Evidentiality and expression of evidence

[Hannu Tommola]

Dear Sasha,

I'm not sure if this is extremely interesting to you, but here are  
some ways to render the same in Finnish (with no grammatical  
evidentials, either, unlike Estonian).

1.
Vasja-n	pallo	puuttu-u,	se	on	näköjään	pelaa-ma-ssa.
Vasja-s	ball	miss-3SG	3SG	is	VIDNO		play-3INF-INESS
'Vasja's ball is missing, VIDNO he is out playing.'

2.a.
Vasja-n	pallo	puuttu-u,   se	näk-y-y	        ole-va-n	pelaa-ma-ssa.
Vasja-s	ball	miss-3SG    3SG	see-REFL-3SG	be-PART-GEN	play-3INF-INESS
'Vasja's ball is missing, he seems to be out playing.'

2.b.
Vasja-n	pallo	puuttu-u,  se	nä-y-ttä-ä	   ole-va-n	pelaa-ma-ssa.
Vasja-s	ball	miss-3SG   3SG	see-REFL-CAUS-3SG  be-PART-GEN	play-3INF-INESS
'Vasja's ball is missing, it looks like he is out playing.'

3.
Vasja-n	pallo	puuttu-u,	se	taita-a		olla	pelaa-ma-ssa.
Vasja-s	ball	miss-3SG	3SG	seem-3SG	be	play-3INF-INESS
'Vasja's ball is missing, KAZHETSJA he is out playing.'

4.
Vasja-n	pallo	puuttu-u,	se	liene-e		pelaa-ma-ssa.
Vasja-s	ball	miss-3SG	3SG	be.POT-3SG	play-3INF-INESS
'Vasja's ball is missing, KAZHETSJA he is out playing.'


Item 1 demonstrates an adverb derived from the stem näk/h- ‘see’; this  
is clearly inferential. (Besides, isn’t VIDIMO also used similarly in  
Russian?)

2a and 2 b use modal auxiliaries, both derivatives of nähdä ‘see’.  
Both are used, however, 2a (with näkyä ‘to be seen’) is not  
necessarily inferential, but rather directly evidenced by sight,  
whereas 2b is used very much like KAZHETSJA. i.e. not necessarily with  
visual evidence.

In 3 there is a “potential auxiliary” which is frequently used to  
replace the synthetic potential (in 4).

Obs. that 1, 2 and 3 all display different syntactic structures.
There are a few other lexical means (adverbs and verbs) to express  
evidentiality in Finnish, but these come to my mind first when  
speaking of inferentiality; 3 and 4 need not have this specific  
meaning, either (similar to KAZHETSJA).

Of course, another sentence order is at least as natural (from the  
inferred to the cause):

Vasja	on  näköjään	pelaa-ma-ssa,	 kun	se-n	pallo	puuttu-u.
Vasja	is  VIDNO	play-3INF-INESS	because	3SG-GEN	ball	miss-3SG
'Vasja is VIDNO out playing, since his ball is missing'

Best,
Hannu

Quoting Alexander Letuchiy <alexander_letuchiy at HOTMAIL.COM>:

>
> Dear typologists,
>
> Many of us deal with evidentiality, which is marked grammatically,  
> as in Bulgarian and Tariana. Sometimes the same semantic components  
> (various types of source of information) are expressed with lexical  
> units, such as English "allegedly" ('as smb. says'), which is  
> semantically close to Aikhenvald's reported evidentiality.
>
> I have a very concrete question concerning so-called inferred  
> evidentiality - the type of evidentiality when our conclusion "is  
> based on obvious evidence" [Aikhenvald 2004: 2] (for instance, if  
> someone comes home very dirty and with a ball in his hand we suppose  
> that he has played football).
>
> Russian does not have grammatical marking of evidentiality, but some  
> lexical units, such as "vidno", "poxozhe" and "kazhetsja" mark a  
> meaning close to inferred evidentiality. In principle, all the three  
> are applicable to the situation with football playing. But they are  
> syntactically different.
>
> "Vidno" is usually used when the piece of evidence is directly  
> mentioned in the pre- or post-text - the most characteristic use is:
>
> Vasinogo    m'acha     net,        vidno,    on       v           
> futbol        igraet
> Vasja's       ball          no          VIDNO    he      in           
> football     plays
> 'Vasja's ball is missing, VIDNO he plays football.'
>
> In contrast, "kazhetsja" is better used when the piece of evidence  
> is not directly used - in the example above it would be better to  
> omit "Vasja's ball is missing" to use "kazhetsja".
>
> "Poxozhe" can be used in the both type of sentences.
>
> I would like to ask: do you observe something like that in your  
> languages (both with grammatical evidentiality and lexical  
> expression of evidential meaning? If yes, is there typological  
> research where this problem would be analyzed?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Alexander Letuchiy, Moscow
-- 
Hannu Tommola, Professor of Russian Language (Translation Theory and Practice)
School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies
FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Finland
Phone: +358-(0)3-3551 6102
www.uta.fi/~trhato