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Part of
Evidence for Evidentiality
Edited by Ad Foolen, Helen de Hoop and Gijs Mulder
[Human Cognitive Processing 61] 2018
► pp. 227–256

Chapter 9
Evidence for the development of ‘evidentiality’ as a grammatical category in the Tibetic languages

| Universität Tübingen

The coding of evidentiality and/or the speaker’s attitude grammaticalized in most Modern Tibetic languages, whereas Classical Tibetan lacks a fully developed evidential system. The source for marking sensory perception is the hedging use of the verb ḥdug. Its lexical meaning of limited stay was extended to the notion of limited truth: ‘it seems’. This was further applied to situations merely perceived. ḥdug spread first into West Tibetan as an inferential marker; later it was re-borrowed as an experiential maker. This scenario allows reconstructing the timeline and the semantic path, and explaining the flexible use of ‘evidential’ markers in Tibetic languages.

Keywords: Tibetic languages, ḥdug , inferential marker, experiential marker
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The language family and its chronology
    • 1.2Evidentiality in modern Tibetic
    • 1.3Methodological considerations
    • 1.4The narrative
    • 1.5A note on Tibetan script, transliteration, glossing, and grammatical terminology
  • 2.Origins of evidential marking
    • 2.1Old Tibetan
    • 2.2Early Classical Tibetan
  • 3.Evidentiality in the 15th c. Milaraspa rnamthar
  • 4.Sketch of a possible developmental path
    • 4.1Time line – evidence from the written language
    • 4.2Locating the development in space and history
    • 4.3Evidence from the spoken languages
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Abbreviations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.61.10zei
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