Modalidade epistémica e evidencialidade nos sermões católicos na língua portuguesa

Epistemic modality indicates the degree of certainty or doubt a speaker has for the proposition expressed by their utterance. Evidentiality, on the other hand, is the indication of the kind of evidence for a statement in question. Given the eminently persuasive character of homiletic discourse, it frequently makes use of epistemic and evidential markers. The preacher emphasizes his high degree of certainty about the content of what he says and, in order to gain credibility, he supports his reasons citing the Bible or other reliable sources. This paper aims to analyze the markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in Catholic sermons in Spanish. Moreover, it intends to defi ne the limit between different kinds of evidence. In order to carry out this analysis, twenty homilies pronounced in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City have been examined. First of all, the defi nitions of epistemic modality and evidentiality are presented and the relation between these concepts is explored. Then, a classification of evidential values, based on the one by Plungian (2001: 351, 353), is illustrated. After that, the results of the analysis of epistemic modality and evidentiality in twenty sermons are discussed. Finally, the paper touches upon some problematic issues resulting from the classifi cation of different kinds of evidence.

In this study we sought to collect evidence regarding the validity of the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (CIT), systematically reviewing studies that tested its psychometric properties (Study 1) and trying to replicate validity evidence collected across previous validation studies (Study 2). We found five studies that tested the validity of CIT scores through the collection of different kinds of evidence (score structure validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, criterion-related validity, incremental validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability). Results were often inconsistent across studies (especially for the score structure validity evidence). Using a sample of 483 Italian participants (63.0% female; aged 18–71 years), we replicated the tests performed in the previous validation studies. Findings suggest that the best fitting model is the one that (1) adds the overarching latent construct of thriving, which can be measured using the total scale score; and (2) merges the Skills and Flow factors in just one factor, named “Skills for Flow”. At the same time, the different kinds of validity evidence collected both in previous validation studies and in the current replication study indicate high overlap among thriving sub-dimensions and poor validity evidence. We concluded that the CIT in its present form is not an adequate instrument to assess thriving, thus mono-dimensional scales (e.g. Brief Inventory of Thriving) should be currently preferred. Suggestions to develop a multi-dimensional scale measuring thriving (both using a theory-driven approach or a data-drive approach) are discussed.

This research examines the exploitation of epistemic modality markers in political discourse. This research inspects modal auxiliaries and semi-modals use in four speeches addressed by Obama at the annual United Nations General Assembly during his second period as a President of America. Applying both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research is in an attempt to accomplish the whole investigation dealing with explorative and quantification of epistemic modality in Obama’s political discourse. The data were taken from Obama’s speeches from 2013 to 2016 at the United Nations General Assembly. The findings demonstrate that 471 modality markers were found in Obama’s speeches and he frequently delivered epistemic probability with 189 cases or 40.2% modal auxiliaries and semi-modals. Epistemic certainty and possibility were found in 125 cases or 26.6% and in 157 cases or 33.2%. The highest degree of epistemic modality, epistemic certainty, is expressed by employing must, have to, need to, cannot, could not, and may not. Modal should, will, would, be going to, and ought to express epistemic probability and modal can, could, may, might, and be able to are exploited to express the lowest degree of epistemic modality, epistemic possibility. The higher epistemic modality markers involved in a proposition indicate the higher confidence of evaluation and judgment asserted based on the speaker’s knowledge, belief, and evidence. In contrast, the lower epistemic modality markers found indicate lower confidence in the evaluation and judgment of the proposition.

Metadiscourse is a fundamental property of human communication in a way similar to speech acts. From a cross-linguistic study of metadiscourse, we can learn ‘how humans bridge the divide between self and others’ in communication. This chapter concentrates on those pragmatic aspects of metadiscourse which are associated, in some languages, with markers of evidentiality, epistemic modality, and focus (information structure). With respect to typological comparison, I advocate a domain-centered, onomasiologically-oriented approach. I argue that we have to distinguish between a subjective, speaker-related dimension of metadiscourse and an intersubjective, interactionally-oriented one in order to solve some longstanding puzzles in this domain. Data from Quechua, Tibetan, Hungarian, Albanian, and some other languages is used to support the presented claims. Keywords: Albanian; epistemic modality; evidentiality; focus; Hungarian; information structure; metadiscourse; mirative; Quechua; Tibetan

The purpose of the research is to identify the features characterising the correlation between epistemic modality and evidentiality in Turkish and Japanese. The relationship between epistemic modality and evidentiality is one of the most ambiguous issues when considering evidentiality. Just as the category of evidentiality manifests itself differently in each language, so the issue of the correlation between epis-temic modality and evidentiality has a special solution in each language. Scientific novelty of the paper lies in conducting a comparative study of the said issue in Turkish and Japanese. We have not found any studies that address the issue of the correlation between epistemic modality and evidentiality in the Japanese and Turkish languages in a comparative aspect. The available research on Japanese or Turkish is often contradictory: the definition of admirativity in Turkish, the identification of markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in Japanese - these issues cause a lot of controversy. As a result, it has been proved that the interaction of the two categories is particularly evident in the Turkish language when using inferential evidentiality; in the Japanese language, it is the case when it comes to hearsay evidentiality. The inte-raction of the two categories generates a new meaning of evidentiality in the Turkish language, i.e. mirativity.

This study reports on data from two 6‐week virtual intercultural exchanges (VIEs) between teachers of multilingual learners in K‐12 schools in Türkiye and the United States. Using the data from these asynchronous VIEs, we focus on Turkish world Englishes speakers’ use of epistemic markers and evidentials. We examine how participants from Türkiye use markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in intercultural encounters and how that use influences their construction of cultural information about Türkiye. Our findings show participants selectively code epistemic modality and evidentiality to indicate (their proximity to) the source of cultural information, avoid potential misunderstanding, and claim responsibility for the factuality of the information shared (or not). Our study contributes to understanding how world Englishes and Intercultural Communication intersect in multilingual contact zones that transcend borders―both real and imagined―between cultures, languages, and nations.

Chinese modalities of possibility are represented by various means, as is the case in languages across the world. In particular, for the interest of the present research, they may involve the so-called ‘能愿’ modal verbs and the ‘V+ de(得)’ constructions. What is notable, however, is that in terms of deontic and epistemic modalities, there is a delicate division of labor among the members of the modal markers, i.e. ‘specialization’ (Hopper 1991). For instance, it has been argued that dynamic modality has been specialized by 能; deontic modality by 能 and 可以; and epistemic modality by 會(Tiee 1985). More intriguingly, the degree of progression of the grammaticalization processes among these members does not seem to correspond to the degree of abstractness of the semantico-functional designation of the markers concerned. For instance, the modal marker that supposedly underwent the grammaticalization process most extensively, i.e. 會, seems to have begun to acquire the function of a modality marker most recently among those members in the paradigm; whereas the one that has long undergone the grammaticalization process, i.e. 能, seems to remain in the dynamic and deontic domains(Li 2004). The mismatch between the grammaticalization depths and the degrees of abstractness seems to be rare and warrants an investigation. These modes of modality marking converge at certain conceptual level of grammatical coding strategies, and at the same time diverge at others, resulting in a division of labor. As is widely attested across languages, grammaticalization occurs among the modality markers, in which deontic modality markers develop into epistemic modality markers, an instance of ‘subjectification’ (Traugott & Konig 1991). This is no exception in modern Chinese. For instance, the use of ‘會’ for epistemic possibility/certainty of the speaker, rather than an ability with reference to the sentential subject.

This chapter addresses the problem of ranking available drugs in guideline development to support clinicians in their work. Based on a pragmatic approach to the notion of evidence and a hierarchical view on different kinds of evidence this chapter introduces a decision aid, HiDAD, which draws on the multi criteria decision making literature. This decision aid implements the wide-spread intuition that there are different kinds of evidence with varying degrees of importance by relying on a strict ordinal ordering of kinds of evidence. In order to construct a ranking every pair of drugs is first compared separately on all kinds of evidence. Next, these quantitative comparisons are then aggregated into an overall comparison between drugs based on all the available evidence in a way which avoids that evidence of less importance is trumped by evidence of the higher levels. Finally, these overall comparisons are used to determine the final ranking of drugs which then informs the process of guideline writing. Properties, modifications and applicability of the decision aid HiDAD are discussed and assessed.

Personal genomics: information can be harmful

Toomey et al (2024) found that US participants were more likely to follow a medical treatment preference-expressed after substantial cognitive decline-of a third person rather than their own future self. This correlated with a greater tendency to see the third person as still their true self. We hypothesised that the greater epistemic access one has to one's own true self as opposed to others might drive this difference. A codebook designed to capture different kinds of evidence and reasoning was developed, and participants' explanations for their treatment decisions in Toomey et al's study were coded and qualitatively analysed. In first-person cases, participants were more likely to explain their treatment decision with reference to perceived direct access to their own true self. In contrast, in third-person cases, participants more often relied on proxies or heuristics, such as the presumption that an expressed preference is an authentic one or that preferences expressed with greater cognition tend to better reflect the true self. These findings support the hypothesis that differential epistemic access to the true self in first- and third-person cases may drive different medical treatment decisions. Participants may be trying to follow the patient's 'true' or 'authentic' preference in all cases, but relying on different kinds of evidence in so doing.

No natural language has a closed vocabulary (Kornai 2002). In addition to mechanisms to add to the base vocabulary, like borrowing, shortening, creativity etc. the productivity of morphological processes can form new complex entries. Some word formation processes can be used to form new words more easily than others. This fact, called morphological productivity, has been recognized for a long time and discussed from many points of view (see for example Aronoff 1976; Booij 1977; Baayen and Lieber 1991; Baayen 1992; Plag 1999; Bauer 2001; Baayen 2001; Nishimoto 2004). This paper is concerned with evidence for different aspects of morphological productivity. Our claim is that the problem of productivity can only be understood when different kinds of evidence – quantitative and qualitative – are combined. We will try to understand more about the interaction of qualitative and quantitative aspects of morphological productivity. We illustrate our claim by looking at a morphological element that has not received much attention in morphological descriptions yet: German -itis.1

(1993). Lau: A windward perspective. The Journal of Pacific History: Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 159-180.

Previous works [like Cornillie (Epistemic modality and evidentiality in Spanish (semi)auxiliaries. A cognitive-functional approach, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 2007)] suggest that Spanish political discourse could be studied on the basis of the description of the different evidential and modal types. The present study extends this synchronic hypothesis and addresses the evolution of the Spanish evidential discourse markers *al parecer* and *por lo visto* in a specific political genre, namely parliamentary debates, to shed some light on the evolution of parliamentary debate itself. To do so, a corpus analysis has been carried out of Spanish parliament debates from the last 39 years (1979–2018). The results show how the use of evidential markers has decreased and the pragmatic functions attached to these markers have progressively specialised in expressing negative/criticism pragmatic functions. The decrease in frequency and their specialisation in criticisms are presented, among other factors, as consequences of the evolution of parliamentary debates in Spain.

The aim of this study is to determine what linguistic resources are used for stance-taking in confrontational interactions. For this purpose, we analyze 70 argumentative sequences in spontaneous peer conversations during play situations of 4 dyads (2 mid and 2 low socio-economic status backgrounds) of 4 to 7-year-old Argentinian children. Stance-taking relies on the use of evaluative language, understood as the markers of speaker’s attitude (reference to internal states such as attribute, cognition, emotion, intention, and reported speech, [Shiro, 2003]); and the use of evidential markers, understood as speaker’s reference to the status of the information in the utterance (causality, concession, capacity, deontic and epistemic modality, and inference, [Shiro, 2007]), including markers of politeness which serve to mitigate (or intensify) the confrontation (Watts, 2003). Our findings describe the evaluative resources used for stance-taking strategies produced by children at this early age in confrontational interactions with their peers.

Making History Count: The Guadalajara Census Project (1791–1930)