On the role of person features in the evidential-temporal connection

Abstract

The present article argues that temporality can be computed indirectly via evidentiality, and that this is the case for Paraguayan Guaraní, a tenseless language. To model the evidential–temporal connection, we employ features from the domains of person (author, participant) and general deixis (proximate, distal). We discuss in detail the case of two evidential morphemes: indirect evidential ra'e and reportative raka'e. We argue that these particles do not have temporal semantics; rather their temporal contribution is due to the interaction of person features that determine the type of evidentiality and deictic features incorporated into the person system.

The Orientation of Evidentials in Attitude Contexts: A Case Study Based on Narratives in Paraguayan Guarani

“…This task revealed that the consultants had sharp intuitions regarding the semantic contribution of ra'e, which can be informally paraphrased in terms of "realization or discovery" on the part of the attitude holder. This is consistent with what has been reported in earlier literature (Salanova and Carol 2017;Pancheva and Zubizarreta 2019;Carol and Avellana 2019) and is consistent with the description given by (Ayala 1996;Velázquez-Castillo 2017).…”

“…Recent research suggests that the Complementizer field (the highest part of the clause) is where the grammar encodes certain perspectival (or attitudinal) properties of the proposition (Baker 2008;Charnavel 2019;Giorgi 2010;Landau 2015;Speas and Tenny 2003;Pancheva and Zubizarreta 2019;Zu 2018, a.o.). In particular, it has been suggested that the speech event is syntactically represented in the high end of the CP field, minimally via its participants (Speaker, Addressee) and its temporal-spatial coordinates.…”

“…In the framework outlined above, the first question translates as follows: Is the embedded evidential associated with an EA in the matrix C (wide scope) or with an EA in the embedded C (narrow scope)? Pancheva and Zubizarreta (2019), in their study on Guarani ra'e, proposed that this association is achieved via LF movement: the evidential marker ra'e adjoins to its associated EA at LF. If the evidential is adjoined to the matrix EA, i.e., it has matrix scope, then we expect that the evidential be speaker-oriented, given that the pro subject of the matrix EA is bound to the speaker (or narrator in a narrative context).…”

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“…Janda 1993;Dabrowska 1997;Palić 2010) and formal approaches (e.g. Boneh, Nash 2011; 2017; see Kagan 2020 for an 20 Based on the presented arguments, an anonymous reviewer wonders whether the proposed analysis can be recast in terms of discourse deixis, specifically deictic-based evidentiality in the sense of Koev (2017) and Pancheva, Zubizarreta (2019). We acknowledge the suggestion as a valuable pathway for further research, but due to the limited scope of this work, we must leave it for future exploration.…”

Reportative evidentiality, tense, and negation in Kadiwéu

“…Smirnova (2016), for instance, argues that evidentials order the event reference time with respect to the time of acquisition of information, differing from Indicative Tenses that establish an order relative to the speech time. But others researchers question whether they have indeed a tense component (see, for instance, Rivero; Arregi and Salanova 2017; Pancheva and Zubizarretta 2019).…”