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Article published In:
Evidentiality and the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface
Edited by Bert Cornillie and Juana I. Marín-Arrese
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 29] 2015
► pp. 41–60

The evidential and doxastic dimensions of the Basque particle bide

Two kinds of meanings are usually associated to the Basque particle bide.1 On the one hand, it has been taken to point to the indirect nature of the speaker’s evidence for the truth of the proposition put forward. According to this view, it would be a sort of inferential particle. On the other hand, bide has been associated to the expression of a certain degree of belief or certainty on the truth of the proposition. This double dimension of bide resembles various aspects of the meaning and use of another Basque particle – omen. The morpho-syntactic behaviour of these two particles is practically identical, and their semantics and pragmatics invite a close comparison. Thus, starting from our conclusions regarding omen, we explore the similarities and differences between both particles. We find two main differences. First, bide encodes a doxastic dimension that is absent from the semantic meaning of omen. And, second, bide can be taken to be an illocutionary force indicator that does not contribute to the proposition expressed, while omen does contribute to the truth-conditions of the utterance.

Keywords: conversational implicature, (un)certainty/probability, particle, evidential, Basque
Published online: 24 March 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.29.02kor
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Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Korta, Kepa & Larraitz Zubeldia
2022. Chapter 8. Meaning and use of the Basque particle bide. In Discourse Particles [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 276], ► pp. 209 ff. DOI logo

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