Evidentiality, Epistemic Modality, and Epistemic Status

Rezeda Dilshatovna Shakirova ,Guzel Abelkhasanovna Sadrieva ,Adelina Renatovna Safina ,Inga Gennadyevna Almikaeva ,Alsu Flerovna Galimullina

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.5n.5p.32

Rezeda Dilshatovna Shakirova , Guzel Abelkhasanovna Sadrieva + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.5n.5p.32

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Abstract

The article discusses the interaction of evidentiality categories, typical of many Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, certain Slavic, and other languages with the categories of epistemic modality, which is widely represented particularly in Germanic languages. The methodological framework of this study consists of the general philosophic, general scientific and private levels. The general philosophic methodology is based on the analytic philosophy, under the linguistic trend of which the language study was carried out to solve philosophic problems. The general scientific methodological bases of the study are related to the principle of identifying similarities and differences of the categories analyzed and the systematicity of description, whereas the descriptive method and techniques thereof are used primarily as the private-linguistic methods. In contrast to evidentiality, indicating the source of information, the epistemic modality marks different level of the information reliability. In the modern German language, the categories studied have a zone of intersection in terms of community within the means of expression, to which modal words and modal verbs as well as the verb scheinen can be primarily related. However, in the modern German language, there is no question of the category of evidentiality in the plane, within which it is currently being studied basing on the material of those languages, to the fragment of the grammatical system of which it is primarily inherent. As a rule, the semantics of evidentiality in these languages provides no information on the degree of reliability of the source of knowledge. To overcome the contradiction of such nature, this work suggests paying attention to the category of epistemic status of an utterance, the semantic structure of which is wider than evidentiality and epistemic modality and includes the level of reliability of the source of knowledge along with the designation thereof. In today's German language, there are units functioning that mark simultaneously both parameters of the situation, on which an utterance is based.

Highlights

In recent decades, the researchers pay more and more attention to the fact that the problem of opinion and knowledge, having a long history of studies in philosophy and logic, becomes urgent in linguistics as well
This article aims to identify the common ground of such concepts as evidentiality, epistemic modality and epistemic status of an utterance that are of direct relevance to the language as a mental phenomenon
We propose to combine the categories of evidentiality and epistemic modality within the category of epistemic status that takes into account such parameters as the source of information, based on which an utterance is formulated, as well as the measure of reliability of this information

Summary

Introduction

The researchers pay more and more attention to the fact that the problem of opinion and knowledge, having a long history of studies in philosophy and logic, becomes urgent in linguistics as well. I.B. Shatunovskii (Shatunovskii, 1996) argues that the problem of opinion, knowledge and belief relates less to the philosophic and ontological issue than to the linguistic one (at least by 90%). An increasing interest of linguistics in the problem of opinion and knowledge, which occupies a central place in the theory of cognition, is associated with the change of scientific paradigm (Kuhn, 1975) in linguistics. We are talking about the formation and the intensive development of a new, anthropocentric, scientific paradigm in linguistics, which brings into focus a native speaker, whereas the factor of a human in language becomes crucial therefor. It studies the mental processes related to the cognition of reality. This article aims to identify the common ground of such concepts as evidentiality, epistemic modality and epistemic status of an utterance that are of direct relevance to the language as a mental phenomenon

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