Evidential Forms Research Articles

УПОТРЕБИ НА СЪМ, БЪДА, БИВАМ И БИДОХ В СЪВРЕМЕННИЯ БЪЛГАРСКИ ЕЗИК

In the present study, the uses of sam, bada, bivam and bidoh as copulas or as auxiliary verbs in various evidentials and voices in the modern Bulgarian language are investigated. The competition between both sam and bada and between sam and bivam, byah and bidoh is explored. In addition, the opinion of modern Bulgarians about these three competing couples is studied through an anonymous non-representative survey. Examples are used from all electronic corpora of the Bulgarian language and from the Internet. The truth of three hypotheses is proven: the forms of sam are preferred over the uses of bada and bivam in the various evidential active forms; the forms of bada predominate in the passive evidential forms; the aorist forms bidoh, bide, bide, bidohme, bidohte, bidoha are very infrequent and today hardly used by modern generations, although they are known.

Eyes do not lie but words do

Abstract Evidentiality encodes how a speaker has access to the information contained in his/her proposition. It has been shown that some ‘evidential language’ speakers make a deliberate choice of evidentials while telling lies (Aikhenvald 2004). In this study, we recruited 40 native speakers of Turkish, an ‘evidential language’, to judge statements with evidentials using an eye-movement-monitoring-during-reading study with an end-of-sentence deception detection task. The participants read sentences with four conditions, containing a direct or indirect evidential form either compatible or incompatible with the given information source. Our results show that the indirect evidential condition was detected as a lie more often than the direct evidential condition. Readers had the tendency to judge stimulus material with source-evidentiality mismatch to be untruthful. These findings were mirrored in the eye-movement data, as we found gaze duration to be longer at the critical verb region for indirect evidential and mismatch conditions.

Merging multi-level evidential observations for dynamic reliability assessment of hierarchical multi-state systems: A dynamic Bayesian network approach

Dynamic reliability assessment has offered a new paradigm for engineered systems to integrate multi-level observations to update the reliability measures of a specific running system. The existent work on dynamic reliability assessment can only leverage precise observations and cannot be straightforwardly implemented in scenarios where observations are imprecise. However, the observations are inevitably imprecise owing to the limited accuracy of inspection techniques and vague judgments of the system state. In engineering scenarios, multi-state systems (MSSs) with a hierarchical structure are commonly existent, and the imprecise observations can be collected across multiple physical levels of the system. In this article, the uncertainty associated with imprecise observations is characterized by the evidence theory, and it can be therefore regarded as an evidential form. A dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) model is utilized to evaluate the reliability of hierarchical MSSs with multi-level evidential observations. Subsequently, the evidence theory is implemented to quantify epistemic uncertainties associated with imprecise observations. These observations, sourced from multiple physical levels, are merged by the DBN model using the Dempster rule of combination (DRC) to update the reliability of a specific running system in a dynamic fashion. The feasibility and correctness of the proposed method have been demonstrated through a numerical case and a real engineering case of a kerosene filling control system (KFCS), and the result indicates that the proposed DBN-based algorithm methods have high applicability and generalizability.

The Evidentiality of the Bulgarian Verb in Learning Bulgarian as a Foreign Language

The main goal of the present work is to argue that in the teaching of Bulgarian in school, not only the indicative and the renarrative, but also the other two indirect evidentials – the conclusive and the dubitative – should be included. This is especially true for levels C1 and C2. In fulfillment of this goal, the meanings, forms and main uses of the four evidentials in modern Bulgarian language are examined: indicative, conclusive, renarrative and dubitative. The expressed opinion is that the grammaticalization of evidentiality in the modern Bulgarian language is not a complete process due to two main reasons: the presence of three types of forms for the negative future tenses and the permeability of all composed evidential forms.

The Category of Evidentiality and the Mechanisms of its Expression in Kartvelian Proverbs

Evidentiality is a universal morphosyntactic category of text that can be expressed by morphological, syntactic and lexical means. However, its linguistic expression is diverse not only in non-related but also in related languages (Margiani, Kurdadze, Lomia 2019: 427). Evidentiality as a universal grammatical category “is directly linked to the semantics of the utterance, expressing the attitude of the speaker to the provided information and pointing to the reliable source (direct or indirect) of information“ (Margiani, Kurdadze, Lomia 2019: 17). The category of evidentiality is expressed on the levels of text and discourse by various means, of which the construction with indirect speech is of utmost importance. Special literature has proved that “indirect speech is historically secondary. It is obtained as a result of processing-transformation of direct speech“ (Kvachadze 1977:441). An empirical analysis has yielded proverbs of simple structure that are expressed by means of subordinate clauses only. Such proverbs are especially productive in the Kartvelian languages. The main clause in such proverbs implies the present and past tense forms of verbs of saying (‘they say’, ‘it is said’, ‘they have said’ and so on). These verbs are omitted due to ellipsis. Such proverbs mention neither a speaker nor an addressee. In such cases, the omitted part (i.e. the main clause) is compensated by particles like Georgian o which indicate indirect speech.Indirect speech particles are distributed among the Kartvelian languages as follows: It should be underlined that in Kartvelian proverbs the indirect speech particles of the 3rd person are used systematically while the particles of the 1st and 2nd persons are extremely rare. This can be explained by the fact that the indirect speech particle of the 3rd person in the Kartvelian proverbs generalises the expressed viewpoint and enhances the reliability of the context.The use of the indirect speech particles in Georgian, Megrelian, Laz and Svan can also be analysed from the viewpoint of evidentiality. As it is known from the scholarly literature, evidentiality is expressed both morphologically and semantically in the Kartvelian languages. Different types of evidentiality are expressed differently on various language levels. For instance, in Georgian, evidentiality is expressed by perfect forms of verbs, by lexical means, by indirect speech markers, by evidential particles, etc. (Topadze-Gäumann 2011). Interestingly enough, in the Kartvelian proverbs evidentiality can have single (morphological or syntactic), double, and even multiple markers. In the latter case, it is simultaneously expressed by indirect speech particles and by evidential tenses. However, it should be noted that the natural structure of Georgian paremiological units is represented by evidential forms with single markers (mostly indirect speech particles).

The paradigmaticity of evidentials in the Tibetic languages of Khams

Abstract This article argues that the evidential system of Khams Tibetan, a cluster of Tibetic languages spoken in the south-eastern Tibetosphere, should be considered a verb paradigm. We propose a paradigm with six evidential categories (egophoric, statemental, visual sensory, nonvisual sensory, sensory inferential, and logical inferential) for all the verb classes. We focus on two varieties – rGyalthang and Lhagang – and examine how these evidential categories are encoded with distinct morphemes. We then discuss the main evidential forms of the copulative and existential verbs available in Khams Tibetan varieties as a whole, as well as their morphological relationship. Our analyses lead us to argue against a differential treatment of evidentiality depending on verb categories. The article concludes that describing the evidential paradigm may be the first essential task in writing a grammar of a Tibetic language.

Evidential meanings in native and learner Japanese and English

Abstract Evidentiality is a linguistic category that comprises forms and meanings related to the source of information in utterances, the use of which may impact judgments about the degree of certainty expressed by a speaker. The main dichotomy is first-hand (direct) vs. second-hand (indirect) evidence. This distinction is grammaticalised in Japanese only, though certain related meanings can be expressed in English lexically or constructionally. The relevant forms in both languages also function as indirectness-for-politeness markers. We used a judgments elicitation task and found that statements with Japanese evidentials (both first- and second-hand) and with English markers of uncertainty lead to judgments of lower certainty than the statements without the evidential forms and meanings for the majority, but not for all speakers. In addition, monolingual and bilingual usage in both languages has parallels such that these two typologically distinct languages appear closer and certainty judgments by their speakers similar.

The role of pragmatics in the definition of evidentiality

AbstractThis paper argues that a definition of evidentiality as a linguistic notion should be based on the pragmatic properties of evidential forms and their distribution in spoken discourse. The prevailing definition of evidentiality as signaling “information source” is based on the idea that evidentials encode a solitary speaker’s perception and cognitive processes, but this definition does not fit well with observations regarding the use and distribution of evidentials. A definition of evidentiality in terms of “information source” has largely disregarded evidentials in-use, which is especially true for typologically oriented studies of evidentiality. Recent descriptions of evidentials and evidential systems have shown that evidentials encode meanings related to ownership of knowledge, rather than information source and it is evident from such descriptions that social and interactional parameters are encoded in evidential forms. The attested semantic and pragmatic complexity of evidential systems constitutes an analytical challenge that the present paper aims to address.

Evidential Modality in Kampar Malay Dialect

Forms of evidence as a subcategory of modality have yet to receive particular attention in Indonesian linguistics studies. Researchers do not give a distinct classification to the modality subcategory of the form of the marker, which has a distinctive characteristic. It means that the public’s expression of Indonesian language modalities in lexical patterns for both oral and written is not observable. Moreover, it is different from languages like Japanese with grammatical construction. Other research has identified the equivalent of evidential forms in Japanese in Indonesian and found a unique use of the term’s appearances, taste, function, and meaning the evidential. The Malay language has contributed to the Indonesian language and must have a distinctive form of evidence. It is commonly caused by many unexpected attitudes of the speaker when conveying a proposition (state of the matter or events). However, this study investigates the form, function, and meaning of evidential modalities in Kampar Malay dialects in Riau Province, Indonesia. The Kampar Malay dialect is one of the subdialects of the Malay language in Riau. This study refers to Narrog’s concept of pure evidence, where the speakers’ attitudes do not contain elements of inference (allegations) and inferential evidence that the speaker can distance himself from consideration, at least partially, with doubts of doubt. The data was obtained from native speakers through interviews. Furthermore, the markers of modality evidence were analyzed for syntactic behavior by the distribution method. Based on the analysis results, in Kampar Malay dialect, it was revealed that the revealer of pure evidence was not marked, while inferential evidence was marked by the use of sobuik, condoe, dongow cito, dongaw-dongaw cito, keceknyo, gakde, ndak kan lai, aso den, aso-aso, nampak, nampaknyo, nampak e, nampak a, and nampak-nampak.

The Argument from Evil, the Argument from Hiddenness, and Supernaturalistic Alternatives to Theism

In this brief article, I consider James Sterba’s logical argument from evil, finding it to be ultimately unsuccessful. Not for the various issues Sterba raises, which do seem to be problematic if God exists, but for the logical approach itself. I encourage Sterba to shift tack, to embrace the evidential argument from evil, which is not at all concessionary, as he seems to think, and is an extremely powerful argument against the probability of theism, especially when we open the debate to the supernaturalistic alternatives to theism. I also encourage Sterba to reconsider his dismissive attitude towards the argument from hiddenness, which, in its evidential form, is also a very powerful argument against God’s existence, either employed independently or incorporated into the argument from evil.

ИЗРЕЧЕНИЯТА С КОНКЛУЗИВ В БЪЛГАРСКИЯ ЕЗИК – ИЗВОДИ, ОБОБЩЕНИЯ ИЛИ ПРЕДПОЛОЖЕНИЯ? / SENTENCES WITH INFERENTIAL FORMS IN BULGARIAN: DEDUCTIVE, INDUCTIVE OR ABDUCTIVE STATEMENTS?

Some languages have evidential verb markers that indicate the type of inference denoted by the sentence. Bulgarian is not among them. Furthermore, conclusions drawn using the same rule of inference could be conveyed by sentences with conclusive (inferential), indicative or presumptive forms. This paper gives an account of Bulgarian sentences with inferential evidentials. The aim of the study is to demonstrate that they serve to express not only abductive, but also deductive and inductive reasoning. After an outline of the three inference types, I briefly discuss various views on their grammatical expression. I then go on to study text excerpts which allow for a clear-cut analysis of the inference type. Lastly, I consider the so-called non-inferential use of the conclusive evidential forms in an attempt to offer a possible explanation as to the common denominator of the category. Keywords: evidentiality, conclusive forms, abduction, deduction, induction

The Lithuanian mirative present and its history

The article deals with a Lithuanian mirative construction based on the present active participle with the continuative and progressive prefix be-. In Lithuanian grammar it has been described as a tense form or (more recently) as a member of the evidential system, but it is here dealt with as a construction in its own right. On the basis of a corpus search the authors attempt to define the place of the mirative present among constructions containing the present active participle with the prefix be-, as well as its formal and functional properties and lexical input. In the diachronic section of the article it is suggested that the rise of the construction under discussion could have been, at least partly, the outcome of a distinct path of grammaticalisation (involving a post-nominal participial modifier in a presentative construction), different from that of both the progressiveproximative tense forms containing the participle with be- and the evidential forms based on participles. This, however, was not necessarily the only source of the construction: the pragmatic and emotive overtones developed by present progressives have probably also contributed to it. Mirativity has hitherto been known as one of the cluster of meanings characteristic of the Lithuanian evidential, but the analysis carried out in the article suggests that Lithuanian also has mirativity as a category in its own right, distinct from evidentiality.

Perfect grams in Lithuanian and Latvian: A comparative analysis based on a typological questionnaire

This article presents a first detailed comparative investigation of the semantics of the perfect verbal forms in standard Lithuanian and Latvian. A typological questionnaire filled by five Latvian and seven Lithuanian informants reveals the difference in the degree of grammaticalization of the present perfect between the two Baltic languages. The set of contexts available for the present perfect in Latvian is wider and more reminiscent of the perfects in English and Scandinavian languages in comparison to the Lithuanian counterpart. While in Lithuanian the present perfect is restricted to the experiential and the resultative contexts, where it is also often substituted by the simple past, Latvian also employs the present perfect to convey the meanings of ‘hot news’, current relevance and persistent situation. The past perfect, on the contrary, is more frequent in Lithuanian and appears to be a separate category rather than a past tense version of the present perfect. The article also discusses the use of the future perfect and of a special variety of the perfect with the auxiliary in the evidential form, as well as the use of ‘bare’ participles formally coinciding with the second component of the analytical perfect form but used without the auxiliary.

Грамматикализованная сенсорная эвиденциальность как типологическая особенность языков Северной Азии

The paper defines a semantic zone of non-visual sensory evidence, grammaticalized in the verbal system, as “sensory evidence.” Sensory evidence grammaticalized in the verbal system is rare in contemporary languages. It is likely to be found in languages that are or were used in the recent past traditional cultures of ancient origin. Many Eurasian languages have evidential grammatical verbal forms, with most not having sensory evidential forms. Such verbal forms were known as auditive in Eurasia only in four Samoyedic languages: Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, and Selkup. Recently, the traditional Yukaghir folklore archaic texts collected by V. I. Jochelson in the late 19th – early 20th centuries revealed similar grammatical and semantic analog of Samoyedic auditive, suggesting sensory evidential verbal grammemes to be more widespread in the past in the languages of aboriginal Northern Asia peoples, in diachronic retrospective. Our main goal was to identify the inter-disciplinary evidence of diachronically earlier communicative functions and meanings of Northern Asian sensory evidential verbal forms. These functions and meanings are most informatively presented in the archaic texts of Nenets traditional folklore, especially shaman songs and heroic epos. The paper proves basic semantics of the Northern Samoyedic sensory evidential grammemes to refer to the auditive perception of non-visible situations (events). Thus, non-visible events were opposed grammatically to visual situations by verbal forms concerned. Considering historical ethnology data in an interdisciplinary way, the author explains the fact above as a grammaticalized language replica of fundamental mental opposition of ancient mythological thinking – the opposition of visible and non-visible situations.

Evidentials as a mark of genre

AbstractThis paper aims to study the different types and pragmatic functions of the Spanish evidential forms found in four discursive genres, in order to observe if any restrictions apply. All the evidentials are studied in a corpus containing 100,000 words, evenly distributed over colloquial conversations, press news, academic papers, and parliamentary debates. Specifically, together with the pragmatic functions of these evidentials, the four dimensionsmode of knowing,type of source,accessibility,anddegree of precisionare analysed. The results reveal different tendencies in the use of evidentials, depending on the genre, and support the claim that the behaviour of evidentials is conditioned by the specific characteristics of each genre.

ГЛАГОЛЬНЫЕ ФОРМЫ СО ЗНАЧЕНИЕМ ЭВИДЕНЦИАЛЬНОСТИ В ХАКАССКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ

The article examines the so-called form of the behind one’s back past tense -(п)тыр within the framework of the theory of evidentiality. The author considers that this form is able to express all categorial situations of evidentiality: hearsay, interference, admirativity; and proves that the discussed form -(п)чаттыр is one of the forms of the present tense, not the past one. For the first time in Khakass linguistics such terms as imperfect, pluperfect and cunctative are clarified through evidential forms.

Questions and answers in Lamjung Yolmo

Many Tibetic (Tibeto-Burman) languages have been reported to have interrogative structures where the question uses the evidential form that is most likely to be used in the answer. This orientation of evidential source to the perspective of the addressee has been described as the ‘anticipation rule’ in the literature on Tibetan and related languages. I investigate interrogative use in Lamjung Yolmo, a Tibetic variety of Nepal, to illustrate the nature of this ‘anticipation’ pattern in interaction. In Lamjung Yolmo speakers base their ‘anticipation’ of the respondent's evidential use on the general distribution of these forms, as well as attending to their interlocutor's knowledge state and modifying evidential values in question-asking to better reflect the specific interactional context. I also look specifically at self-answered questions, which provide a unique insight into evidential choice as the speaker and addressee are the same person. Interrogative uses of evidentials in Lamjung Yolmo are an example of cognitively complex interactional use of grammatical forms. This paper furthers our knowledge of the relationship between evidentiality and interrogativity, and demonstrates one way people can track each other's knowledge status in interaction.

Information Structure in Northern Amis: A Morphosyntactic Analysis

This paper is a study of Information Structure (IS) in Northern Amis and its interaction with the voice system. These two domains are distinct, but interact­ ing: the voice system obeys semantic and syntactic constraints, while IS and its related discourse categories (topics, foci) follows discourse parameters. A morphosyntactic analysis of the distinctive features of topics and focusing devices is conducted, showing how pragmatics maps onto syntax. Among focusing devices are evidential in situ foci, which recruit two evidential forms, han(=tu) and sa(=tu), and cleft narrow foci (informative or restrictive). Evi­ dential foci also express stance and do not trigger any syntactic restructuring, in contrast with extracted cleft foci. As in other Formosan languages, a cleft core argument must be the syntactic pivot of the clause containing the presup­ position, while there is no such constraint for cleft peripheral arguments and for adjuncts, which trigger a complement clause.

A Static Evidential Network for Context Reasoning in Home-Based Care

In home-based care, reliable contextual information of remotely monitored patients should be generated by correctly recognizing the activities to prevent hazardous situations of the patient. It is difficult to achieve a higher confidence level of con- textual information for several reasons. First, low-level data from multisensors have different degrees of uncertainty. Second, gen- erated contexts can be conflicting, even though they are acquired by simultaneous operations. We propose the static evidential fu- sion process (SEFP) as a context-reasoning method. The context- reasoning method processes sensor data with an evidential form based on the Dezert-Smarandache theory (DSmT). The DSmT ap- proach reduces ambiguous or conflicting contextual information in multisensor networks. Moreover, we compare SEFP based on DSmT with traditional fusion processes such as Bayesian networks and the Dempster-Shafer theory to understand the uncertainty analysis in decision making and to show the improvement of the DSmT approach compared to the others.

Looking at the evidence in visual world: eye-movements reveal how bilingual and monolingual Turkish speakers process grammatical evidentiality.

This study presents pioneering data on how adult early bilinguals (heritage speakers) and late bilingual speakers of Turkish and German process grammatical evidentiality in a visual world setting in comparison to monolingual speakers of Turkish. Turkish marks evidentiality, the linguistic reference to information source, through inflectional affixes signaling either direct (-DI) or indirect (-mIş) evidentiality. We conducted an eye-tracking-during-listening experiment where participants were given access to visual ‘evidence’ supporting the use of either a direct or indirect evidential form. The behavioral results indicate that the monolingual Turkish speakers comprehended direct and indirect evidential scenarios equally well. In contrast, both late and early bilinguals were less accurate and slower to respond to direct than to indirect evidentials. The behavioral results were also reflected in the proportions of looks data. That is, both late and early bilinguals fixated less frequently on the target picture in the direct than in the indirect evidential condition while the monolinguals showed no difference between these conditions. Taken together, our results indicate reduced sensitivity to the semantic and pragmatic function of direct evidential forms in both late and early bilingual speakers, suggesting a simplification of the Turkish evidentiality system in Turkish heritage grammars. We discuss our findings with regard to theories of incomplete acquisition and first language attrition.