiguados directos (claro) se integran en el cuerpo argumentativo del monólogo. (4) Los evidenciales actúan como marcas humorísticas.…”