Article published In:
Functions of Language: Online-First ArticlesOn the co-optation of according to as an evidential in English
The use of according to + NP has rarely been the topic of any specialized research in relation to English evidentiality, although it would probably figure among the most frequent types of reportative evidentials found in written texts. One of the problems often associated with reportatives has related to the existence of the Reportative Exception (see, e.g. AnderBois 2014), referring to the fact that the speaker may not always subjectively endorse the proposition conveyed with the support of the evidential phrase. The present study reviews the history of according to + NP from Middle English onwards, after which it began to develop evidential functions, and shows how the tendency to reject the truth of the content of the proposition marked by according to + NP arose in specific contexts containing alternative information sources, comparison, or adversative clauses. It was shortly after the diachronic appearance of according to + NP in such contexts that the more periphrastic form, in accordance with + NP, began to renovate/renew the earlier, non-evidential meanings of according to + NP. The present study also attributes the development of according to + NP to a process of co-optation (e.g. Heine 2013) rather than grammaticalization.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The expression of evidentiality in English
- 2.1Previous research on according to
- 3.Co-optation of evidentials
- 4.A diachronic corpus study
- 4.1Categorization of the data
- 5.Results
- 5.1Middle English
- 5.1.1Progressives and non-restrictive adverbial adjuncts
- 5.1.2Restrictive manner adverbials
- 5.2Early Modern English
- 5.2.1Evidential 1: Qualification of an opinion, prediction, judgement or hypothesis
- 5.2.2Evidential 2: Qualification of reports or hearsay
- 5.3Late Modern English
- 5.1Middle English
- 6.Analysis
- 6.1Rejection of the information source
- 7.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
Corpora and tools -
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