Evidentiality
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence
exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particular grammatical element (affix
, clitic
, or particle
) that indicates evidentiality. Languages with only a single evidential have had terms such as mediative, médiatif, médiaphorique, and indirective used instead of evidential.
and Romance languages
) often indicate evidential-type information through modal verb
s or other lexical words (adverbial
s) (reportedly) or phrases (English: it seems to me).
Some languages have a distinct grammatical category
of evidentiality that is required to be expressed at all times. The elements in European languages indicating the information source are optional and usually do not indicate evidentiality as their primary function — thus they do not form a grammatical category. The obligatory elements of grammatical evidentiality systems may be translated into English, variously, as I hear that, I see that, I think that, as I hear, as I can see, as far as I understand, they say, it is said, it seems, it seems to me that, it looks like, it appears that, it turns out that, alleged, stated, allegedly, reportedly, obviously, etc.
Alexandra Aikhenvald
(2004) reports that about a quarter of the world's languages have some type of grammatical evidentiality. She also reports that, to her knowledge, no research has been conducted on grammatical evidentiality in sign language
s. A first preliminary study on evidentiality in sign language has been conducted by Laura Mazzoni on LIS (Italian Sign Language).
Many languages with grammatical evidentiality mark evidentiality independently from tense
-aspect
or epistemic modality
(which is the speaker's evaluation of the information, i.e. whether it is reliable, uncertain, probable).
Grammatical evidentiality may be expressed in different forms (depending on the language), such as through affix
es, clitic
s, or particle
s. For example, Eastern Pomo
has 4 evidential suffixes
that are added to verbs, -ink’e (nonvisual sensory), -ine (inferential), -·le (hearsay), -ya (direct knowledge).
The use of evidentiality has pragmatic
implications in languages that do not mark evidentiality distinctly from epistemic modality. For example, a person who makes a false statement qualified as a belief may be considered mistaken; a person who makes a false statement qualified as a personally observed fact will probably be considered to have lied.
In some languages, evidential markers also serve other purposes, such as indicating the speakers attitude to, or belief in, the statement. Usually a direct evidential marker may serve to indicate that the speaker is certain about the event stated. Using an indirect evidential marker, such as one for hearsay or reported information, may indicate that the speaker is uncertain about the statement, or doesn't want to take responsibility for its truth. A "hearsay" evidential may then have the undertone of "that's what they say; whether or not it's true is nothing I can take responsibility for". In other languages, this is not the case. Therefore one should distinguish between such evidential markers that only mark source of knowledge, and such evidential markers that serve other functions, such as marking epistemic modality.
of Aikhenvald (2004, 2006), there are two broad types of evidential marking:
The first type (indirectivity) indicates whether evidence exists for a given statement, but does not specify what kind of evidence. The second type (evidentiality proper) specifies the kind of evidence (such as whether the evidence is visual, reported, or inferred).
, Uralic
, and Turkic languages
. These languages indicate whether evidence exists for a given source of information — thus, they contrast direct information (reported directly) and indirect information (reported indirectly, focusing on its reception by the speaker/recipient). Unlike the other evidential "type II" systems, indirectivity marking does not indicate information about the source of knowledge: it is irrelevant whether the information results from hearsay, inference, or perception (however, some Turkic languages distinguish between reported indirect and non-reported indirect, see Johanson 2003, 2000 for further elaboration). This can be seen in the following Turkish
verbs:
In the first word geldi, the unmarked
suffix -di indicates past tense
. In the second word gelmiş, the suffix -miş also indicates past tense but indirectly. It may be translated into English with the added words obviously or as far as I understand. The direct past tense marker -di is unmarked (or neutral) in the sense that whether or not evidence exists supporting the statement is not specified.
A witness evidential indicates that the information source was obtained through direct observation by the speaker. Usually this is from visual observation (eyewitness), but some languages also mark information directly heard with information directly seen. A witness evidential is usually contrasted with a nonwitness evidential which indicates that the information was not witnessed personally but was obtained through a secondhand source or was inferred by the speaker.
A secondhand evidential is used to mark any information that was not personally observed or experienced by the speaker. This may include inferences or reported information. This type of evidential may be contrasted with an evidential that indicates any other kind of source. A few languages distinguish between secondhand and thirdhand information sources.
Sensory evidentials can often be divided into different types. Some languages mark visual evidence differently from nonvisual evidence that is heard, smelled, or felt. The Kashaya language
has a separate auditory evidential.
An inferential evidential indicates information was not personally experienced but was inferred from indirect evidence. Some languages have different types of inferential evidentials. Some of the inferentials found indicate:
In many cases, different inferential evidentials also indicate epistemic modality, such as uncertainty or probability (see evidentiality & epistemic modality below). For example, one evidential may indicate that the information is inferred but of uncertain validity, while another indicates that the information is inferred but unlikely to be true.
Reportative evidentials indicate that the information was reported to the speaker by another person. A few languages distinguish between hearsay evidentials and quotative evidentials. Hearsay indicates reported information that may or may not be accurate. A quotative indicates the information is accurate and not open to interpretation (i.e., is a direct quotation). An example of a reportative from Shipibo
(-ronki):
The most common system found is the A3 type.
2-term systems:
3-term systems:
4-term systems:
5+ term systems:
where the post-verbal particle primarily functions as a mirative but also has a secondary function as an inferential evidential. This phenomenon of evidentials developing secondary functions or of other grammatical elements (e.g. miratives, modal verb
s) developing evidential functions is fairly widespread. The following types of mixed systems have been reported:
In addition to the interactions with tense, modality, and mirativity, the usage of evidentials in some languages may also depend on the clause
type, discourse
structure, and/or linguistic genre
.
However, despite the intersection of evidentiality systems with other semantic or pragmatic
systems (through grammatical categories), several languages do mark evidentiality without any grammatical connection to these other semantic/pragmatic systems. More explicitly stated, there are modal systems which do not express evidentiality and evidential systems which do not express modality. Likewise, there are mirative systems which do not express evidentiality and evidential systems which do not express mirativity. Because some languages mark these separately, some linguists (e.g. Aikhenvald, de Haan, DeLancey) argue that evidentiality should be considered a distinct grammatical category, although they also admit the close connection of evidentiality to these other areas of language.
For instance, de Haan (1999, 2001, 2005) states that evidentiality asserts evidence while epistemic modality evaluates evidence and that evidentiality is more akin to a deictic category marking the relationship between speakers and events/actions (like the way demonstrative
s mark the relationship between speakers and objects, see also Joseph 2003). Aikhenvald (2003) finds that evidentials may indicate a speaker's attitude about the validity of a statement but this is not a required feature of evidentials. Additionally, she finds that evidential-marking may co-occur with epistemic-marking, but it may also co-occur with aspectual/tense or mirative marking.
Considering evidentiality as a type of epistemic modality may only be the result of analyzing non-European languages in terms of the systems of modality found in European languages. For example, the modal verbs in Germanic languages are used to indicate both evidentiality and epistemic modality (and are thus ambiguous when taken out of context). Other (non-European) languages clearly mark these differently. De Haan (2001) finds that the use of modal verbs to indicate evidentiality is comparatively rare (based on a sample of 200 languages).
, Aymara
, and Yukaghir
) require the speaker to mark the main verb or the sentence as a whole for evidentiality, or offer an optional set of affixes for indirect evidentiality, with direct experience being the default assumed mode of evidentiality.
Consider these English
sentences:
We are unlikely to say the second unless someone (perhaps Bob himself) has told us that Bob is hungry. (We might still say it for someone incapable of speaking for himself, such as a baby or a pet.) If we are simply assuming that Bob is hungry based on the way he looks or acts, we are more likely to say something like:
Here, the fact that we are relying on sensory evidence, rather than direct experience, is conveyed by our use of the word look or seem.
Another situation in which the evidential modality is expressed in English is in certain kinds of predictions, namely those based on the evidence at hand. Amongst EFL teachers, these are usually referred to as "predictions with evidence". Examples:
in his introduction to The Handbook of American Indian Languages in a discussion of Kwakiutl
and in his grammatical sketch of Tsimshianic. The term evidential was first used in the current linguistic sense by Roman Jakobson
in 1957 in reference to Balkan
Slavic
(Jacobsen 1986:4; Jakobson 1990) with the following definition:
Jakobson also was the first to clearly separate evidentiality from grammatical mood
. By the middle of the 1960s, evidential and evidentiality were established terms in linguistic literature.
Systems of evidentiality have received focused linguistic attention only relatively recently. The first major work to examine evidentiality cross-linguistically is Chafe & Nichols (1986). A more recent typological
comparison is Aikhenvald (2004).
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence
Evidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particular grammatical element (affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
, clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
, or particle
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
) that indicates evidentiality. Languages with only a single evidential have had terms such as mediative, médiatif, médiaphorique, and indirective used instead of evidential.
Introduction
All languages have some means of specifying the source of information. European languages (such as GermanicGermanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
and Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
) often indicate evidential-type information through modal verb
Modal verb
A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality -- that is, likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation...
s or other lexical words (adverbial
Adverbial
In grammar an adverbial is a word or a group of words that modifies or tells us something about the sentence or the verb. The word adverbial is also used as an adjective, meaning 'having the same function as an adverb'...
s) (reportedly) or phrases (English: it seems to me).
Some languages have a distinct grammatical category
Grammatical category
A grammatical category is a semantic distinction which is reflected in a morphological paradigm. Grammatical categories can have one or more exponents. For instance, the feature [number] has the exponents [singular] and [plural] in English and many other languages...
of evidentiality that is required to be expressed at all times. The elements in European languages indicating the information source are optional and usually do not indicate evidentiality as their primary function — thus they do not form a grammatical category. The obligatory elements of grammatical evidentiality systems may be translated into English, variously, as I hear that, I see that, I think that, as I hear, as I can see, as far as I understand, they say, it is said, it seems, it seems to me that, it looks like, it appears that, it turns out that, alleged, stated, allegedly, reportedly, obviously, etc.
Alexandra Aikhenvald
Alexandra Aikhenvald
Alexandra Yurievna Aikhenvald is a linguist specialising in Linguistic typology and the Arawak language family of the Brazilian Amazonia.-Biography:...
(2004) reports that about a quarter of the world's languages have some type of grammatical evidentiality. She also reports that, to her knowledge, no research has been conducted on grammatical evidentiality in sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
s. A first preliminary study on evidentiality in sign language has been conducted by Laura Mazzoni on LIS (Italian Sign Language).
Many languages with grammatical evidentiality mark evidentiality independently from tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
-aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
or epistemic modality
Epistemic modality
Epistemic modality is a sub-type of linguistic modality that deals with a speaker's evaluation/judgment of, degree of confidence in, or belief of the knowledge upon which a proposition is based. In other words, epistemic modality refers to the way speakers communicate their doubts, certainties, and...
(which is the speaker's evaluation of the information, i.e. whether it is reliable, uncertain, probable).
Grammatical evidentiality may be expressed in different forms (depending on the language), such as through affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es, clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
s, or particle
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
s. For example, Eastern Pomo
Eastern Pomo language
Eastern Pomo is a moribund Pomoan language, spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by one of the several Pomo peoples. It is not mutually intelligible with the other Pomoan languages...
has 4 evidential suffixes
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
that are added to verbs, -ink’e (nonvisual sensory), -ine (inferential), -·le (hearsay), -ya (direct knowledge).
| Evidential type | Example Verb | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| nonvisual sensory | "burned" [speaker felt the sensation] |
|
| inferential | "must have burned" [speaker saw circumstantial evidence] |
|
| hearsay (reportative) | "burned, they say" [speaker is reporting what was told] |
|
| direct knowledge | "burned" [speaker has direct evidence, probably visual] |
- (McLendon 2003)
The use of evidentiality has pragmatic
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
implications in languages that do not mark evidentiality distinctly from epistemic modality. For example, a person who makes a false statement qualified as a belief may be considered mistaken; a person who makes a false statement qualified as a personally observed fact will probably be considered to have lied.
In some languages, evidential markers also serve other purposes, such as indicating the speakers attitude to, or belief in, the statement. Usually a direct evidential marker may serve to indicate that the speaker is certain about the event stated. Using an indirect evidential marker, such as one for hearsay or reported information, may indicate that the speaker is uncertain about the statement, or doesn't want to take responsibility for its truth. A "hearsay" evidential may then have the undertone of "that's what they say; whether or not it's true is nothing I can take responsibility for". In other languages, this is not the case. Therefore one should distinguish between such evidential markers that only mark source of knowledge, and such evidential markers that serve other functions, such as marking epistemic modality.
Types of grammatical evidentiality
Following the typologyLinguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
of Aikhenvald (2004, 2006), there are two broad types of evidential marking:
- indirectivity marking ("type I")
- evidential marking ("type II")
The first type (indirectivity) indicates whether evidence exists for a given statement, but does not specify what kind of evidence. The second type (evidentiality proper) specifies the kind of evidence (such as whether the evidence is visual, reported, or inferred).
Indirectivity (type I)
Indirectivity (also known as inferentiality) systems are common in IranianIranian languages
The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....
, Uralic
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
, and Turkic languages
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
. These languages indicate whether evidence exists for a given source of information — thus, they contrast direct information (reported directly) and indirect information (reported indirectly, focusing on its reception by the speaker/recipient). Unlike the other evidential "type II" systems, indirectivity marking does not indicate information about the source of knowledge: it is irrelevant whether the information results from hearsay, inference, or perception (however, some Turkic languages distinguish between reported indirect and non-reported indirect, see Johanson 2003, 2000 for further elaboration). This can be seen in the following Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
verbs:
| gel-di | "came" | gel-miş | "obviously came, came (as far as understood)" | ||
| come-PAST | come-INDIRPAST |
- (Johanson 2003: 275)
In the first word geldi, the unmarked
Markedness
Markedness is a specific kind of asymmetry relationship between elements of linguistic or conceptual structure. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one...
suffix -di indicates past tense
Past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense that places an action or situation in the past of the current moment , or prior to some specified time that may be in the speaker's past, present, or future...
. In the second word gelmiş, the suffix -miş also indicates past tense but indirectly. It may be translated into English with the added words obviously or as far as I understand. The direct past tense marker -di is unmarked (or neutral) in the sense that whether or not evidence exists supporting the statement is not specified.
Evidentiality (type II)
The other broad type of evidentiality systems ("type II") specifies the nature of the evidence supporting a statement. These kinds of evidence can be divided into such criteria as:- Witness vs. Nonwitness
- Firsthand vs. Secondhand vs. Thirdhand
- Sensory
- Visual vs. Nonvisual (i.e. auditory, olfactory, etc.)
- Inferential
- Reportative
- Hearsay
- Quotative
- Assumed
A witness evidential indicates that the information source was obtained through direct observation by the speaker. Usually this is from visual observation (eyewitness), but some languages also mark information directly heard with information directly seen. A witness evidential is usually contrasted with a nonwitness evidential which indicates that the information was not witnessed personally but was obtained through a secondhand source or was inferred by the speaker.
A secondhand evidential is used to mark any information that was not personally observed or experienced by the speaker. This may include inferences or reported information. This type of evidential may be contrasted with an evidential that indicates any other kind of source. A few languages distinguish between secondhand and thirdhand information sources.
Sensory evidentials can often be divided into different types. Some languages mark visual evidence differently from nonvisual evidence that is heard, smelled, or felt. The Kashaya language
Kashaya language
Kashaya is a name for a branch of Pomo people whose historical home is the Pacific Coastline of what is now Sonoma County, California, and also their severely endangered Pomoan language. The Pomoan languages have been classified as part of the Hokan language family, although this proposal is...
has a separate auditory evidential.
An inferential evidential indicates information was not personally experienced but was inferred from indirect evidence. Some languages have different types of inferential evidentials. Some of the inferentials found indicate:
-
- information inferred by direct physical evidence,
- information inferred by general knowledge,
- information inferred/assumed because of speaker's experience with similar situations,
- past deferred realization.
In many cases, different inferential evidentials also indicate epistemic modality, such as uncertainty or probability (see evidentiality & epistemic modality below). For example, one evidential may indicate that the information is inferred but of uncertain validity, while another indicates that the information is inferred but unlikely to be true.
Reportative evidentials indicate that the information was reported to the speaker by another person. A few languages distinguish between hearsay evidentials and quotative evidentials. Hearsay indicates reported information that may or may not be accurate. A quotative indicates the information is accurate and not open to interpretation (i.e., is a direct quotation). An example of a reportative from Shipibo
Shipibo language
Shipibo is a Panoan language spoken in Peru and Brazil by approximately 26,000 speakers. Shipibo is an official language of Peru....
(-ronki):
- Aronkiai.
- a-ronki-ai
- do-REPRT-INCOMPL
- "It is said that she will do it." / "She says that she will do it."
- (Valenzuela 2003:39)
Typology of evidentiality systems
The following is a brief survey of evidential systems found in the languages of the world as identified in Aikhenvald (2004). Some languages only have two evidential markers while others may have six or more. The system types are organized by the number of evidentials found in the language. For example, a 2-term system (A) will have two different evidential markers; a 3-term system (B) will have three different evidentials. The systems are further divided by the type of evidentiality that is indicated (e.g., A1, A2, A3, etc.). Languages that exemplify each type are listed in parentheses.The most common system found is the A3 type.
2-term systems:
- A1. witness, nonwitness (e.g., Jarawara, Yukaghir languagesYukaghir languagesThe Yukaghir languages are a small family of two closely related languages – Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir – spoken by the Yukaghir in the Russian Far East living in the basin of the Kolyma River. According to the 2002 Russian census, both Yukaghir languages taken together have 604 speakers...
, Mỹky, GodoberiGodoberi languageGodoberi is an Andic language of the Northeast Caucasian language family spoken by the Godoberi in southwestern Dagestan, Russia. It is spoken by approximately 3,000 people.-External links:*...
, Kalasha-munKalasha-mun languageKalasha is an Indo-European language in the Indo-Iranian branch spoken by the Kalash people, further classified as a Dardic language in the Chitral Group...
, Khowar, YanamYanam languageYanam is a Yanomaman language spoken by approximately 560 speakers in Roraima, Brazil and southern Venezuela near the Mucajai, upper Uraricáa, and Paragua rivers.-Synonymy:...
) - A2. nonfirsthand, everything else (e.g., AbkhazAbkhaz languageAbkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mainly by the Abkhaz people. It is the official language of Abkhazia where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan...
, MansiMansi languageThe Mansi language is a language of the Mansi people. It is spoken in territories of Russia along the Ob River and its tributaries, including the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the Sverdlovsk Oblast...
, KhantyKhanty languageKhanty or Xanty language, also known previously as the Ostyak language, is a language of the Khant peoples. It is spoken in Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous okrugs, as well as in Aleksandrovsky and Kargosoksky districts of Tomsk Oblast in Russia...
, Nenets, EnetsEnets languageEnets is a Samoyedic language spoken by the Enets people along the lower Yenisei River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. There are two distinct dialects - Forest Enets and Tundra Enets - which may be considered separate languages. There are only about seventy speakers in total, with slightly more...
, SelkupSelkup languageSelkup language is a language of the Selkups, belonging to the Samoyedic group of the Uralic language family. It is spoken by some 1,570 people in the region between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers . The language name Selkup comes from the Russian "" , based on the native name used in the Taz dialect, ...
, Northeast Caucasian languagesNortheast Caucasian languagesThe Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...
) - A3. reported, everything else (e.g., EngaEnga languageEnga is a language of the East New Guinea Highlands that is spoken by approximately 180,000 people in Enga Province, Papua New Guinea. It has the largest body of speakers of any native language in New Guinea....
, Tauya, Lezgian, KhamKham languageKham -- narrowly defined -- is a complex of Tibeto-Burman Magaric languages spoken natively in isolated highlands of Rolpa and Rukum districts of Rapti and the westernmost part of Baglung district in Dhaulagiri Zone by western clans of the Magar tribe, called collectively Kham Magar or Northern...
, EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
, LivonianLivonian languageLivonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. It is a nearly extinct language, with one of its last native speakers having died in February 2009. It is closely related to Estonian...
, Tibeto-Burman languagesTibeto-Burman languagesThe Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
, several South American languages)
3-term systems:
- B1. visual sensory, inferential, reportative (e.g., AymaraAymara languageAymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...
, Shastan languagesShastan languagesThe Shastan family consisted of four languages, spoken in present-day northern California and southern Oregon.-Family division:# Konomihu # New River Shasta # Okwanuchu # Shasta ...
, Qiang languages, MaiduMaidu languageMaidu is a severely endangered Maiduan language spoken by Maidu peoples traditionally in the mountains east and south of Lassen Peak in the American River and Feather River river drainages...
, Quechuan languages, Northern Embera languagesEmberá languagesEmberá is a group of languages spoken by 100,000 people in northwestern Colombia and southeastern Panama. It belongs to the Choco language family.Embera, Emperã, Empena, Eberã, Epena, etc...
) - B2. visual sensory, nonvisual sensory, inferential (e.g., WashoWasho languageThe Washo language is an endangered Native American language isolate spoken by the Washo on the California–Nevada border in the drainages of the Truckee and Carson Rivers, especially around Lake Tahoe...
) - B3. nonvisual sensory, inferential, reportative (e.g., Retuarã, Northern PomoNorthern PomoNorthern Pomo is an extinct Pomoan language formerly spoken around Clear Lake in Lake County, California by the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, one of the several Pomo peoples....
)
4-term systems:
- C1. visual sensory, nonvisual sensory, inferential, reportative (e.g., Tariana, Xamatauteri, Eastern Pomo, East Tucanoan languagesTucanoan languagesTucanoan is a language family of Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.-Family division:There are two dozen Tucanoan languages:*Western Tucanoan**Correguaje **Tama **Macaguaje ...
) - C2. visual sensory, inferential #1, inferential #2, reportative (e.g., Tsafiki, PawneePawnee languageThe Pawnee language is a Caddoan language spoken by some Pawnee Native Americans now located in north central Oklahoma. Their traditional historic lands were along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. Once the language of thousands of Pawnees, today Pawnee is spoken by a shrinking number of...
) - C3. nonvisual sensory, inferential #1, inferential #2, reportative (e.g., WintuWintu languageWintu is an endangered Wintuan language spoken by the Wintu people of Northern California.Wintu is the northernmost member of the Wintun family of languages....
) - C4. visual sensory, inferential, reportative #1, reportative #2 (e.g., Southeastern Tepehuan)
5+ term systems:
- visual sensory, nonvisual sensory, inferential, reportative, assumed (e.g., TuyucaTuyucaTuyuca is an Eastern Tucanoan language spoken by the Tuyuca people...
, TucanoTucano languageTucano is a Tucanoan language spoken in Amazonas, Brazil and Colombia.Many speakers of the endangered Tariana language are switching to Tucano.-Bibliography:* Campbell,...
) - witness, inferential, reportative, assumed, "internal support" (e.g., Nambikwaran languagesNambikwaran languagesThe Nambikwaran languages are a language family of half a dozen languages, all spoken in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil. They have traditionally been considered dialects of a single language, but at least three of them are mutually unintelligible...
) - visual sensory, nonvisual sensory, inferential, reported, heard from known source, direct participation (e.g., Fasu)
- nonvisual sensory, inferential #1, inferential #2, inferential #3, reportative (e.g., Western ApacheWestern Apache languageThe Western Apache language is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by over 12,000 of the Western Apache peoples living primarily in east central Arizona...
)
Evidential-marking & other categories
Evidential systems in many languages are often marked simultaneously with other linguistic categories. For example, a given language may use the same element to mark both evidentiality and mirativity (i.e. unexpected information). This is the case of Western ApacheWestern Apache
Western Apache refers to the Apache peoples living today primarily in east central Arizona. Most live within reservations. The White Mountain Apache of the Fort Apache, San Carlos, Yavapai-Apache, Tonto Apache, and the Fort McDowell Mohave-Apache Indian reservations are home to the majority of...
where the post-verbal particle primarily functions as a mirative but also has a secondary function as an inferential evidential. This phenomenon of evidentials developing secondary functions or of other grammatical elements (e.g. miratives, modal verb
Modal verb
A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality -- that is, likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation...
s) developing evidential functions is fairly widespread. The following types of mixed systems have been reported:
- evidentiality with mirativity
- evidentiality with tenseGrammatical tenseA tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
-aspectGrammatical aspectIn linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker... - evidentiality with modalityLinguistic modalityIn linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...
(this is discussed in the next section below)
In addition to the interactions with tense, modality, and mirativity, the usage of evidentials in some languages may also depend on the clause
Clause
In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
type, discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
structure, and/or linguistic genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
.
However, despite the intersection of evidentiality systems with other semantic or pragmatic
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...
systems (through grammatical categories), several languages do mark evidentiality without any grammatical connection to these other semantic/pragmatic systems. More explicitly stated, there are modal systems which do not express evidentiality and evidential systems which do not express modality. Likewise, there are mirative systems which do not express evidentiality and evidential systems which do not express mirativity. Because some languages mark these separately, some linguists (e.g. Aikhenvald, de Haan, DeLancey) argue that evidentiality should be considered a distinct grammatical category, although they also admit the close connection of evidentiality to these other areas of language.
Evidentiality & epistemic modality
Evidentiality is often considered to be a sub-type of epistemic modality (see, for example, Palmer 1986, Kiefer 1994). Other linguists consider evidentiality (marking the source of information in a statement) to be distinct from epistemic modality (marking the degree of confidence in a statement). An English example:- I see that he is coming. (evidential)
- I guess that he is coming. (epistemic)
For instance, de Haan (1999, 2001, 2005) states that evidentiality asserts evidence while epistemic modality evaluates evidence and that evidentiality is more akin to a deictic category marking the relationship between speakers and events/actions (like the way demonstrative
Demonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s mark the relationship between speakers and objects, see also Joseph 2003). Aikhenvald (2003) finds that evidentials may indicate a speaker's attitude about the validity of a statement but this is not a required feature of evidentials. Additionally, she finds that evidential-marking may co-occur with epistemic-marking, but it may also co-occur with aspectual/tense or mirative marking.
Considering evidentiality as a type of epistemic modality may only be the result of analyzing non-European languages in terms of the systems of modality found in European languages. For example, the modal verbs in Germanic languages are used to indicate both evidentiality and epistemic modality (and are thus ambiguous when taken out of context). Other (non-European) languages clearly mark these differently. De Haan (2001) finds that the use of modal verbs to indicate evidentiality is comparatively rare (based on a sample of 200 languages).
Terminology
Although some linguists have proposed that evidentiality should be considered separately from epistemic modality, other linguists conflate the two. Because of this conflation, some researchers use the term evidentiality to refer both to the marking of the knowledge source and the commitment to the truth of the knowledge.Evidentiality in English (non-grammatical)
Evidentiality is not considered a grammatical category in English because it is expressed in diverse ways and is always optional. In contrast, many other languages (including QuechuaQuechua languages
Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...
, Aymara
Aymara language
Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...
, and Yukaghir
Yukaghir languages
The Yukaghir languages are a small family of two closely related languages – Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir – spoken by the Yukaghir in the Russian Far East living in the basin of the Kolyma River. According to the 2002 Russian census, both Yukaghir languages taken together have 604 speakers...
) require the speaker to mark the main verb or the sentence as a whole for evidentiality, or offer an optional set of affixes for indirect evidentiality, with direct experience being the default assumed mode of evidentiality.
Consider these English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
sentences:
- I am hungry.
- Bob is hungry.
We are unlikely to say the second unless someone (perhaps Bob himself) has told us that Bob is hungry. (We might still say it for someone incapable of speaking for himself, such as a baby or a pet.) If we are simply assuming that Bob is hungry based on the way he looks or acts, we are more likely to say something like:
- Bob looks hungry.
- Bob seems hungry.
- Bob would be hungry by now.
Here, the fact that we are relying on sensory evidence, rather than direct experience, is conveyed by our use of the word look or seem.
Another situation in which the evidential modality is expressed in English is in certain kinds of predictions, namely those based on the evidence at hand. Amongst EFL teachers, these are usually referred to as "predictions with evidence". Examples:
- Look at those clouds! It's going to rain! (Compare ungrammatical *It will rain!).
Western History of the concept
The notion of evidentiality as obligatory grammatical information was first made apparent in 1911 by Franz BoasFranz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
in his introduction to The Handbook of American Indian Languages in a discussion of Kwakiutl
Kwak'wala
Kwak'wala is the Indigenous language spoken by the Kwakwaka'wakw. It belongs to the Wakashan language family. There are about 250 Kwak'wala speakers today, which amounts to 5% of the Kwakwaka'wakw population...
and in his grammatical sketch of Tsimshianic. The term evidential was first used in the current linguistic sense by Roman Jakobson
Roman Jakobson
Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.As a pioneer of the structural analysis of language, which became the dominant trend of twentieth-century linguistics, Jakobson was among the most influential linguists of the century...
in 1957 in reference to Balkan
Balkan languages
This is a list of languages spoken in regions ruled by Balkan countries. With the exception of several Turkic languages, Hungarian, and Circassian, all of them belong to the Indo-European family...
Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
(Jacobsen 1986:4; Jakobson 1990) with the following definition:
- "EnEns/Es evidential is a tentative label for the verbal category which takes into account three events — a narrated event (En), a speech event (Es), and a narrated speech event (Ens). The speaker reports an event on the basis of someone else's report (quotative, i.e. hearsay evidence), of a dream (revelative evidence), of a guess (presumptive evidence) or of his own previous experience (memory evidence)."
Jakobson also was the first to clearly separate evidentiality from grammatical mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
. By the middle of the 1960s, evidential and evidentiality were established terms in linguistic literature.
Systems of evidentiality have received focused linguistic attention only relatively recently. The first major work to examine evidentiality cross-linguistically is Chafe & Nichols (1986). A more recent typological
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
comparison is Aikhenvald (2004).
See also
- Epistemic modalityEpistemic modalityEpistemic modality is a sub-type of linguistic modality that deals with a speaker's evaluation/judgment of, degree of confidence in, or belief of the knowledge upon which a proposition is based. In other words, epistemic modality refers to the way speakers communicate their doubts, certainties, and...
- Linguistic modalityLinguistic modalityIn linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...
- Epistemic mood
- Grammatical moodGrammatical moodIn linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
- Epistemology
- MirativeMirativeA mirative is a particular grammatical element in some languages that indicates unexpected and new information...
External links
- Language & Power (Evidentiality)
- Ferdinand de Haan's research on evidentiality
- Semantics: Modality and Evidentiality
- SIL:What is evidentiality?
- SIL:What is epistemic modality?
- Evidentiality in Dena’ina Athabascan
- review of Aikhenvald & Dixon (2003) (Linguist List)
- review of Aikhenvald (2004) (Linguist List)
