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Article published In:
Evidentiality, Modality and Grammaticalization
Edited by Eric Mélac
[Studies in Language 48:3] 2024
► pp. 682–722

Frequency differences in reportative exceptionality and how to account for them

A case study on verbal reportative markers in French, Dutch and German

ORCID logo | University of Antwerp

Reportative evidential markers are – in contrast to other evidential markers – compatible with distancing interpretations, in which the speaker denies the truth of what is being reported. This exceptional behaviour of reportatives is termed ‘reportative exceptionality’ (AnderBois 2014). In this paper, which addresses French, Dutch and German reportative markers, we argue that they differ with respect to the frequency with which such distancing interpretations actually arise. The French reportative conditionnel most frequently occurs with distancing interpretations, whereas German sollen hardly occurs with this function. Dutch zou takes up an intermediate position. It is claimed that the higher compatibility of the conditionnel with distancing interpretations can be accounted for by a number of factors: its general preference for contexts in which other perspectives than the speaker’s are highly salient; the fact that it has past tense morphology; and its general semantic make-up in which the marking of hypotheticality is a key function.

Keywords: reportative evidentiality, reportative exceptionality, contrastive linguistics, modal verbs, polyfunctionality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Reportative evidentiality vs. quotative markers; reportative exceptionality
  • 3.French conditionnel, Dutch zou + inf, German soll IND + inf: An overview
    • 3.1Present-day semantics and use
    • 3.2Diachrony: A contrastive analysis of French, Dutch and German
  • 4.Reportative markers in French, Dutch and German: A comparative case study
    • 4.1French conditionnel, Dutch zou + inf, German soll IND + inf: Similarities and differences
    • 4.2Reportative exceptionality (RE)
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 29 January 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.23014.mor
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