Towards a new approach to evidentiality
Issues and directions for research
Nicolas Tournadre | University of Aix-Marseille and Lacito (CNRS)
Randy J. LaPolla | Nanyang Technological University
Evidentiality is often defined as the grammatical means of expressing information source. This paper argues for a broader definition of evidentials, as close work documenting languages has shown that simply saying evidentials mark source of information does not capture all of the actual uses of evidential marking. The paper discusses other aspects that need to be taken account of in any full discussion of the use of evidential marking, in particular the speaker’s access to information (not just source), plus the subjective strategy or perspective of the speaker in representing a particular state of affairs. The notion of ‘source’ in this paper is used in a restricted sense to mean primarily a verbal source of information (reported information) and is distinguished from ‘access’, which refers to the non-verbal access to information (sensory, inferential, etc., including the sensory access to verbal source) available to the speaker, though marking of source and access may appear together. Given this distinction the paper proposes a new definition of evidential marking: the representation of source and access to information according to the speaker’s perspective and strategy.
Keywords: Eventual marking, evidential marking, morphology, cognitive linguistics, Tibetan languages, Tibeto-Burman languages, Sino-Tibetan languages
Published online: 01 December 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.37.2.04tou
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltba.37.2.04tou
References
References
2011 Evidentials. Oxford Bibliographies Online. http://oxfordbibliographiesonline.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0014.xml doi: 

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. & LaPolla, Randy J.
Bielmeier, Roland
Chafe, Wallace L., & Johanna Nichols
de Haan, Ferdinand
DeLancey, Scott
1989 New vs. assimilated knowledge as a semantic and grammatical category. Presented at the Winter Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, December 30, 1989.
de Villiers, Jill G., & Jay Garfield
de Villiers, Jill G., Jay Garfield, Harper Gernet-Girard, Tom Roeper & Margaret Speas
Diewald, Gabriele & Elena Smirnova
Driem, George van
Ebihara, Shiho
2014
sNang as an evidential verb. Paper presented at the 24th Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, Yangon, 27-31 May, 2014.
Garrett, Edward
2001 Evidentiality and assertion in Tibetan. University of California, Los Angeles PhD dissertation.
Gawne, Lauren
2013 Lamjung Yolmo copulas in use: Evidentiality, reported speech and questions. University of Melbourne PhD dissertation.
Gesang Jumian & Gesang Yangjing
Guentchéva, Zlatka
Guentchéva, Zlatka & J. Landaburu
Hagège, Claude
1982 La structure des langues, Que sais-je? Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Hale, Austin
Haller, Felix
Hargreaves, David
Häsler, Katrin
1999 A grammar of the Tibetan Sde.dge dialect. University of Bern doctoral dissertation.
Hill, Nathan
Hongladarom, Krisadawan
1993 Evidentials in Tibetan: a dialogic study of the interplay between form and meaning. Indiana University PhD dissertation.
Huber, Brigitte
LaPolla, Randy J.
LaPolla, Randy J., with Chenglong Huang
LaPolla, Randy J.
Lazard, Gilbert
Lessan-Pezechki, H.
2013 Contribution de la linguistique persane à la typologie du temps de l’aspect et des modalités. Habilitation à diriger des Recherches, Université d’Aix-Marseille.
Michael, Lev
2008 Nanti evidential practice: Language, knowledge, and social action in an Amazonian society. University of Texas at Austin PhD dissertation.
Montaut, Annie
forthcoming. Complex predicates in Hind/Urdu in correlation with some major typological shifts.
Oisel, Guillaume
2013 Morphosyntaxe et sémantique des auxiliaires et des connecteurs du tibétain littéraire. Etude diachronique et synchronique. University of Paris 3 PhD dissertation.
Post, Mark
2010 On the frontiers of person-marking and evidentiality: Egophoric and alterphoric marking in Tibeto-Burman. Paper presented at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Language and Culture Research Group Local Workshop on Person-Marking, 16th June, 2010.
Sapir, Edward
Sun, Jackson T.-S.
Suzuki, Hiroyuki
2008 Arguments against the concept of ‘conjunct’/‘disjunct’ in Tibetan. In B. Huber, M. Volkart, P. Widmer, P. Schwieger (eds.), Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek. Festschrift für Roland Bielmeier zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, Band 1, 281–308. Halle (Saale): International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH.
Tournadre, Nicolas & Konchok Jiatso
Tournadre, Nicolas & Sangda Dorje
Vokurková, Zuzana
2008 Epistemic modalities in Spoken Standard Tibetan. Charles University, Prague, and University of Paris 8 PhD dissertation.
Wiemer, Björn & Vladimir A. Plungjan
Zeisler, Bettina
Forthcoming. Evidence for the development of ‘evidentiality’ as a grammatical category in Tibetan.
Cited by
Cited by 27 other publications
Brosig, Benjamin, Foong Ha Yap & Kathleen Ahrens
EVANS, NICHOLAS, HENRIK BERGQVIST & LILA SAN ROQUE
Gawne, Lauren
Gawne, Lauren & Kristine A. Hildebrandt
Grollmann, Selin
Grzech, Karolina
Grzech, Karolina, Eva Schultze-Berndt & Henrik Bergqvist
Helgestad Tombleson, Anette
Hill, Nathan W.
Jacques, Guillaume
Jacques, Guillaume
Kotwica, Dorota
Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee
Luo, Yongxian
Marín Arrese, Juana I.
Nyima, Tashi & Hiroyuki Suzuki
San Roque, Lila, Simeon Floyd & Elisabeth Norcliffe
San Roque, Lila & Bambi B. Schieffelin
Widmer, Manuel
Zeisler, Bettina
Zemp, Marius
Zhang, Shuya
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 06 february 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.