36.1974, Reviews: The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality: Robertson (2025)

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Subject: 36.1974, Reviews: The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality: Robertson (2025)

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Date: 27-Jun-2025
From: David Robertson [david.robertson at providence.org]
Subject: General Linguistics, Morphology, Sociolinguistics, Syntax; The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality: Robertson (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-1432

Title: The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality
Series Title: Oxford Handbooks
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Oxford University Press
           http://www.oup.com/us
Book URL:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-evidentiality-9780198901013?utm_source=linguistlist&utm_medium=listserv&utm_campaign=linguistics

Editor(s): Alexandra Aikhenvald

Reviewer: David Robertson

SUMMARY
(xxv, 882 pp.) This paperback is the latest edition of a valuable
anthology originally published in 2018; it is the most recent among
several such under the same editor/author, and incorporates the
insights of those collections. As the book points out, evidentiality
is a topic that is fairly newly recognized in general linguistics. It
probably is still not taught in any depth to most undergraduates or
even grad students; an impressionistic Google Books search of recent
introductory linguistic textbooks suggests as much. This volume
supplies a grounding in, and a typological survey of, evidentiality,
which is definable as the ways, particularly those that are
grammaticalized and in many languages obligatory, in which speakers
specify the source, or means, of their knowledge about propositions
that they are discussing, ranging from direct observation to
inference, hearsay, and commonly shared knowledge. Collected in this
book are chapters involving various subdisciplines and a fairly large
typological sampling of detailed studies.
Orientational preliminaries are taken care of with a Preface (xi),
List of Maps (xiii), List of Tables (xv-xvii), List of Figures (xix),
a tally of Abbreviations and Conventions (xxi-xxv), and short
biographies of The Contributors (xxvii-xxxv). As is customary, these,
with the References (755-842), Author Index (843-857), Language Index
(859-871), and Subject Index (873-882), bracket the main text.
The body of the volume begins with Chapter 1, an essay by editor
Aikhenvald, “Evidentiality: The Framework” (1-36), whose summation of
what is currently known of the phenomenon is further distilled into
“Appendix A: Fieldworker Guide to Evidentiality Systems: Checklist of
Points” (37-40) and “Appendix B: Evidentiality and Related Concepts:
Glossary of Terms” (40-43).
After that introduction come four groups of studies by contributors.
Part I, examining the interactions of evidentiality with other
categories, and its diachronic course, is “Evidentiality: Its
Expression, Scope, and History”. Included in it are Chapter 2
“Evidentials and Person” by Jackson T.S. Sun (47-63); Chapter 3
“Evidentiality and Its Relations with Other Verbal Categories” by
Diana Forker (65-84); Chapter 4 “Evidentials and Epistemic Modality”
(85-108); Chapter 5 “Non-Propositional Evidentiality” by Guillaume
Jacques (109-123);  Chapter 6 “Where Do Evidentials Come From?” by
Victor A. Friedman (124-147); and Chapter 7 “Evidentiality and
Language Contact” by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (148-172).
The most socio- and psycho- linguistically oriented portion of the
volume is Part II, “Evidentiality in Cognition, Communication, and
Society”. Here we find Chapter 8 “Evidentials, Information Sources,
and Cognition” by Ercenur Ünal and Anna Papafragou (175-184);  Chapter
9 “The Acquisition of Evidentiality” by Stanka A. Fitneva (185-201);
Chapter 10 “The Interactional and Cultural Pragmatics of Evidentiality
in Pastaza Quichua” by Janis B. Nuckolls (202-221);  Chapter 11
“Evidence and Evidentiality in Quechua Narrative Discourse” by
Rosaleen Howard (222-242); and  Chapter 12 “Stereotypes and
Evidentiality” by Michael Wood (243-257).
The most theoretically-oriented, and briefest, section is Part III,
“Evidentiality and Information Sources: Further Issues and
Approaches”. Its contents are  Chapter  13 “Evidentiality: The Notion
and the Term” by Kasper Boye (261-272);  Chapter 14 “Extragrammatical
Expression of Information Source” by Mario Squartini (273-285); and
Chapter 15 “Evidentiality and Formal Semantic Theories” by Margaret
Speas (286-311).
The main body of this book is the collection of numerous descriptive
case studies that make up Part IV “Evidentiality across the World”.
These encompass  Chapter  16 “Evidentiality and the Cariban Languages”
by Eithne B. Carlin (315-332);  Chapter 17 “Evidentiality in
Nambikwara Languages” by David M. Eberhard (333-356);  Chapter 18
“Evidentiality in Tukanoan Languages” by Kristine Stenzel and Elsa
Gomez-Imbert (357-387);  Chapter 19 “Evidentiality in Boran and
Witotoan Languages” by Katarzyna I. Wojtylak (388-408);  Chapter 20
“Evidentiality in the Uto-Aztecan Languages” by Tim Thornes (409-430);
Chapter 21 “Evidentiality in Algonquian” by Marie-Odile Junker, Conor
M. Quinn, and J. Randolph Valentine (431-462);  Chapter 22
“Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality in Gitksan” by Tyler Peterson
(463-489);  Chapter 23 “Evidentiality in Nakh-Daghestanian Languages”
by Diana Forker (490-509);  Chapter 24 “Turkic Indirectivity” by Lars
Johanson (510-524);  Chapter 25 “Evidentials in Uralic Languages” by
Elena Skribnik and Petar Kehayov (525-553);  Chapter 26 “Evidentiality
in Mongolic” by Benjamin Brosig and Elena Skribnik (554-579);  Chapter
27 “Evidentiality in Tibetic” by Scott DeLancey (580-594); 28
“Evidentiality in Bodic Languages” by Gwendolyn Hyslop (595-609);
Chapter 29 “Evidentiality and the Expression of Knowledge: An African
Perspective” by Anne Storch (610-628);  Chapter 30 “Evidentiality in
the Languages of New Guinea” by Hannah Sarvasy (629-656);  Chapter 31
“Evidentiality in Formosan Languages” by Chia-Jung Pan (657-673);
Chapter 32 “The Reportative in the Languages of the Philippines” by
Josephine S. Daguman (674-692);  Chapter 33 “Evidentiality in Korean”
by Ho-Min Sohn (693-708);  Chapter 34 “Evidentiality in Japanese” by
Heiko Narrog and Wenjiang Yang (709-724);  Chapter 35 “Dizque and
Other Emergent Evidential Forms in Romance Languages” by Asier
Alcázar (725-740); and  Chapter 36 “Evidentiality and Information
Source in Signed Languages” by Sherman Wilcox and Barbara Shaffer
(741-753).
EVALUATION
It is impossible to do full justice to each of the contributions in
such a large and multifarious volume, which is why I evaluate each
section somewhat shallowly but highlight some portions therein that I
think will be of especial use for researchers.
The editor’s introductory chapter is striking as a comprehensive and
concise account of what the research in this linguistic topic has so
far discovered. On the one hand, that is merely customary for the
handbook genre. But on the other, AIkhenvald would seem to have
exceeded expectations and hugely added to that previous work. Among
the outstanding features of this exemplary chapter, which by itself is
a reasonable candidate for a university seminar or outline thereof are
the following points: Aikhenvald gives unusually thorough and clear
recognition to antecedent research by Franz Boas, Roman Jakobson, and
others (3). Aikhenvald provides a novel dimension of critique of
established research methods by emphasizing that evidential structures
are rather unlikely to be found by elicitation using an intermediary
language (7-8). For the majority of conventionally-trained linguists
who remain more or less unfamiliar with it, she does a great service
by explaining how evidentiality can still be a slippery phenomenon to
identify, being expressed by multiple morphosyntactic means in many a
language, sometimes non-obligatorily, and having various scopes (8ff).
>From her considerable field experience and that of the assembled
contributors, she thoughtfully guides us through various further
overtones (e.g. of doubt or certainty) that evidentiality can accrue
which may mislead the unwary researcher (16-17). For instance it
strikes me as enormously useful to be advised by her that
evidentiality is typically expressed less often in certain tenses,
sentence types, and so on (17ff), and that it can closely interact
with egophoricity (24-27). Another example of new insights that she
conveys to the linguistics community with this essay is her firsthand
immersive experience, reinforced by many of the chapters, that
pragmatic and cultural considerations influence one’s choice of
evidential, with a cross-linguistic preference for visually directly
perceived information over other sources, making that therefore the
less-marked term among most languages’ evidentials (27ff). It cannot
be overemphasized that this chapter by the editor is perhaps the best
existing roadmap to the investigation of evidentiality. I now go on to
extract a number of points from the following chapters that I see as
insightful and suggestive of promising future research, likely to
include a good deal of revisitation of already described languages
with (to make an evidential pun) fresh eyes.
In Part I, Sun’s Chapter 2 shows that evidential marking uses a simple
dichotomy between speaker and non-speaker, quite unlike person marking
with its distinction of speech act participant versus other; the
former can sometimes exist in the absence of the latter (48ff), and
the addressee “is often treated in a similar manner as the first
person in true questions, and as the third person in statement” (59).
Forker’s Chapter 3, besides other important inter-category
interactions, especially emphasizes the need for vigilance in
differentiating a language’s treatment of evidentiality from its use
of the conceptually similar category of epistemic modality (71ff).
Crosslinguistically, evidential morphology stands closer to a
predicate stem than do person, mood, or speech act markers, but less
close than do aspect and polarity marking (83). Jacques’ Chapter 5
valuably surveys what we can think of as the non-canonical evidential
domain, nouns, on which a relatively few languages signal
evidentiality via adverbs, demonstrative pronouns, particles, etc.
Sensory rather than non-sensory (inferential etc.) sources are
preferred (112ff); some languages have a generic “best sensory
evidence” inferential, whose type of evidence varies as appropriate
with the real-world traits of the accompanying noun (e.g. a book
versus some drinking water; 114-115). Historical linguists may take
note that Friedman’s Chapter 6 shows that evidential systems can both
“develop and degrade in relatively short periods”, and most of these
systems are of recent vintage. Relatedly, Aikhenvald’s Chapter 7 finds
that evidential systems often result from language- and culture
contact, often from repurposing of grammaticalization of existing
forms, and can be lost due to contact with evidential-less languages
(171).
In Part II, Chapter 10, Nuckolls’ focused study of one Quichua variety
benefits from its insightful cultural observations: small-scale
cultures “value precision when claiming knowledge” and members are
disinclined to speak for others (206), and this is a language very
different from Standard Average European in having extremely few, and
imprecise, speech-act verbs (like ‘warn’, ‘announce’, ‘proclaim’,
etc.), such that it instead finds precision in communication by
“abundant use of speech reports” and of evidential marking (207).
In Part III, Squartini’s Chapter 14 illustrates which means besides
grammatical marking can often express evidential sorts of meaning;
certain sections of the lexicon are found to be recurrently used in
this way, such as adverbials and perception verbs. This is sure to
inspire new insights for those in the business of language
documentation and typology.
Coming to Part IV, Carlin’s Chapter 16 benefits from a culturally
informed approach that finds it “useful to explore the phenomenon of
veridical speech in the broader context of Amazonian peoples” (332),
wherein it is important to proceed from an assumption that states of
being are inherently changeable, with repercussions for marking of
information source and certainty. Chapter 18 by Stenzel and
Gomez-Imbert also advantageously takes overt consideration of the
cultural attitudes to, and metalinguistic commentary on, evidentials
by Tukanoan speakers – a precious addition to our knowledge,
considering how hard (as noted above) it can be to even document
evidentials in use (pages 381-383 are illuminating). Wojtylak’s
Chapter 19 is a nice case study in how two closely neighboring
language families can differ greatly in the complexity and the
frequency and flexibility of use of evidential systems; an unusual
point of precedence worth investigating further in other languages is
that “[w]here two evidentials co-occur, the [I]nferred ‘determines’
the source of reported information” (403). Thornes’ Chapter 20 on
Uto-Aztecan does a fine job of demonstrating how even closely related
languages may vary greatly in their expressions of evidentiality, and
even in their degree of grammaticalization of similarly sourced
evidentials. Peterson’s unique Chapter 22 demonstrates with Gitksan
data the promise that principled syntactic and semantic tests hold out
for elucidating and defining both semantic and pragmatic properties of
evidentials; this approach will be fascinating to see applied to more
languages. Johanson’s Chapter 24 interfaces less seamlessly with the
rest of the volume than do other contributions, using more specialist
Turcological terminology and making little crossreference to the other
chapters; it may therefore be harder for the reader to use its data
and conclusions.
I found Delancey’s Chapter 27 on Tibetic a particularly compelling
presentation, with its attention to paralinguistic factors such as
speaker’s intent and customary usages; his comments on an
autobiographical narrative are like an admonition to linguists wanting
to research the manifestations of evidentiality: “...these categories
are not objectively recoverable...There is no way that one could
consistently predict choice of verb form from some ‘objective’
characterization of the situation” (593-594). Also very stimulating
for similar reasons is Chapter 29 by Storch, who is able to show that
one pragmatic use of logophoric markers, areally common in the Sudanic
Belt, is to indicate information source, and that choice of evidential
marking has much to do with African cultural ideologies about the
power of language to change reality. Another contribution that
exemplifies the dictum that cultural context can importantly deepen
our grasp of linguistic behavior generally, and evidentials
particularly, is Daguman’s incisive Chapter 32 on Philippine
languages, where she finds that the Reportative marker can be deleted
or else can occur in varying positions “as long as the resulting
construction is intelligible” (678); that that marker can suffice as
the answer to a yes/no question (685); that it has established,
conventional uses in discourse (687-8) and newscasting (689-91); and
that “written forms of traditional stories are not inclined to keep
the reportative as used in the source genre” (691). Finally, Wilcox
and Shaffer’s Chapter 36 is highly intriguing for its view into an
area (signed languages) that the great majority of linguists are
unfamiliar with and which is typologically very different from spoken
languages; we have to take this chapter as a valuable pioneering step
in “a vastly under-studied area of signed language linguistics” (752).
This volume is overall approachable, with most of its contributions
demanding little more than a good general grasp of linguistic
concepts. It may be daunting as a sum total, but any given chapter
would make excellent reading for a seminar or a solid reference with
which to build one’s own further research. The reader will come away
with a proper sense of the significant variability – but fundamental
unities – among human languages, and an appreciation that our field
continues to make new discoveries as we become better acquainted with
more and more of them.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
David Douglas Robertson, PhD (University of Victoria, Canada, 2012,
Linguistics) is a freelance consulting linguist who works with the
pidgin-creole Chinook Jargon/Chinuk Wawa and with Southwest Washington
(“Tsamosan”) Salish languages, among others. Current projects include
a grant-funded 3-year “Teach Yourself Northern-Dialect Chinook Jargon”
course; a dictionary and grammar of Lower Chehalis Salish
(Ɬəw̓ál̓məš); and publications on the etymology of the name “Chinook”
and on the Nicola Athabaskan/Dene language of British Columbia. He
publishes daily at http://chinookjargon.com.



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