Tensed evidentials: A typological study

Abstract

To gain more insight into evidentiality, the grammatical marking of information source, it is worth studying the category in its relation to other grammatical categories. This study explores tensed evidentials, morphemes in which tense and evidentiality are fused, in 36 languages from four macro-areas (North America, South America, Eurasia, and Papunesia). The study reveals several interactions between tense values and evidential values. As opposed to what has been claimed, firsthand future evidentials seem to exist. Visual and non-visual evidentials occur equally with present and past, whereas mental activity evidentials and reportative evidentials are much more limited to the past. These findings conform to the logic of tense: every type of evidentiality can be gathered in the past, whereas some are less suited for present or future. As a result, we find exceptionless implicational hierarchies of the form FUTURE ⊃ PRESENT ⊃ PAST for several evidential values.

Del aspecto a la evidencialidad

“…Con base en los ejemplos presentados, se propone que el perfectivo -li cuenta con estatus evidencial. Desde un corte translingüístico, Visser (2015) señala que los evidenciales que combinan información de tiempo (y aspecto), especialmente tiempo pasado, son comunes en las lenguas del mundo. Los usos evidenciales de -li como evidencial suelen detonarse en narraciones en tercera persona el pasado, dado que la primera persona singular y plural cuentan con un marcador especializado -ki.…”

“…Los estudios tipológicos sobre la evidencialidad enfatizan una fuerte conexión entre las categorías TAM y la evidencialidad, lo cual puede constatarse en este estudio del RN (Forker 2018;Visser 2015). Los evidenciales reportativos (REP1 y REP2) como el evidencial directo no especificado tienen claras correlaciones sincrónicas y diacrónicas con marcadores de aspecto, anterior para el reportativo y perfectivo para el directo.…”

Evidentiality

“…These categories, in turn, have their own twists and turns (regarding inference, see, e.g., Barnes 1984, de Haan 2001, Hill 2017, Zeisler 2017. Inferential evidentials often show especially complex and interesting interactions with time values (Fleck 2007;San Roque & Loughnane 2012a,b), relating to the different real-world evidential affordances for inferring that something has happened, as opposed to inferring that it is happening or will happen (in fact, evidential marking is usually more elaborate for past events in general; Aikhenvald 2004, Visser 2015.…”