Episteemilise modaalsuse leksikaalsete väljendusvahendite tajumisest: arvatavasti, äkki ja võib-olla

Kokkuvote . Artiklis on vaatluse all episteemilise modaalsuse leksikaalsete valjendusvahendite (markerite) arvatavasti , voib-olla ja akki toenaosuse tajumine. Vaadeldakse, kui palju oleneb markerite toenaosuse tajumine kontekstist, naiteks tugevast voi norgast eeldusest ehk olemasoleva informatsiooni rohkusest, markeriga lause agendi soost ja keelevalistest teguritest ehk vastajate soost ja vanusest. Markerite toenaosuse taju uurimiseks koostati internetikatse, millele vastas 328 eesti keelt konelevat inimest, kellest noorim oli alla 18-aastane ja vanim ule 60. Tulemustest selgus, et kolmest markerist tajutakse koige tugevamat toenaosust valjendavana markerit arvatavasti , pisut norgemana tunnetatakse voib-olla ja akki toenaosust. Kontekstil on markerite toenaosuse tajumisel oluline roll: toenaolisemana tajutakse lauseid, mille kontekst on tugevama eeldusega, mitmetahendusliku kontekstiga lauseid tajutakse aga hoopis norgema toenaosusega. Markerite toenaosuse tajumist mojutavad ka keelevalised tegurid, nagu vastaja sugu ja vanus. Abstract. Laura Tuuts and Reili Argus: The comprehension of lexical epistemic markers: the Estonian adverbs arvatavasti (‘probably’), akki (‘perhaps’) and voib-olla (‘maybe’) . The paper analyses the comprehension of epistemic modality markers arvatavasti ‘probably’, voib-olla ‘maybe’ and akki ‘perhaps’. The study focuses on the connections between the nature and the amount of context in the comprehension of epistemic markers which belong to the class of markers with average degree of certainty. In addition to the influence of context, factors like the gender of the agent in the context sentence, as well as the respondent’s gender, age, education and foreign language skills have been analysed according to different markers and context types. Answers of 328 Estonian-speaking respondents (aged 18–60) revealed that the marker arvatavasti ‘probably’ has the strongest epistemic value, while the other two markers under observation have a somewhat weaker epistemic value. Context has a big impact on the comprehension of all three markers: sentences with stronger premises were comprehended as expressing stronger certainty, and the sentences with ambiguous context were comprehended as expressing the weakest certainty. Factors like the gender of the agent in the context sentence as well as the respondent’s gender have some influence on the comprehension of epistemic markers, while factors like foreign language skills and education do not have such a strong effect on the comprehension of epistemic modality markers. Keywords : epistemic modality; lexical markers; comprehension of probability; Estonian