Uma análise para a distinção entre evidencialidade e modalidade epistémica o caso dos adjetivos alegado e suposto e respetivas formas adverbiais

Abstract

The modal and evidential domains are not always easily distinguishable. Even though some languages do have specific modal and evidential markers, European Portuguese does not behave the same way, having, therefore, several ways and mechanisms to mark both evidentiality and modality. The present study, based on examples retrieved from the European Portuguese corpus CETEMpúblico, thus, intends to evaluate if the traditionally considered modal adjectives, suposto (supposed) and alegado (alledged), and their corresponding adverbial forms, can convey evidential values and contribute to signal a distinction between the two domains. The examples show that these adjectives and adverbs behave distinctively from each other: suposto (and supostamente) conveys suppositional evidentiality, while alegado (and alegadamente) conveys reportative evidentiality. Even though the preferred interpretation is an evidential one, they both allow for an epistemic modal reading. This means, put differently, that, although these adjectives and adverbs have the capacity to represent both domains, modality seems to always come second: the transmission of evidential values is therefore stronger than the expression of epistemic modal values (of uncertainty). However, the epistemic reading of alegado, in particular, seems to be related to the fact that the author does not mean to compromise him/herself with the veracity of the proposition, rather than convey a certain degree of uncertainty.