Article published in:
Evidentiality Revisited: Cognitive grammar, functional and discourse-pragmatic perspectives
Edited by Juana I. Marín-Arrese, Gerda Haßler and Marta Carretero
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 271] 2017
► pp. 13–55

Chapter 1
Evidentiality in Cognitive Grammar

| University of California, San Diego

A clause serves the intersubjective function of presenting and negotiating a proposition. It both describes an occurrence and gives some indication of its epistemic status. The latter consists primarily in an assessment of whether the occurrence is realized, but may also include the basis for this assessment, and since there is no sharp distinction between the two, evidentiality constitutes a dimension of clausal grounding. Both dimensions of grounding are organized egocentrically in terms of immediacy to the ground and increments of distance from it. In a broad sense, grounding is also effected by lexical and grammatical means. These represent a higher level of functional organization concerned not with the occurrence of events but with the validity of propositions.

Keywords: distance, egocentricity, epistemic assessment, function, grounding, proposition
Article outline
  • 1.Issues
  • 2.Evidentiality and grounding
    • 2.1Semantic functions and their implementation
    • 2.2Clausal grounding
    • 2.3Evidentials as grounding elements
    • 2.4Unification
  • 3.Grounding systems
    • 3.1Systems, substrate, and strata
    • 3.2A tense-modal system
    • 3.3Evidential systems
    • 3.4Combined systems
  • 4.Means of implementation
    • 4.1Lexical means
    • 4.2Periphrastic means
    • 4.3Diachrony
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 21 March 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.271.02lan
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