Evidentials

[Koontz John E]

Note:

Date:  Fri, 19 Oct 2001 20:52:10 +0200
From:  Mullen John <johnmullen at noos.fr>
Subject:  review of Palmer, Mood and Modality, 2nd ed.

Palmer, Frank R. (2001) Mood and Modality, 2nd ed. Cambridge University
Press, hardback ISBN 0-521-80035-8, xxi+236pp, $64.95, Cambridge
Textbooks in Linguistics (1st ed. 1986; paperback ISBN 0-521-80479-5).

...

The first part of the book attempts to clarify basic concepts. He
begins with the distinction between Realis and Irrealis - unmarked forms
and modalized forms - and the distinction between propositional modality
(where different types of desire/will/capacity are expressed) and event
modality (where different information about the truth of a proposition
is given).

These last two categories are broader than the traditional categories of
"modality of action" and "modality of knowledge, and the following
chapter look in great detail at the different sub-types of modality
which are marked in different languages.

As an example of different types of event modality, we could mention
that different forms are used in Central Pomo to signify

a) It rained
b) It rained (that's an established fact)
c) It rained (I saw it)
d) It rained (I heard it)
e) It rained (I was told)
f) It rained (everything is wet).

====

Koontz:

Of course, neither this classical Pomo example (Pomo forms omitted in
review) nor Palmer are exactly terra nova, but it's perhaps useful to put
Siouan matters in a more general perspective.

The last of these (f) is what I've been somewhat awkwardly calling 'the
evidential' in Omaha-Ponca - the the/khe/dhaN/ge particle that occurs at
the end of various clauses in the sense of 'evidently, apparently'.  What
Siouanists call a declarative is more like (c).  A quotative is somewhere
in the range of (d) or (e), possibly (b).