I THINK

Abstract

AbstractOne of the most striking features of English from a cross-cultural perspective is the proliferation of various linguistic tools for qualifying one's statements, hedging one's assertions, and differentiating the strength of one's assent to a proposition. This applies in particular to epistemic verbal phrases like I suppose, I gather, I imagine, I presume, and so on. This chapter traces the rise of such epistemic qualifiers in the history of English, linking it, in particular, with the enormous influence of Locke's ideas concerning degrees of probability, degrees of assent, the limitations of human knowledge, and the need to always distinguish between knowledge and judgment. The chapter undertakes a fine-grained semantic analysis of a large number of expressions like I suppose, I gather, I presume, I assume, I bet, I guess, and so on, and discusses their cultural underpinnings, in a cross-cultural and historical perspective.