Evidentiality and interrogativity

Lila San Roque, Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

60 Scopus citations

Abstract

Understanding of evidentials is incomplete without consideration of their behaviour in interrogative contexts. We discuss key formal, semantic, and pragmatic features of cross-linguistic variation concerning the use of evidential markers in interrogative clauses. Cross-linguistic data suggest that an exclusively speaker-centric view of evidentiality is not sufficient to explain the semantics of information source marking, as in many languages it is typical for evidentials in questions to represent addressee perspective. Comparison of evidentiality and the related phenomenon of egophoricity emphasises how knowledge-based linguistic systems reflect attention to the way knowledge is distributed among participants in the speech situation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)120-143
Number of pages24
JournalLingua
Volume186-187
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Conjunct/disjunct
  • Egophoricity
  • Epistemics
  • Evidentiality
  • Interrogativity
  • Perspective

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