Evidential Strategies in Nyamwezi

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of evidential strategies in Nyamwezi. Nyamwezi, like many other African languages, does not have specific grammatical categories which indicate evidentiality, but evidentiality can be expressed (i) through tense and aspect constructions and (ii) through lexical verbs (particularly verbs of saying and verbs of perception) and epistemic expressions. These evidential strategies differ from each other based on the information source, that is, on the source of knowledge expressed in a proposition, and on the speaker’s attitude and view concerning that knowledge.