Evidentiality in Bulgarian: Temporality, Epistemic Modality, and Information Source

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Smirnova
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. e337
Author(s):  
Gerda Hassler

Defined narrowly, evidentiality pertains to the sources of knowledge or evidence whereby the speaker feels entitled to make a factual claim. But evidentiality may also be conceived more broadly as both providing epistemic justification and reflecting speaker’s attitude towards the validity of the communicated information, and hearer’s potential acceptability of the information, derived from the degree of reliability of the source and mode of access to the information. Evidentiality and epistemic modality are subcategories of the same superordinate category, namely a category of epistemicity. Since the first seminal works on evidentiality (Chafe and Nichols 1986), studies have for the most part centred on languages where the grammatical marking of the information source is obligatory (for example Willett 1988; Aikhenvald 2004). Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the study of the domain of evidentiality in European languages, which rely on strategies along the lexico‐grammatical continuum. Assuming a broad conception of evidentiality and defining it as a functional category, we study linguistic means that fulfil the function of indicating the source of information for the transmitted content of a certain proposition in Romance languages.


Author(s):  
Sherman Wilcox ◽  
Barbara Shaffer

This chapter examines evidentiality in signed languages. Data comes primarily from three signed languages—American Sign Language (ASL), Brazilian Sign Language (Libras), and Catalan Sign Language (LSC). The relationship between evidentiality, epistemic modality, and mirativity is examined across the expression of perceptual information as an evidential source, inference, and reported speech. It is suggested that evidentiality relies on simulation and subjectification. Finally, a proposal is offered that evidentiality, epistemic modality, and mirativity are primarily expressed through grammaticalized facial markers in signed languages, rather than by means of manual signs. These markers allow for simultaneous expression of grammatical markers. In signed languages, therefore, not only are the semantic components of evidentiality, epistemic modality, and mirativity integrated, so too are the phonological means of expression.


Author(s):  
Björn Wiemer

This chapter deals with the relation between the notional domains of information source and epistemic modality. It surveys various approaches to this relation and the cross-linguistic patterns of the way in which linguistic units (of diverse formats) with evidential or epistemic meanings develop extensions whereby they encroach into each other’s domains. Meaning extensions in either direction can adequately be captured, and confusion between both domains can be avoided, only if in the analysis of the meaning of such units (a) an onomasiological and semasiological perspective and (b) a coded-inferred divide are distinguished. Thus, epistemic extensions often arise as Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs). Concomitantly, reliability functions as a mechanism that mediates between, but cannot be identified with, the contributions of evidential and epistemic meanings. Reliability, together with the predictability of specific markers and discourse expectations, is considered responsible for the rise of epistemic GCIs.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 201-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Matthewson ◽  
Henry Davis ◽  
Hotze Rullmann

This paper argues that evidential clitics in St’át’imcets (a.k.a. Lillooet; Northern Interior Salish) must be analyzed as epistemic modals.We apply a range of tests which distinguish the modal analysis from the main alternative contender (an illocutionary operator analysis, as in Faller 2002), and show that the St’át’imcets evidentials obey the predictions of a modal analysis. Our results support the growing body of evidence that the functions of encoding information source and epistemic modality are not necessarily distinct. The St’át’imcets data further provide a novel argument against the claim that evidentiality and epistemic modality are separate categories. Many authors argue that evidentials differ from modals in that the former do not encode speaker certainty (see, e.g., de Haan 1999; Aikhenvald 2004).We argue that modals are also not required to encode speaker certainty; we provide evidence from St’át’imcets that marking quantificational strength is not an intrinsic property of modal elements.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 101-122
Author(s):  
Teresa Oliveira

This paper aims to present an in-depth description of the synthetic and compound forms of the future and the conditional, as both inferential and reportative markers, drawing a framework for the respective distribution in Portuguese journalistic texts. A corpus analysis shows that different categories (evidentiality, modality, tense, and aspect) contribute to the construction of the values in question, defining different sets of properties for each of the verbal forms, in both inferential and reportative uses. Furthermore, it proves that these same values are particularly sensitive to textual genre: the reportative uses emerge in news reports, while the inferential uses appear more frequently in opinion texts. Ultimately, it illustrates how the use of these forms sheds light on the boundary between epistemic modality and evidentiality, demonstrating that the assertion of the information source is distinct from the assessment of the speaker’s attitude toward his/her statement.


Author(s):  
V. V. Goncharova

The increasing interest towards abstracting as a type of analytical and synthetical information processing due to science globalization trend, is emphasized. The professionals who study this primary information compression are bibliographers, linguists, and information specialists. The author argues that modern professors and students all have to and must learn abstracting in accordance with the international standards for scientific, research, reference and instructional works.The author points to the diversity of the national lexicographical studies and, based on the abstracts index obtained as a result of her study, characterizes the current trends in abstracting linguistic dictionaries. The key user groups are defined. Publishers’ abstracts of dictionaries are discussed and represented. The example of dictionary Internet-based abstract analysis is given (50 items). Based on the abstracts texts, main negative factors to impact information value of this secondary information source are revealed, that is: lacking data essential for users, incomplete description of targeted readership, etc.The author introduces a model plan for digital guides of Russian lexicographical works and complements the plan with the systematic aspect analysis. She concludes that abstracting is an intellectually intensive process. It is underexplored as far as lexicographical works are concerned, and offers many possibilities for further studies.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine S. Corker

The scientific method has been used to eradicate polio, send humans to the moon, and enrich understanding of human cognition and behavior. It produced these accomplishments not through magic or appeals to authority, but through open, detailed, and reproducible methods. To call something “science” means there are clear ways to independently and empirically evaluate research claims. There is no need to simply trust an information source. Scientific values thus prioritize transparency and universalism, emphasizing that it matters less who has made a discovery than how it was done. Yet, scientific reward systems are based on identifying individual eminence. The current paper contrasts this focus on individual eminence with reforms to scientific rewards systems that help these systems better align with scientific values.


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