Siouan evidentiality

[Wallace Chafe]

Probably some of you know about the 1986 book edited by me and Johanna 
Nichols, Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. I mention it 
because it has various things on Indian languages.

I think Aikhenvald made a mistake in narrowing her focus to evidence per 
se. Epistemology is the larger category, and there is much overlap between 
evidence, narrowly defined, and how one evaluates it. I suspect that most 
Indian languages have at the very least a particle (or something) that 
indicates that information is secondhand. Hearsay is one label for it. 
While it may show something about the source of the information, I think at 
the same time it conveys an attitude toward the validity of that 
information.

Northern California languages, which are famous for their evidentiality, 
don't seem to limit it to evidence per se either.

I'll be interested in seeing what people say about Siouan languages.

All the best,
Wally

--On Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:50 PM -0500 rwd0002 at unt.edu wrote:

> Hi all:
>
> I have written a bit on Evidentiality. The two most recent sources are
> Aikhenvald (2004), Evidentiality (Oxford), and Studies in Evidentiality,
> ed. by Aikhenvald and Dixon (2003) (John Benjamins).
>
> I'd expect all Siouan languages to have some evid. marking.  In Lakhota,
> you have a rather minimal set of evid. enclitics or particles:   keyA
> quotative, s^khe quotative (there must be a difference; what the
> difference is should be figured out more clearly, maybe check what Julian
> Rice says), and possibly also huNs^e, and c^he. (Rood and Taylor Handbook
> sketch, p. 475: "assertions that the speaker believes to be true, but for
> which formal proof is lacking".) These might be epistemic, though.  Evid.
> should only code source of knowledge, not degree of
> certainly/uncertainly, but of course there might be overlaps.
>
> Willem de Reuse
>
> Quoting David Kaufman <dvklinguist2003 at yahoo.com>:
>
>> Hi all,
>>  
>> I'm planning on writing a paper to present at this year's conference
>> on Biloxi evidentiality.  It's my understanding that this topic
>> hasn't been much researched in Siouan, but if you have any examples
>> from your respective languages or any other thoughts on it, please
>> let me know.  The long and short of it is that Biloxi seems to have
>> at least 2 evidentiality particles, kane and naxo.  The first
>> indicates 'hearsay' or 'not experienced' whereas the second indicates
>> that it was 'directly experienced' or 'first-hand knowledge.' 
>>  
>> Not sure about other Siouan languages, but Cherokee apparently has a
>> similar system.  If anyone knows of any other Native American
>> languages that have similar systems, please let me know.  I am aware,
>> of course, that evidentiality is hot in Central Asia, and I may give
>> an example or two from SW Monguor, a Mongolic language I worked on as
>> a graduate research assistant last year.
>>  
>> And, oh yes, there is the possibility that use of evidentials in
>> Biloxi may be a male vs. female speech pattern (evidentials may be
>> used only by men according to one of Dorsey's notes).  If anyone has
>> any thoughts on male-female speech patterns in Siouan or other
>> languages, please let me know.
>>  
>> Cheers,
>>  
>> Dave
>>
>>
>>
>
>