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On the Syntax and Semantics of Evidentials
Author(s) -
Speas Peggy
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00069.x
Subject(s) - morpheme , linguistics , syntax , computer science , evidentiality , sentence , grammar , representation (politics) , semantics (computer science) , class (philosophy) , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , philosophy , programming language , politics , political science , law
In some languages, every declarative sentence includes a morpheme specifying the speaker's evidence or source of information. This article provides an overview of the central theoretical questions addressed in recent research on Evidential morphemes. First, I discuss the question of whether Evidentials constitute a coherent closed‐class system, independent of other systems of grammar. Next, I briefly consider the evidence for an Evidential head in the syntactic representation. Finally, I review the ways in which Evidentials resemble and differ from epistemic modals.