On evidentiality in American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract


 
 
 This paper discusses the indirect evidential markers dizque in American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese by focusing on the Spanish varieties of Guayaquil (Ecuador) and Lima (Peru), and the Brazilian Portuguese variety of São Paulo (Brazil). I adopt a comparative approach in which I discuss their syntax and semantics. To thoroughly document their properties in a theoretically driven approach, a comprehensive questionnaire building on previous literature was used, and data from five consultants per variety were gathered— fieldwork practices were followed. The purpose of such an approach is to complement previous studies, which have mainly focused on corpora. As for the syntactic properties, I discuss their distribution in connection to a number of different elements, such as modal and evidential adverbs, among many others; the use as an illocutionary evidential is, in general, disallowed in these varieties. As for the semantic properties, I discuss the types of evidence with which these evidentials are compatible, the at-issue vs. not-at-issue distinction and the doubt implication that sentences with these elements normally have. This study attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of these evidentials in these varieties, so that future research can build on it to single out different properties in controlled (e.g., experimental) settings.