WIEMER - Evidentials and Epistemic Modality

Evidentials and Epistemic Modality
Oxford Handbooks Online

Björn Wiemer
The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality
Edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Print Publication Date: Jan 2018 Subject: Linguistics, Pragmatics, Morphology and Syntax
Online Publication Date: Mar 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198759515.013.4
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter deals with the relation between the notional domains of information source
and epistemic modality. It surveys various approaches to this relation and the cross-
linguistic patterns of the way in which linguistic units (of diverse formats) with evidential
or epistemic meanings develop extensions whereby they encroach into each other’s
domains. Meaning extensions in either direction can adequately be captured, and
confusion between both domains can be avoided, only if in the analysis of the meaning of
such units (a) an onomasiological and semasiological perspective and (b) a coded-inferred
divide are distinguished. Thus, epistemic extensions often arise as Generalized
Conversational Implicatures (GCIs). Concomitantly, reliability functions as a mechanism
that mediates between, but cannot be identified with, the contributions of evidential and
epistemic meanings. Reliability, together with the predictability of specific markers and
discourse expectations, is considered responsible for the rise of epistemic GCIs.
Keywords: information source, epistemic modality, reliability, Generalized Conversational Implicatures, coded-
inferred divide, meaning extensions, onomasiological/semasiological analysis
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Evidentiality comprises grammatical(ized) reference to an information source. In

contrast, epistemic modality is a conceptual domain pertaining to the speaker’s
assessment of the truth concerning some propositional content p (in logical traditions) or
to the speaker’s subjective evaluation of the degree of certainty that p holds true (in
functional-cognitive frameworks). In this chapter we face two complementary tasks. On
the one hand, this chapter addresses the notional relation between evidential and
epistemic functions conveyed by linguistic expressions of various formats (affixes, clitics,
words, constructions) and syntactic classes (auxiliaries, adverbs, particles,
complementizers, etc.). On the other hand, the chapter discusses the motives behind
epistemic extensions (‘overtones’) of dedicated evidential markers and, vice versa, of
evidential extensions of epistemic markers. Different frameworks of research are
examined. Addressing the notional relation between evidential and epistemic functions
entails looking at linguistic reality from an onomasiological perspective, while discussing
the co-occurrence of evidential and epistemic meanings in specific units implies a
semasiological point of view. These complementary viewpoints must be clearly
differentiated to address claims that evidential and epistemic meanings often co-occur (or
are syncretic), in one way or other, in the meaning or usage of linguistic units; such
observation cannot justify a conclusion that epistemic and evidential functions, or even
whole domains, can be reduced, or subordinated, to one another (Wiemer and Stathi
2010b). Considering functional shifts in either (i.e. evidential ↔ epistemic) direction, or
dubbing linguistic units as evidential or epistemic cannot be sensibly interpreted unless
the notional background has been clarified. I will therefore start by delimitating the two
domains (§4.1) before reviewing theoretical approaches and surveying types of extensions
into epistemic modality or evidentiality (§4.2). I then make an original proposal based on
Generalized Conversational Implicature, with additional considerations regarding the
semantics–pragmatics divide (§4.3), and give a summary (§4.4). For reasons of space,
some relevant issues like the use of evidentials in questions, the relation to mirativity, the
effects of marked focus, or the chronology of epistemic versus evidential meanings in
syntactic reanalysis (e.g. desubordination, also referred to as insubordination) will not be
considered here.
(p. 86) 4.1. Setting the scene

From an onomasiological viewpoint, evidential and epistemic meanings are related to
speakers’ cognitive states (namely, to knowledge and belief); correspondingly, relevant
markers take semantic scope over propositions, but not over states-of-affairs (henceforth
SoAs) or ‘illocutions’.1 The fact that both types of meaning relate to knowledge and belief
(sometimes subsumed under ‘epistemology’, as in Chafe and Nichols 1986) has resulted
in recurrent discussions concerning the relation between evidentiality and epistemic
modality (see §4.2.2). Their conceptual closeness has led Boye (2012) to classify
epistemicity as an umbrella term: evidentiality gives justification to a speaker’s assertion
(by referring to the grounds for judgement), while epistemic modality indicates support of
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a speaker’s claims and any kind of belief state (see Boye’s (2012: 159) semantic map of
epistemicity, in which the solid lines indicate linkages between particular subdomains,
usually showing up as values in epistemic scales or in taxonomies of evidential meanings).
Following Boye, epistemic modality can be divided into degrees of epistemic support,
while epistemic justification can be understood as a synonym of information source (or of
evidentiality, for that matter). I will use epistemic support and epistemic justification in
Boye’s sense.
Thus, while epistemic judgements evaluate propositions in terms of belief and knowledge,
evidentiality ‘stat[es] the existence of a source of evidence for some information; that
includes stating that there is some evidence, and also specifying what type of evidence
there is’ (Aikhenvald 2003a: 1, also 2004a: 3). Aikhenvald’s definition captures
evidentiality as a notional domain. In practice, she has restricted evidentiality to
grammatical means (‘evidentials’), while she proposes calling the notional domain behind
them ‘information source’: ‘ “Evidentiality” is grammaticalized marking of information
source. [ … ] “evidentiality” is a linguistic category whose real-life counterpart is
information source’ (Aikhenvald 2014: 1–2).
Generally, linguistic units are considered grammatical if they enter into more or less
closed paradigms whose members are mutually exclusive and can replace each other in
clearly definable grammatical contexts; eventually, these expectations can turn into
obligatory use.2 Although a distinction between grammatical and lexical markers is
undoubtedly useful (Squartini 2007b; and Chapters 13 and 14 of this volume), I will not
strictly separate evidentiality and information source. There are two reasons for this, in
addition to those given by Boye (§13.4 of this volume). First, the main issue of this
contribution lies in the notional relation of the domains depicted in Boye’s (2012: 159)
semantic map of epistemicity. (p. 87) Empirical research suggests that the same notional
distinctions between justification and support of judgement basically apply to units,
regardless of their place on a grammar–lexicon cline, however it may be defined. This
cline does not play a crucial role in formal semantic analyses either (see §4.2.3). Second,
in many languages, alternative or even complementary choices of otherwise
acknowledged evidentials have proven to be ‘scattered’ in the morphosyntax and do not
make up paradigmatic systems (Boye 2012: 109–24; Aikhenvald 2014: 14; Brugman and
Macaulay 2015: 223–5). All this makes the distinction between grammatical evidentials
and evidential strategies less clear-cut. In other words, the likelihood that an evidential
marker either occasionally (i.e. in actual discourse) or conventionally (i.e. as a result of
diachronic change) acquires epistemic overtones probably depends, all things being
equal, on the tightness of paradigmatic organization into which this marker enters with
alternative evidential markers, as well as possibly also on the degree of fusion with lexical
stems. This applies to evidential strategies as well, regardless of whether we are dealing
with evidential extensions of paradigmatic forms (e.g. TAM grams) or with the evidential
semantics of lexical items such as sentence adverbs like English allegedly, apparently,
obviously, visibly, and tangibly (Lampert 2014). Thus, the real problem seems to be rather
to determine how the degree of predictability of some marker Mi, and its paradigmatic
and syntagmatic relation to other markers M1-n, influence its own meaning (here: the
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evidential value) and evoke inferences that can cause extensions into related domains or,
conversely, from contiguous domains into information source. Concomitantly, we are
required to distinguish between coded and inferred meaning (see §4.3).3
4.2. Determining the relation between

evidential and epistemic meanings
We may determine two interrelated reasons why evidential and epistemic functions (and
the underlying notional domains) tend to be conflated. The first reason lies in research
traditions that are deeply anchored in the description of ‘classical’ languages and
Western philosophy, which has favoured a bias of subordinating evidentiality (= epistemic
justification) to epistemic support (Boye 2012: 15–47; §14.4.1 of Squartini, this volume).
This same bias has probably led scholars of familiar Indo-European languages—or
grammarians of less familiar languages guided by those more familiar ones—to include
evidential distinctions by mood and to ascribe dominant epistemic meanings to forms (or
constructions) whose primary function is to indicate information source.4 Similarly,
(p. 88) propositional modifiers like sentence adverbs or particles whose primary coded
meaning can be shown to be reportive (i.e. indication of hearsay5), in the grammars of

German, Polish, Serbian−Croatian, and other European languages, have customarily
been described as a subcategory of markers that indicate distrust or a disclaimer of the
speaker’s responsibility for the veracity of the conveyed propositional content (Wiemer
2006a: 14–17; 2008a: 20–2; Wiemer/Vrdoljak 2011; Wiemer/Socka 2017: §2.1). A similar
situation obtains for Turkic languages (Johanson 2000a: 70). Evidential meaning
contributions inherent to propositional modifiers that had dominant epistemic meanings
have been overlooked or downplayed; see, for instance, the Russian examples (2a–b) in
§4.2.1.
This ‘historical’ reason intersects with a second, already mentioned one: that both
epistemic and evidential modifiers operate on propositions. Although this has only
recently been made fully explicit in a cognitive cross-linguistic framework (see §4.1),
modal logic built on this premise earlier. Modal operators have been interpreted as
quantifiers over possible worlds described as sets of propositions, and evidential
requirements (also called ‘restrictions’) have been incorporated into the decomposition of
modals. This approach heavily relies on truth-conditional tests and has been elaborated
following Kratzer’s influential theory of communicative backgrounds (German
Redehintergründe; cf. Kratzer 1978, 1981, and subsequent work). Remarkably, in this
framework the mutual relation between epistemic and evidential contributions to
meaning has changed in favour of evidential contributions. This seems to correlate with a
concomitant recent change in the evaluation of truth conditions (see §4.2.3).
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Regardless of the adopted formalism, the relation between evidentiality and epistemic
modality has been understood in various, sometimes diametrically opposed, ways.
Practically all logically possible constellations have been advocated for: (i) the two
domains are separated, although they may imply each other; (ii) both domains overlap
each other in some of their parts; and (iii) one domain is included in the other.6 An
overlap relation (i.e. option (ii)), was argued for by van der Auwera and Plungian (1998),
who claimed that inferential evidentiality coincides with (‘amounts to’) epistemic
necessity, because ‘for both categories we are dealing with the certainty of a judgement
relative to other judgements’ (1998: 86). This argument implied an asymmetry between
the supported judgement and all other possible judgements; cf. Xrakovskij (2005: 91–4)
for a similar point and the comments on example (7) in §4.2.3. At first glance, this
position appears plausible and confirmed, for instance, by the analysis of MUST-
auxiliaries in Germanic and Romance languages, or by the conditions on which perfect
grams extend into indirect evidentiality, such as in Bagvalal (Nakh-Dagestanian,
Tatevosov 2007b: 378), Agul (Nakh-Dagestanian, Majsak and Merdanova 2002: 110), or
Bulgarian (Slavic, Indo-European, Izvorski 1997, among many others). However, many
evidential extensions of perfects are void of stable epistemic overtones, such as
Lithuanian non-agreeing participles as clausal nuclei (Wiemer 2006b), so-called (p. 89)
‘indirectives’ in Turkic and areally contiguous languages.7 Epistemic overtones are quite
typical of small systems (A1, A2) and evidential strategies (like MUST-auxiliaries), but
inferentials in larger systems usually lack them (see §4.2.2).
Option (iii), i.e. inclusion, opens up two opposing options: (iii.a) that evidentiality includes
epistemic modality, or (iii.b) that epistemic modality includes evidentiality. Option (iii.b)
for a long time dominated in the aforementioned tradition in Western linguistics and has
persisted in many European national philologies. The opposite direction of inclusion,
(iii.a), is tantamount to Plungian’s (2001: 354) claim that ‘an evidential supplement can
always be seen in an epistemic marker, [while] the opposite does not always hold’. That
is, all epistemic markers must also be inferential, because any epistemic state (conviction,
assumption, doubt, etc.) is derived from some basis of reasoning, if only from the
speaker’s general, culturally conditioned knowledge background (i.e. without a sensory
basis), or from endophatic processes like hunger or dreams (i.e. with a sensory basis, but
with purely internal stimuli).
Plungian’s generalization may be read to suggest a conceptual dominance of source-

related meaning components over epistemic commitment, but it does not imply anything
about whether, and how consistently, languages employ distinct markers to indicate
specific sources, or how functions cluster for types of markers. Before turning to the
empirical observations, let us establish the following: if an epistemic ⊃ evidential
implication8 universally (and trivially) holds true as sort of conceptual–pragmatic default,
differences between languages might be ordered on a cline. On one end this default is
often unspecified, simply because it is a default, and the evidential contribution can be
determined from the context, unless there is some specific need for marking information
source. What these languages highlight is the degree of epistemic support. On the other
end are those languages for which specific values of this default implication are marked
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more or less consistently (i.e. the default is made distinct and placed in the foreground),
because a speaker must be ‘accurate’ in the validational basis of their assertion to be
considered a reliable person. The latter end would be typical of evidential-prominent
languages, and the former of epistemic-prominent ones. This distinction was suggested
by van der Auwera and Ammann (2005), cf. also Boye (2012). Certainly, this should not
only be regarded as a typological continuum, but be extended to include
extragrammatical marking. However, apart from this demand, we must ask what causes
epistemic- or evidential-prominence in the first place.
At present it seems impossible to answer this question without circularity (Aikhenvald

2014: 41). But, regardless of how evidential systems arise, prominence relations between
epistemic and evidential meaning contributions are substantially influenced by the system
of evidentials (if a language has them in a stricter sense) and of evidential strategies,
because both have an impact on both the range of information source meanings of
individual markers and on their associations with epistemic (or further related) meanings.
Aikhenvald (2004a: 192–3) generalized that ‘[t]he larger the evidential system, the less
likely are the evidential terms to develop epistemic extensions’. An account of a system
includes not only the number of participating grams, but also of predictability (which, at
its most extreme, (p. 90) amounts to obligatoriness; see §4.1). Taking these
considerations as a reasonable point of departure, one may argue that one- or two-sided
implications between evidential and epistemic meanings are more likely to cause covert
complexity, the less paradigmatically tight and predictable is the use of evidentials, in
general, and of specific evidentials, in particular. This said, we need to clearly distinguish
between concepts on the semantics–pragmatics interface (= coded-inferred divide).
From a semasiological viewpoint, evidentials often show properties related to (a)

illocutionary strength, (b) degree of informativity,9 and (c) reliability of the source. While
(a) and (b) have recently been surveyed by Brugman and Macaulay (2015), (c) will be
brought into focus in §4.2.4. First, however, I will begin with the distributional behaviour
of some evidential markers and show that features underlying the behaviour of dedicated
evidentials can also be disclosed as evidential contributions in the meanings of
extragrammatical markers (§4.2.1). I assume that these meaning contributions make such
markers liable to becoming evidential strategies. §4.2.2 continues with a selective survey
of epistemic extensions of evidential markers and evidential extensions of epistemic
markers. §4.2.3 discusses the contribution made by formal semantics to better
understand the evidential–epistemic relationship. In §4.2.4 I argue for reliability as a
concept that mediates between evidential and epistemic meanings, but does not belong to
either of them.
4.2.1. Grammatical distribution, system organization, and evidential

contributions
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Three circumstances are indicative of evidential and epistemic meanings not being
reducible to one another. The first circumstance has to do with the distribution of
relevant markers. In many languages evidential and epistemic markers can, but need not,
be combined. For instance, evidentiality can be marked in conditionals, as in some
Latvian and Lithuanian dialects (Holvoet 2001a: 111) or in Macedonian (Friedman 2003:
205). Evidential meanings can also be distinguished in other non-indicative moods (often
called ‘irrealis’) or for the future (e.g. in Cuzco Quechua); for a survey cf. Aikhenvald
(2004a: 165, 257–60). The second circumstance has to do with the way linguists usually
organize these functions into systems. Whereas epistemic functions can be arranged
along a gradient from full certainty to a complete lack of certainty, or from full support to
neutral support—and are therefore often conceived of as contiguous intervals on a scale—
it makes no sense to present evidential functions in scalar terms. In fact, what might
different degrees of hearsay or of inferences mean?10 Instead, evidential functions are
organized in taxonomies (Plungian 2001; (p. 91) Aikhenvald 2004) or networks (Anderson
1986; Squartini 2001, 2008). For the organization of meanings of evidentials cf. Chapter 1
of this volume.
The third circumstance lies in the observation that the distribution of many propositional
markers differs because these markers narrow down the specific source used to justify a
claim (how one knows p). This observation applies independently of any lexicon–grammar
distinction. We find it for dedicated grammatical markers like those in Tariana
(Aikhenvald 2004a: 3–4), Cuzco Quechua (Faller 2002, 2011), or St’át’imcets, with the
latter distinguishing between the adverb-like marker lákw7a (which is used if inference is
based on any—except visual—perceptual input) and k’a (which is used for inferences that
exclude perceptual input). See the following example from Matthewson (2012a: 94); here
# indicates inadequacy (glossing adapted):
(1)
However, also in many languages without grammatical evidentials we observe a cross-

linguistically recurrent ‘cut’ among evidential functions that results from a distinction
between perceptually accessible information (2a) and claims for which, instead of
perceptual information, the speaker rests on some specific sort of knowledge (2b).
Compare the following Russian sentences with propositional modifiers that form a
minimal pair concerning the [± perceivable] distinction:
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(2)
(2)
Kažetsja (originally ‘seem[IMPERV].PRS.3SG’) can be used only if the speaker has

immediate access to pertinent perceptual stimuli—for instance, if they have lifted the
receiver and heard the other person’s voice (2a). The adverb naverno would not be
appropriate in such a situation; instead, it would be suitable if the speaker has heard the
phone ring, has not yet lifted the receiver, but knows that this was the time when the
editor was supposed to call (2b). In this situation, in turn, kažetsja would be
inappropriate. This distinction recurs time and again in languages,11 and it applies
regardless of whether any of these units can additionally be ascribed some specific
epistemic value, indicating the speaker’s commitment. One can therefore construct
taxonomies (or networks) of evidential values regardless of whether (p. 92) these values
interfere with epistemic support. In fact, Jakovleva (1988, 1994: 196–251) built up a
cross-classification of Russian propositional markers consisting of an evidential [±
perceivable] and epistemic feature of weak versus strong certainty.12 A very similar [±
perceivable] bifurcation of information source for inferentials was independently
proposed by Squartini (2008) for Italian and French: ‘circumstantialsʼ versus ‘genericsʼ.
For inferences based not on perception but on deductive reasoning or on general

knowledge,13 as well as for non-specific markers of information source, the distinction
between evidential and epistemic functions is easily blurred in epistemic-prominent
languages, in which inferentials are not a part of a larger, paradigmatically tight
system.14 Consider, for instance, the Italian future tense, which Squartini (2008) assigns
to his group of ‘conjecturals’. The basic feature of this group is ‘that any evidence, both
external and based on general world knowledge, is lacking’ (2008: 924). If the evidential
basis for an inference is defined ex negativo, interlocutors may conclude that the speaker
does not fully support their statement. As in other European languages, the default to
mark full support is the (present) indicative, while the future tense is employed as a
device to weaken assertiveness. If there is no concomitant specific source of evidence to
justify the statement, the epistemic contribution to utterance meaning prevails. The
situation differs in evidential-prominent languages. Here, conjectural evidentials need not
imply any uncertainty, and epistemic markers are often organized into separate sets, as,
for instance, in Matses (Panoan); cf. Aikhenvald (2014: 7), in line with Fleck (2007).
While overlap theories have mainly been discussed with regard to inferential markers,
reportive markers have been connected to weak(ened) epistemic support for another
reason, namely, that hearsay dissociates the source of information from the speaker using
the reportive marker (henceforth the ‘actual speaker’), as it presents information from
some other person(s). This fundamental split within evidentiality coincides with the
SELF–OTHER distinction (Frawley 1992), also dubbed [± personal] in Plungian (2001); cf.
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Squartini (§14.4.4.1 of this volume). Inferentiality, together with direct experience, is

characterized as [+ personal SELF], while reportativity is characterized as [− personal
OTHER]. According to Aikhenvald’s (2004a) classification, the SELF–OTHER distinction is
grammaticalized in A3 systems (‘reportive’ versus everything else), whereas oppositions
of ‘(in)directivity’ (Johanson 2000a; Chapter 24 of this volume) or
‘(non)confirmativity’ (Friedman 2000a, 2003) are realized in A1 and A2 systems.
Now, why should hearsay necessarily weaken epistemic support? In the first place, by
relating propositional content to another subject’s utterance, the actual speaker can
remain agnostic with regard to their own epistemic attitude. Correspondingly, reportive
markers can be Janus-faced, in that either epistemic overtones arise or they are
suppressed, but for different and even competing reasons. This is clearly demonstrated
with the reportive enclitic =ami in Saaroa (Formosan, Austronesian) by Pan (2014: 97):
‘In Saaroa, the reported evidential makes an implicit reference to the speaker’s attitude
towards the information acquired (p. 93) from someone else. There are two reasons that
the Saaroa speaker may opt to employ the reported evidential. The first reason is to show
his or her objectivity; that is, the speaker is not an eyewitness to the event and knows
about it from someone else. The second reason is as a means of shifting responsibility for
the information and implying that related facts may have a connotation of unreliable
information.’ In the first case, no epistemic overtones arise because the speaker simply
accurately indicates information source. In the second case, the same device is used to
safeguard the speaker against being accused of possibly conveying false propositional
content.
Moreover, of the two competing motivations, one or the other may gain dominance
depending on genre or other discourse factors. Competing motivations are no prerogative
of grammatical evidentials, but can be observed among lexical reportive markers and
evidential strategies as well (see §4.3). In general, languages demonstrate variation in the
extent to which reported (as well as quoted) speech is associated with epistemic stance
taking. Aikhenvald (2014: 26–7) shows that, in one kind of community, quoted or reported
speech may be treated as a technique to downplay the reliability of the reported speaker,
while in another community the same techniques are ‘way[s] of stressing the veracity of
what one is talking about’ (2014: 27).
4.2.2. Extensions either way: A selective survey
From a diachronic viewpoint, evidential and epistemic functions develop from each other
in either direction (Squartini 2009). The direction obviously depends not on the status of
the marker on a lexicon–grammar cline, but rather on the semantics of the source
expression in specific constructions, often mediated or triggered by (non-)factuality.
I start with epistemic extensions of evidential expressions. In general, if epistemic

extensions take place, certainty is correlated with visual or firsthand evidentials, while
uncertainty occurs with different types of markers of indirect (i.e. non-firsthand)
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evidentiality. However, visual or sensory evidentials of small systems (A1, A4) almost
never show epistemic extensions, while visual or direct evidentials in larger systems have
been observed to be associated with firm belief or certainty (e.g. Tariana =naka). Visual
evidentials are often employed when referring to encyclopedic knowledge, such as
information about the sun, or about a tribe’s mythical provenance. Examples of this can
be found in languages in the Vaupé area, in Shipibo-Konibo, Tsafiki, and Cora (C2 or C3);
cf. Aikhenvald (2004a: 159–73, 2014: 29–30). By contrast, no epistemic extensions have
been reported for non-visual evidentials, except for Maricopa (B3), whose non-visual
evidential can mark certainty (Aikhenvald 2004a: 163, 171, 187).
In some languages (e.g. Bagvalal, Northeast Caucasian, A1), firsthand evidentials are
used to refer to visible results if the verb describes something that cannot be seen (e.g.
feelings or cognitive processes), but about which the speaker is certain (Aikhenvald
2004a: 155). In this case, the extension within evidentiality (from direct to inferred) was
probably conditioned by a preceding epistemic extension. This is different in languages
with larger systems, for which inferred evidentials can be used to describe somebody
else’s internal experience. For instance, Wanka Quechua =chra can weaken the speaker’s
epistemic support, possibly including doubt; this is particularly common if inferred
evidentials are used to speak about other people’s feelings (which the speaker cannot be
certain about). However, the epistemic (p. 94) extension appears also to be conditioned
by the paradigmatic opposition to =mi (Aikhenvald 2004a: 161, 165–6, after Floyd 1999).
The Eastern Pomo inferred marker -ine, in turn, is used in opposition to the visual marker
-a and the non-visual marker -nk’e if the speaker makes an inference based on something
other than visually accessible data. In this case, no epistemic overtones arise (Aikhenvald
2004a: 169–70).
In general, inferentials only rarely show epistemic overtones in languages with elaborate
evidential systems. However, if these overtones are mentioned, it is assumed evidentials
that show such extensions, not inferred evidentials (indicating sensory evidence). This
applies, for example, in Shipibo-Konibo -bira, which is used if ‘the speaker has a fairly
well-sustained hypothesis for the proposition expressed’, as well as for the speculative -
mein. Either marker is employed if the basis on which inferences are drawn is poor
(Valenzuela 2003: 44–9; cf. also Aikhenvald 2004a: 176, 192).
Within indirect evidentiality, epistemic overtones are commonplace for A2 systems, such
as in the Eurasian ‘evidential belt’ (Balkan, Turkic, Iranian languages, and languages of
the Caucasus), including Baltic and many Finno-Ugric languages (e.g. Komi, Mari,
Northern Khanty), but we also encounter them in Algonquian languages (Aikhenvald
2004a: 279–80; 2011a: 611). All these systems arose as evidential strategies extended
from resultative-perfect grams. That these systems are particularly prone to epistemic
meanings that weaken assertiveness is to be expected in view of the frequently optional
character of the non-firsthand term.15 Any additional marking that need not generally be
expected easily triggers Gricean implicatures (see §4.3.1).
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A somewhat special grammatical condition can be observed in Jarawara (A1). If the non-
eyewitnessed immediate past marker occurs in a slot after the declarative—normally it
occurs before it—this implies uncertainty (Dixon 2003: 173).
The road into epistemic extensions is mediated by ‘conceptual distance’ if an inferred or

indirect evidential is employed to emphasize that the speaker has nothing to do with, or
does not approve of, the described state of affairs. This may then extend into uncertainty
(as is the case in Cree, Aikhenvald 2004a: 157–8), but it can also ‘end up’ simply
communicating distance. For instance, an inferred evidential is used instead of a visual
evidential (as in Tsafiki, C2, Aikhenvald 2004a: 172–3); alternatively, Desano (Eastern
Tukanoan) employs the assumed evidential in origin stories—for which there is no
evidence—while the remote past visual is used in ‘[n]arratives involving narrators’
personal experiences’ (Aikhenvald 2004a: 312). Again, in these cases, paradigmatic
contrasts prove important. However, the effects of non-participation also occur in less
elaborate systems, for instance in Hinuq (Nakh-Daghestanian, A2). In this case, the
speaker’s personal knowledge sphere is associated with the neutral past as the unmarked
term, which yields firsthand knowledge only as an implicature: ‘It is not part of the
meaning of these verbal forms and can therefore, under the appropriate circumstances,
be cancelled’ (Forker 2014: 56). Cf. Lazard (2000: 212) for an analogical point concerning
Iranian. The cancellation of generalized implicatures will be discussed in §4.3.
With regard to reportive markers, the cross-linguistic occurrence of epistemic extensions

varies considerably, making it almost impossible to predict which languages show them at
(p. 95) all, and for which of their reportive markers. Epistemic extensions range from
distancing or weakening a claim to outright rejection of the truth of the reported

proposition. This range can be covered by a single marker in some languages (e.g.
Warlpiri nganta) or be more ‘fixed’. For instance, in Mixtec languages (Oto-Manguean),
hearsay markers regularly function as disclaimers (Aikhenvald 2004a: 136–7, 181–5,
193).16 Unlike inferentials, in the case of reportive markers there is no good evidence that
the specific epistemic value (distance, doubt, outright rejection) or the liability to
epistemic overtones as such depends on the system of evidentials or on the predictability
of the marker. Such extensions are also frequently encountered in small systems with a
low degree of obligatoriness (e.g. in Saaroa; see §4.2.1), and they are commonplace in the
case of evidential strategies and specialized reportive markers in European languages.
The epistemic extension is usually highly context sensitive (see §4.3), with a well-known
case being reportive particles derived from SAY-verbs (mostly with the agglutinated
complementizer as a holistic unit) in Spanish and other Romance languages (Cruschina
and Remberger 2008). For instance, consistent epistemic extensions are identified for
dizque in Mexican Spanish (Olbertz 2007), but the situation differs among Spanish
varieties in the Andean region (Dankel 2015 and Alcázar, Chapter 35 of this volume, the
latter with remarks on the relative chronology of the development of evidential and
epistemic meanings). In general, the heterogeneity observed particularly among reportive
markers corresponds to what we observe with direct speech (or quotatives). For instance,
epistemic overtones are associated with direct speech in Tewa, Gahuku, and Usan, but
are lacking in Tariana (Aikhenvald 2004a: 138–40) and Tatar (Greed 2014: 75). This
Page 11 of 29

suggests that reportive (and quotative) markers behave like other techniques of reporting
of other people’s speech—namely, that they are more cross-linguistically variable and
more context sensitive than inferentials, and that they depend on the general attitude
toward reports of other people’s speech.
Let us now look at evidential extensions of epistemic expressions. Non-indicative moods

are well-known as a class of grams that are related to epistemic modality, and that often
develop evidential extensions. Consider, for instance, conjunct dubitative forms in
Algonquian languages, or conditionals/subjunctives in Romance and Germanic languages.
Future grams can evolve into epistemic, and thence into evidential, markers (Aikhenvald
2011a: 610). In parallel to conditionals and subjunctives, evidential extensions of modal
auxiliaries are frequent in European languages (Wiemer 2010b: 77–87), although the
degree of conventionalization into markers of reportive or indirect evidentiality varies.
Other examples of evidential extensions that conventionalized into dedicated evidentials
are the West Greenlandic inferential affix -gunar- (< Proto-Eskimo ‘probably’) and, it is
likely, the hearsay evidential (< ‘maybe’) in Wintu (Aikhenvald 2011a: 609).
Another frequent source of evidential extensions—first into inferential, thence often also
into reportive evidentiality—is SEEM-verbs17 and, at least in the Eastern part of Europe,
markers of irreal comparison (‘as if, as though’). Arguably, these units entered the
propositional domain as epistemic modifiers before evidential functions could become
more (p. 96) salient. Compare Polish jakoby ‘as if’ and podobno ‘allegedly’ (< ‘be like,
similar’), or Russian (kak) budto ‘as if’ and, more recently, vrode ‘as though’ (< ‘sort of’).
Available evidence suggests that such expressions move from irreal comparison first into
perception-based inferentiality and thence into the reportive domain (Wiemer 2005,
2015a). The latter process seems to be supported by contexts that exclude firsthand
experience as a basis for inferences (Wiemer 2008b: 349–50 on possibly ongoing change
in Russian). A similar case, although one that represents another etymological type, is
Lithuanian esą (Holvoet 2010: 88–92; Wiemer 2010a). When such units start functioning
as complementizers, they seem to inherit the epistemic load of ‘their’ complement-taking
predicates, which denote either epistemic attitudes with different degrees of (usually
negative) commitment (e.g. doubt, ‘not true’), or speech acts from which the actual
speaker can distance themselves (‘assert’); cf., for instance, Zaitseva (1995: 20–7) and
Letuchiy (2010: 359–62) on Russian budto. This may be the reason why Polish jakoby is
preferred in polemic discourse, not only as a complementizer but also as a particle (Socka
2015: 127, 129). However, there also is a tendency for these units to lose epistemic
overtones when they are used as particles and to become restricted to reportive use.
Thus, epistemic overtones often but not always remain as reflexes from source
constructions. Apart from ‘as if’-units, we encounter another type of modal source
expression, at least in European languages. Reportive markers can arise from
interpretive deontics, such as the German auxiliary sollen ‘1. should, ought to > 2. REP’
(Zeman 2013) and its Polish equivalent mieć ‘1. have > 2. should, ought to > 3.
REP’ (Hansen 1999: 122–8), or the Latvian particle lai (< laid.SG.IMP of laist ‘let’) and its
Page 12 of 29

Slovene equivalent naj (< nehaj.SG.IMP of nehati ‘let’). With all these markers (except
Latvian lai) epistemic overtones can be suppressed (Wiemer 2010b: 81–3; Holvoet and
Konickaja 2011; Holvoet 2012).
4.2.3. The contribution made by formal semantics
The relation between epistemic and evidential meanings has also been intensely
discussed by formal semanticists (for a systematic survey cf. Speas, Chapter 15 of this
volume). In the context of the present chapter, the relevant points are changes in the
significance assigned to truth conditions, the relation between knowledge and belief
states, the treatment of scopal properties and, most importantly, the way meanings are
decomposed. Following Kratzer (1978, 1981), formal semanticists start from the premise
that evidentials behave very much like epistemic modals, and that the latter can be
described as quantifiers over (propositions stating assertions about) possible worlds.
Certainty (i.e. full epistemic support), then, is decomposed with the universal quantifier,
while possibility (i.e. partial or neutral epistemic support) implies the existential
quantifier. Quantification over possible worlds is supplemented by the Modal Base and
the Ordering Source.18 The former is the set of propositions conveying contingent facts
known to the speaker, while the latter is the set of the speaker’s assumptions about how
the world normally works, spelling out the stable knowledge background about causal
relations. For instance, if the speaker notices that it is 5:00 pm (Modal Base) and knows
that, at that time (p. 97) of the day, cows are habitually milked in their parents’ farm
(Ordering Source), they infer that, at the present moment, cows are almost certainly
being milked. In English the speaker can say just (3a), but (3b), with a necessity modal, is
an option, too. An equivalent to must in (3b) would be Russian naverno (see 2b) or the so-
called ‘expectative’ (alternatively, assumed marker) in Wintu, see (4) cited from
Schlichter (1986: 53):
(3)
(3)
(4)
Apart from the fact that English must and Russian naverno are optional, while the Wintu -
ʔel morpheme is considered obligatory in the type of context discussed here, Russian
naverno is restricted to [− perceivable] triggers of inferences (which is compatible with
knowledge about habits), while English must is insensitive to the [± perceivable]
distinction, allowing its Modal Base to be left unspecified. With reportive evidence—i.e.
{p was said by X/by someone else} in the Modal Base—the Ordering Source may be
empty, or it may only be ‘filled’ with the assumption that the original speaker of p is
Page 13 of 29

reliable (and did not lie).19 In this case, however, reliability introduces another dimension,
which dilutes the notion of information source (see §4.2.4).
This ‘sharework’ of contributions to inferences confirms that inferences are no primitive

notion; in fact, they are not even evidential as such, but products of mental processes.
Modal Base and Ordering Source provide the evidential background, which must be
stipulated item by item. Brugman and Macaulay (2015: 206) caught up with this insight
and in actual practice reduced ‘sources of evidence’ to a division of sensory bases from
which inferences can be drawn. This division is equivalent to what elsewhere has been
dubbed ‘Modes of Knowing’ (Squartini 2008: 917).
If tests tailored according to truth-conditional premises are applied, they yield different
results as for whether evidentials scope over presuppositions, additional propositions, or
illocutions (Speas, §15.1 of this volume). While we will not enter into the discussion about
scope here (for which see Boye 2010b: 296–8, 2012: 207; §15.5.4 of Speas, this volume),
it is remarkable that the apparently heterogeneous scopal properties of evidentials have
led to the conclusion ‘that truth-conditionality (or non-truth-conditionality) cannot be
considered a criterial property of evidential items’ (Brugman and Macaulay 2015: 211).
That is, ‘truth’ can no longer be considered as a concept that may be used to define
evidentials. Truth may be entailed by some evidentials, namely if they mark direct
evidence, but this is not a general property of evidentials as such. Modals differ in this
respect inasmuch as any belief state requires the speaker to think that p is true in at least
some possible world (M. Faller, p.c.).
In practice, divergent opinions as to what constitutes a genuine component in the

meaning of an evidential marker have caused equally divergent, even contradictory views
on the general relation of evidentials to epistemic modals. This situation reminds us of
the diversity (p. 98) of views on overlaps, insertions, or mutual entailment between the
domains of information source and epistemic modality that were surveyed at the
beginning of this section. To understand how this has come about, we should realize two
points made in the discussion. On the one hand, defining epistemic modals and
evidentials via truth conditions makes reliability (or ‘assertion strength’) and commitment
(i.e. epistemic support) unnecessary semantic ingredients of evidential markers (San
Roque 2008: 305; Matthewson 2012a: 88, among others). On the other hand, Kratzer
(1981) emphasized not only the difference between knowledge and evidence—which
supplies the basis for knowledge—but also between knowledge and belief, an opposition
with roots in analytic philosophy. Eventually she concluded: ‘There are two distinct
semantic jobs to be done, then: classify evidence versus assess the truth of a proposition
against possibilities projected from a body of evidence. The two jobs often end up being
carried by a single portmanteau item that might then be arbitrarily catalogued as a modal
or evidential’ (2012: 23). The first sentence just re-affirms the basic notional distinction
between epistemic and evidential values (see §4.1), while the second sentence re-
formulates the fact that evidential and epistemic meanings can ‘merge’ in one syncretic
expression. In addition, recent practice in the formal semantic analysis of propositional
Page 14 of 29

markers has created the impression that a given marker is indeed ‘arbitrarily catalogued
as a modal or evidential’, a fact that we will demonstrate using concrete examples.
The possible dissociation of evidentials from the notion of truth makes them compatible
with the speaker’s knowledge that the reported or inferred proposition is false or,
conversely, true. In this vein, Murray (2010a) concluded that the Cheyenne reportive was
not to be considered a modal because speakers can use it if they know the proposition, in
its scope, to be false (cited after Matthewson 2012a: 90, glossing slightly adapted):
(5)
The inverse case applies if the speaker knows the reported proposition to be true. Modals
are infelicitous in such contexts, because they weaken the assertion; thus, the Cheyenne
reportive marker should not be classified as a modal. Compare further a well-known
example from von Fintel and Gillies (2010: 353): if the speaker sees the rain pouring, it is
felicitous to simply say It’s raining (indicative declarative), while the insertion of a
necessity modal (# It must be raining) would render the utterance infelicitous. If an
inferential marker proves to be appropriate in a situation for which the speaker knows
the proposition to be true, this marker can then be claimed to be void of epistemic
overtones; an example of this is the St’át’imcets non-visual inferential marker lákw7a
(cited in Matthewson 2012a: 96):
(6)
20
(p. 99)Matthewson (2012a) objected that these observations are non-conclusive because
‘knowing that the embedded proposition is true is not always sufficient to render modals
infelicitous’ (2012a: 98). One of Matthewson’s arguments is based on examples like (7)
cited, again, from von Fintel and Gillies (2010: 362). This example was designed to show
that English must ‘requires not that the speaker be less than certain, but that the
speaker’s evidence be indirect’ (Matthewson 2012a: 98; emphasis added):
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(7)
Therefore, what these observations show in the first place is that must has some
evidential requirements that restrict the basis on which inferences can be drawn.
Remarkably, more recently, Matthewson took the opposite position concerning the
relation of evidentials and epistemic modals. She provided an analysis—to a large extent
revising von Fintel and Gillies’ (2010) argument on MUST—from whose generalization it
follows ‘that all epistemic modals encode evidential information, as a matter of definition,
since an ‘epistemic modal’ is a modal whose Modal Base relies on evidence (not on
knowledge)’ (Matthewson 2015: 142, emphasis original). While the first part of this
generalization amounts to Plungian’s (2001: 354) claim quoted in the beginning of this
section, its second part results from the knowledge–belief opposition in formal semantics.
However, the conclusions which different scholars drawn from these premises vary
drastically.
4.2.4. Reliability as a mediating concept
Both in the formal semantic and the functional-typological literature on evidentiality the
notion of reliability, or trustworthiness, has frequently been alluded to, but until recently
no attempts have been undertaken to determine its relation to evidentiality and epistemic
modality. For instance, Matthewson (2015) argued that trustworthiness ‘is actually one of
three dimensions of meaning which evidentials encode’ (2015: 149):
(8)
‘Evidence type’ rephrases known parameters of evidentiality; ‘evidence location’ is

another name for the direct–indirect distinction, but excludes hearsay; and ‘evidence
strength’, although coined by Givón (1982) and used by several authors, has hardly ever
been articulated as a separate dimension. Evidence strength merges two dimensions and
results from two fallacies. First, strong (or default) associations between evidential and
epistemic values, recurring among many units across languages, are misunderstood as an
indication either of mutual entailment or of identity (as in ‘overlap theories’); in this case,
the onomasiological and semasiological viewpoint (p. 100) are confused. Second,
epistemic values, or, more precisely, certainty judgements, are conflated with
assessments of reliability triggered by different evidence types (Wiemer 2013: 465).
Page 16 of 29

Evidence strength (or ‘assertion strength’; cf. Speas, §15.4 of this volume) is also a hybrid
notion in the sense that it covertly refers to the level of illocution. This is unfortunate,
since no articulated theory of illocutionary strength seems to exist (Brugman and
Macaulay 2015: 209, 214–15). In fact, the connection between specific sources of
information and illocutionary commitment might turn out to be conditioned by
implicatures mediated by reliability.
Reliability is a synonym of trustworthiness and has recently been highlighted, from a

functional perspective, by Cornillie et al. (2015: 7–9), following Cornillie (2009). Although
reliability is associated with evidentiality, this concept (pace Matthewson 2015 and many
others) cannot be identified with it, nor with epistemic support; rather, it mediates
between both. Reliability can vary independently from whatever is in the Modal Base,
although it betrays a relation to Ordering Source. The degree of trust that a speaker
lends to some information has an impact on their personal commitment to an assertion.
This can be demonstrated even prior to any propositional marking. Consider a simple
example:
(9)
If this utterance ends a report on the findings of forensic physicians who investigated the
victim, we would most probably trust that this statement fits reality. If, however, (9) is
uttered by an unknown pedestrian who saw the victim fall and die on the pathway, this
utterance would certainly raise surprise as a first reaction among those who heard it.
They might ask ‘How do you know?’ or ‘Why are you so convinced?’, or other questions
related to the evidential background, more precisely: to the Ordering Source (informally,
something like {circumstantial pedestrians usually are not physicians}). That is, whether
we give trust to somebody’s assertion depends to a certain extent on our knowledge, or
assumptions, about that person’s competence in the matter they are making an assertion
about.21
If, in contrast to (9), an utterance is marked as being reported, this may, as we saw in
§4.2.1, carry different epistemic implicatures, although this variability is no prerogative of
grammatical markers. Indeed, we can observe it with clausal complements of lexical
verbs: I hear (that) you have been awarded a prize can imply—for either the speaker or
the hearer, or both—that you take the information of the complement for granted;
conversely, it can imply that you take the fact that this information was originally
produced by someone else as an indication that you cannot wholly trust it. Again, this
depends on how reliable you consider the original speaker—if you known him/her—or
hearsay in general. We observe the same in languages with pervasive strategies
contrasting direct versus indirect evidentiality, or in small evidential systems: a
functionally unmarked form is used if the speaker reports from someone whom they judge
to be sufficiently reliable. For instance, in Hinuq (p. 101) (Nakh-Daghestanian, A2) the
neutral past is used if the speaker recounts from personal letters or utterances made by
people with whom the speaker is in a close relationship (Forker 2014: 56–7; see §4.2.2).
Page 17 of 29

In more elaborate systems, reliability can cause restrictions regarding who has the right
to use a reported evidential. These social restrictions interfere with paradigmatic
contrasts, with the latter influencing what counts as the ‘best choice’ to mark the most
reliable source. For instance, in Nganasan (B4, i.e. without a visual evidential), the
reportive is used in the speech of shamans ‘recounting what the spirits had told
them’ (Aikhenvald 2004a: 180); here, access to the world of spirits is tied up with
respectable persons of the community. By contrast, in Shipibo-Konibo (C2), where a
reported is opposed to a direct evidential, dreams are recounted with the reported =ronki
by ordinary people, but with the direct evidential by shamans (Aikhenvald 2014a: 33); as
only shamans are considered persons with ‘reliable access’ to the unreal world, they are
the only ones entitled to use a direct evidential. The use of the direct evidential for events
that cannot normally be seen upgrades those recounted events, and this upgrade follows
known hierarchies of preferred evidentials (for which cf. Aikhenvald 2004a: 307–8). The
crucial point is that it is enhanced reliability assigned to shamans that yields the upgrade.
In turn, in Eastern Pomo (C1), which has a paradigmatic contrast between visual and non-
visual sensory evidential, the non-visual evidential (-ine) is used for stereotyped
experience that cannot be seen; this is used, among other situations, to describe ‘the
deeds of evil spirits and dreams by ordinary people’ (Aikhenvald 2004a: 170).22 In this
case, an upgrade is precluded and the choice of the evidential is motivated by the
‘physical’ nature of the source. Notably, this physical nature and the different esteem
among members of a society (as with the shamans) can work as competing motivations.
Reliability becomes pivotal when direct evidentials acquire meanings of certainty (see
§4.2.2). Reliability is at work when a marker crosses the border from direct to indirect
evidentiality (Squartini, §§14.4.4.1–2 of this volume), in particular when SEE-verbs evolve
a polysemy with ‘understand’ or ‘infer’ (I see you’re right). Reliability explains,
conversely, why even in elaborate systems of evidentials, simultaneous visual evidence
can remain unmarked (A4, B4 systems), and why visual evidence ranks highest in
hierarchies of preferred evidentials. Likewise, reliability is at work when non-visual or
non-firsthand evidentials are used in place of visual evidentials to mark a lack of control
(Aikhenvald 2014: 30). The common denominator of these phenomena is, whether marked
with an evidential (or an evidential strategy) or not, visual evidence counts as most
reliable, if not as proof.
Furthermore, reliability is at stake when SEEM- and LOOK-verbs, or AS IF-units (see

§4.2.2) move from external appearance into epistemic judgement based on (real or
imagined) appearance. Here, epistemic implicatures can range widely between full and
neutral support; markers derived from these source expressions are also compatible with
doubt if the speaker realizes that there is a discrepancy between the proposition modified
by SEEM, LOOK, or AS IF and the denoted situation. This is why SEEM can develop either
way, and why in corpora one can find SEEM collocating, for example, with adverbs
belonging to opposite ends of an epistemic scale (Lampert and Lampert 2010: 314–16 on
Page 18 of 29

seem in modern American English, Lampert 2009 for a case study on Shakespeare’s
language).
Whatever the relation between evidential and epistemic or the direction of

(p. 102)
implicational shift in a particular case, the relation is mediated by reliability. In all of the
widespread phenomena surveyed in this subsection, reliability is the crucial concept
mediating between source reference and epistemic judgement; however, it cannot be
equated with either of them. Only via (the degree of) reliability can epistemic overtones
be associated with particular information sources, including a lack of marking. The
specific association may shift depending on societal or discourse-conditioned norms and
on the paradigmatic tightness of available markers, but only because shifts affect, first
and foremost, reliability. Reliability also interacts with presumably universal pragmatic
mechanisms (see §4.3.3).
4.3. Semantics versus pragmatics

In view of the fact that so many alleged epistemic overtones of evidentials—in particular,
of reportive markers and of indirectives or general non-firsthand markers—prove
cancellable or do not arise at all (even in epistemic-prominent languages), we seem well
advised to search for a more economic and cross-linguistically applicable way to
generalize across correlations between evidential and epistemic contributions to
utterance meaning. In this section I will consider Generalized Conversational
Implicatures (§4.3.1) and Perspective Shift (§4.3.2). The semantics–pragmatics divide at
stake here does not quite coincide with the issue in Boye (§13.1.5 of this volume), which
focuses on relative discourse prominence. It shares, however, the issue of coded versus
inferred meaning.
4.3.1. Generalized Conversational Implicatures
Epistemic overtones can often be captured as Generalized Conversational Implicatures

(GCIs). GCIs were established in Neo-Gricean pragmatics to account for implicatures that
neither arise haphazardly from occasional (‘particularized’) discourse conditions nor are
conventionalized (i.e. non-cancellable, coded) parts of meaning. Instead, GCIs represent
‘a level of systematic pragmatic inference not based on direct computations about
speaker-intentions but on general expectations about how language is normally
used’ (Levinson 2000: 20, emphasis added). For instance, many markers of reported or
indirect evidentiality in European languages raise associations with epistemic overtones
(usually of doubt), but these associations more often than not are not stable (= coded)
parts of their meaning, since they can be suppressed. These associations are implicatures
that can be cancelled (in the commonly accepted (Neo-)Gricean sense), and this property
Page 19 of 29

need not be established item by item.23 Consider the following Polish example with the
sentence adverb jakoby ‘allegedly, reportedly’:24 (p. 103)
(10)
This context supplies no indication of the speaker’s stance toward the veracity of the
reported proposition. Any continuation would be possible, in which the speaker could
take a neutral, supportive, or negative stance toward that proposition; jakoby itself does
not imply any specific epistemic commitment.25 This ‘variability’ appears natural in the
light of GCIs: any of the German and Polish sentence adverbs considered translational
equivalents of English allegedly (Polish podobno, jakoby, rzekomo; German angeblich)
readily evokes epistemic overtones unless the context (or knowledge background)
supplies cues that allow to cancel or to suppress them. The actual speaker can even
explicitly reject possible overtones of doubt, or may simply remain agnostic regarding
epistemic support (Wiemer 2006a; Wiemer and Socka 2017). As could be expected from
the overview of extensions in §4.2.2, the cancellability of the epistemic component is not a
universal feature, nor is the rise of such a component; even cognate markers can differ in
this respect. Thus, Russian jakoby—often translated ‘as if, as though’—frequently occurs
in contexts of reported speech, but, unlike its Polish cognate, it does not ‘lose’ its strong
connotation of doubt. See the following example:
(11)
In comparison to its Russian ‘cousin’, Polish jakoby presents us more or less with a
reversal of the relation between epistemic and evidential prominence; the epistemic
component can even be suppressed. Moreover, the aforementioned Polish adverbs differ
among each other for specific conditions upon which the epistemic GCI is cancelled: they
are most unspecific for podobno, which—like German angeblich—implies neutral
epistemic support (‘I don’t know whether p is true or not’), while the cancellation of the
epistemic GCI for jakoby and rzekomo can depend on rhetoric and genre-specific
conditions (see §4.3.3). Similar differentiations have been made for particles in other
languages, such as for Dukhan, a Turkic variety in Mongolia (Ragagnin 2011: 180–7), or
for Basque omen (Korta and Zubeldia 2014).
Page 20 of 29

GCIs can also be used to explain fluctuating epistemic overtones in the reportive use of
subjunctives (as in German or French), or of modal auxiliaries as, for instance, in German
sollen ‘should, have to’ and wollen ‘want’. An example for the latter is: (p. 104)
(12)
Despite the fact that such auxiliary uses still show a layering of the diachronically earlier
usage (volitional, deontic; see 12b) and the more recent evidential usage (see 12a),
epistemic overtones of the evidential reading can readily be cancelled (Remberger 2010:
172–3).
Epistemic GCIs can correspond to epistemic (or other non-evidential) meaning

components that were prominent in earlier stages of the given evidential marker. They,
then, synchronically reflect diachronic shifts based on invited inferences (in Traugott’s
terms; Traugott 1989): under favourable discourse conditions, an epistemically prominent
unit U ‘invites’ some more specific evidential background, which eventually becomes
foregrounded. Concomitantly, the erstwhile foregrounded epistemic component may even
disappear as part of U’s meaning, and may surface only under favourable discourse
conditions (and because of normalcy assumptions about ‘how language works’ in a given
community).
Arguably, a change of prominence between epistemic and evidential contributions to

meaning may be significantly influenced by the two competing motivations mentioned in
§4.2.1 for Saaroan =ami: either the speaker wants to be accurate with regard to the
information source, or they shift responsibility by dissociating themselves from the
related event(s). However, apart from general discourse-based considerations, we should
also account for reasons based in the system of evidential markers: the more elaborate
the paradigmatic structure and the better an evidential marker—indicating, in particular,
hearsay—is expected and can thus be predicted, the less likely this marker will raise
implicatures (e.g. on the basis of Grice’s quantity maxim). Saaroa has a small system
(A3), and the reportive enclitic is not obligatory. Pan (2014: 95) considers this a
consequence of language obsolescence. Likewise, Aikhenvald (2004a: 301) reported that,
in recent stages of Wintu, ‘the reported evidential was almost a disclaimer of the
speaker’s responsibility for the truth of the statement’, whereas grammatical markers of
reportive meanings in many other languages do not trigger epistemic overtones, or these
can easily be cancelled. However, the typological and language-specific literature on
evidentiality marking usually does not give enough reliable detail to figure out whether
such overtones arise as the result of GCIs or represent coded components.
What about epistemic overtones of inferential markers? As mentioned in §4.2.2, if they

occur at all in languages with larger evidential systems, they occur with markers of
inferences that are not based on sensory input (i.e. with ‘assumed’ evidentials). For
Page 21 of 29

instance, the Wanka Quechuan inferential =chra can weaken the speaker’s commitment
and even acquire overtones of doubt; possibly, this only happens because it stands in
opposition to =mi, which, in turn, implies strong commitment (Aikhenvald 2004a: 165,
following Floyd 1999: 101–3). Moreover, in ‘conjecturals’—which mark judgements made
on no specific basis—one cannot really disentangle evidential and epistemic meaning
components (see §4.2.1). These observations suggest that epistemic overtones arise more
easily if a perceptual basis of inference is lacking. An additional factor can be the relative
complexity of the inference process. This conclusion arose from an in-depth analysis of
Bulgarian lexical and grammatical markers (sentence adverbs, particles, predicative l-
participles) to be regarded (p. 105) as evidential strategies: ‘The more complicated the
reconstruction of the cognitive (or communicative) basis leading to an inference
(intended by the speaker), the clearer the epistemic function emerges while the evidential
function remains in the background, and vice versa’ (Wiemer and Kampf 2012 [2015:
187]). In the latter case, epistemic overtones arise as GCIs and can be cancelled.
To sum up, epistemic GCIs are not a property of any specific evidential marker, but apply
for whole classes of markers. Under clearly definable conditions epistemic overtones
appear (without overriding the evidential component), but these overtones can be
defeated (without erasing the evidential component) under certain other discourse
conditions. In a sense, epistemic GCIs are defaults that apply at least in epistemic-
prominent languages. However, GCIs occur with markers with different statuses on a
lexicon–grammar cline and can more conveniently be analysed with reportives than with
inferentials.
4.3.2. Perspective shift in reportive evidentials
Among all of the evidential markers, reportives are exceptional, as ‘we find that cross-
linguistically it is (at least) nearly universal that an evidential-marked claim can be
felicitously denied by the same speaker only if its evidence type is reportive’ (AnderBois
2014: 240, emphasis original). AnderBois surveyed similar cases from a larger variety of
languages and argued that it is implausible to explain ‘reportive exceptionality’ on the
basis of conventional semantic contributions stipulated for each individual marker;
instead, a pragmatically implemented perspective shift yields a much more elegant
explanation. The crucial point is that only reportive evidentiality implies that the speaker
is entirely dissociated from the situation about which they utter a proposition (compare
this to Frawley’s SELF–OTHER distinction mentioned in §4.2.2). As a consequence, no
conflict arises if the speaker refers to somebody else’s claim (with or without a reportive
marker), but denies (in a subsequent sentence) that they believe in the truth of that claim
(and may justify this by another source of evidence to which they have personal access).
All other evidentials ‘explicitly invoke the perspective of the speaker’ (2014: 245) and do
not allow for a perspective shift.
Page 22 of 29

4.3.3. GCIs and discourse norms
As argued in §4.3.1, GCIs can be tested empirically to distinguish meaning components

on the coded–inferred divide, but do they represent a universal mechanism? Since GCIs
operate ‘on general expectations about how language is normally used’ (see §4.3.1), we
wonder whether and to which extent such expectations depend on culturally conditioned
habits of speech. It seems plausible to assume that GCIs are universal as a cognitive-
communicative mechanism, but that the set of concrete expectations, or of their triggers,
possibly differs (at least to some extent) from speech community to speech community,
and can change.
Expectations often vary for discourse- or genre-specific reasons, but the relation with
epistemic overtones is twofold. On the one hand, sentence adverbs like German angeblich
and Polish rzekomo ‘allegedly’ (see §4.3.1) are regularly used as reportive devices with
(p. 106) a suppressed GCI of doubt or distance in journalistic texts for which the author
bears legal responsibility (typically in news about purported violations of law); cf. Wiemer
and Socka (2017) and Celle (2009: 285) for parallels in English. Here, the genre implies
that the author does not take a personal stance toward the reported events, and that this
expectation cancels epistemic GCIs. One could turn this reasoning upside down: a
journalist will use only those reportive markers that allow epistemic overtones to be
cancelled, otherwise the journalist could be accused of taking sides. On the other hand,
certain markers of reportive or indirect evidentiality may be avoided because they easily
evoke undesirable epistemic overtones. This seems to be the reason why, in the twentieth
century translation of the Bible into Bulgarian, the l-perfect (used as indirect, or non-
confirmative) does not occur in passages conveying acts of revelation or in narratives
with a named author (Korytkowska 2000). It does, however, occur in textbooks on history
—instances in which, evidently, no epistemic nuance is intended (V. Friedman, S.
Slavkova, p.c.). Here they simply mark remoteness, or dissociation of the speaker from
the related events.26 It is possible that such contexts cause reportive markers to turn into
mere tokens of genre (e.g. fairy tales or legends), upon which they usually lose any
epistemic overtones that they may have had. This applies not only to grammatical
evidentials,27 but also to evidential strategies, regardless of whether these are based on
tense-aspect grams (cf., e.g. Greed 2014: 82 on Tatar -GAn; Forker 2014: 54, 65–7 on both
the unwitnessed past and the reportative enclitic =eƛ’ in Hinuq, Nakh-Daghestanian), or
on lexical markers. For instance, Ragagnin (2011: 185–6) characterizes the Dukhan
particle erγen as ‘a specific indirective reportive marker of the epic and folklore
genre’ (cf. also Greed 2014: 78 on the Tatar particle di).
The big open question is to what extent reliability and predictability are involved in
creating specific conditions that trigger GCIs, as well as whether or not these two factors
are mutually dependent. If markers of information source are expected in, or are
considered signs of, specific genres or discourse types, they increase in frequency, and a
speaker ‘sounds strange’ and becomes unreliable if they do not follow these expectations.
Conversely, the English example in (9) goes without any kind of propositional marking.
Page 23 of 29

The reliability of the person uttering it does not depend on the absence or presence of
some marker, but on normalcy assumptions of the hearers. In particular, ‘[t]he
conventionalized attitude to hearsay as a source of information determines whether or
not a reported evidential, or a speech report in general, has epistemic
extensions’ (Aikhenvald 2014: 14). If, all things being equal, markers of information
source have become obligatory (i.e. predictable in well-defined contexts), their presence
does not raise epistemic overtones or illocutionary effects of, for example, sincerity. In
contrast, in languages in which these markers of information source are largely optional,
their use can more easily (although not necessarily) evoke implicatures of epistemic
commitment. This consideration is confirmed by observations on dizque and other
evidential strategies derived from Spanish decir ‘say’ (see §4.2.2): in Ecuadorian Spanish
these forms have become practically (p. 107) obligatory, and, concomitantly, overtones of
doubt and discourse-pragmatic functions of distance have disappeared; in contrast, in
Bolivian and Peruvian Spanish these forms are less predictable, but they are also charged
with a more salient epistemic load (Dankel 2015: 207).
4.4. Summary
This chapter presented a survey of how the relation between evidentiality and epistemic
modality is treated in research. We discussed the theoretical and methodological
backdrop of different approaches toward that relation, paying particular attention to the
reasons why, in Western linguistics, evidentiality tended to be included under epistemic
modality instead of being treated as a category of its own. In sum, empirical
counterevidence to overlap and inclusion theories shows that one must not take recurrent
extensional intersections of evidential and epistemic meaning components as proof for
intensional identity. Moreover, inferences are not an evidential function themselves,
rather they ‘may represent reasoning processes based on [some specific type of]
evidence’ (Brugman and Macaulay 2015: 206; see also Speas, §15.5.1 of this volume).
Remarkably, despite different arguments, functional-typological research (e.g. Aikhenvald
2004a; Boye 2012) and Kratzerian formal semantics have converged in agreeing that
truth (and truth conditions) are not criterial for a description of evidentials, at least not in
their entirety.
The survey also contained a summary of recurrent patterns of epistemic extensions from
markers of information source and, vice versa, of evidential extensions (or strategies)
from epistemic markers and TAM-grams. Overlaps between evidential and epistemic
functions are not a universal—or even a language-specific—feature, but need to be
established item by item. Furthermore, more scrutiny is required to distinguish between
epistemic extensions that become part of coded meaning and extensions that arise on the
basis of Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs), i.e. standardly inferred but
cancellable epistemic associations. GCIs are a pragmatic default mechanism that does not
function ad hoc, but that arises from assumptions about ‘how language is normally used’.
Page 24 of 29

This mechanism allows changes of focalized evidential or epistemic meaning

contributions to be captured economically in the description of linguistic items. The set of
expectations that triggers these normalcy assumptions about language use is influenced
by the (degree of) reliability assigned to specific sources of information.
Reliability, in turn, is a notion that spells out attitudes to specific types of information
source. These attitudes can be related to the sensory bases of inferences, the status of
hearsay (or reported speech in general), or the trustworthiness of particular members of
a speech community. These attitudes can vary depending on the discourse type or text
genre, and can depend on the paradigmatic organization and the predictability of specific
markers. In any case, however, it is these attitudes that cause different degrees of
assertive strength to be assigned to different types of information source and their
marking devices. Assertive strength is a hybrid concept that should not be confused with
epistemic support, as the latter only results from the degree of reliability assigned to
some particular source. Reliability thus mediates between information source
(evidentiality) and epistemic modality.
A task for further research is to establish the conditions and cross-linguistic

(p. 108)
patterns in the interaction between reliability and the systematic language-specific

organization of evidentials, and to understand how these conditions influence epistemic
GCIs.
Sources
NKJP Narodowy korpus języka polskiego, http://nkjp.pl/

NKRJa Nacional’nyj korpus russkogo jazyka, http://www.ruscorpora.ru/
Notes:
(1) For the difference between propositions and SoAs cf. Boye (2012; Chapter 13 of this
volume). Recently, evidential markers with non-propositional scope have been brought
into focus by Aikhenvald (2014: 16–19, 2015) and Jacques (Chapter 5 of this volume), who
admits that, in most languages, the distribution of non-propositional and propositional
evidential markers is completely different. The systematic and empirical relation between
both types of markers needs more research; here, this issue will not be pursued.
Discussions as to whether some evidential markers might be ascribed scope over
illocutions has been discussed primarily among formal semanticists (see §4.2.3).
(2) Brugman and Macaulay (2015: 223–5) have suggested (following Speas 2008) that a
paradigmatic opposition implies complementary distribution, but not vice versa (2015:
224, f. 35). Their notion of grammatical category (‘evidentials’) does not significantly
depend on obligatoriness.
Page 25 of 29

(3) This distinction has been accepted by many representatives of post-Gricean

pragmatics (e.g. Ariel 2008 for Relevance Theory, Levinson 2007 and Huang 2007 for Neo-
Gricean approaches), but also of lexicography based on semantic theories (Cornillie et al.
2015: 4).
(4) For instance, traditional grammars of the Baltic languages have treated evidential
uses of participle constructions as ‘modus obliquusʼ or ‘modus relativus’. The Latvian
reportive in the 1959 Latvian Academy Grammar (which was heavily influenced by
Russian structuralism) was even characterized as a paradigm of forms used primarily to
disclaim responsibility for the accuracy of information, while the reportive function was
considered secondary. This represents an exact reversal of the relation between the
dominant (coded) evidential meaning and epistemic overtones which are a pragmatic side
effect (on which see §4.3.1); cf. Holvoet (2007: 81–2, f. 1).
(5) Throughout, I use ‘hearsayʼ as a general label of reportive marking, without

necessarily connotating unverifiable information or similar judgements.
(6) Partial surveys are given in De Haan (1999: 85–91; 2009: 263–5), Dendale and
Tasmowski (2001b: 341–2), Kehayov (2008b: 184–5), Wiemer (2008a: 7–9), Brugman and
Macaulay (2015: 205–8). Kronning (2003: 135) mentioned a fourth logical possibility, the
absence of any relation; in practice, however, this boils down to position (i).
(7) Cf., for instance, Johanson (2000a; Chapter 24 of this volume) on Turkic in general,
Menz (2000) on Gagauz, Greed (2014) on Tatar. For adjacent languages cf., for instance,
Lazard (2000: 212–13) on Iranian, Boeder (2000: 295) on Georgian.
(8) This implicational relation is marked by the sign ⊃ (‘A implies B’).
(9) This layer of meaning is related to the expectations of interlocutors and, thus, to
mirativity. For a discussion cf. Aikhenvald (2004a: 195–209; 2014: 31–2), Pan (2014: 98),
and Johanson (2000a: 70–2) for Turkic languages.
(10) When Aikhenvald (2004a: 179) mentions ‘degree of hearsay,’ this wording does not
refer to a scalar notion, but to the number of sources (= speakers) between the last
reporting speaker and the original event. In other cases, the combination of two or three
markers of reportive or indirect evidence emphasizes a disclaimer by which the speaker
signals unreliability of the source (Aikhenvald 2004aa: 186). As will be argued in §4.2.4,
reliability is by itself neither an evidential nor an epistemic notion.
(11) This distinction corresponds to the ‘inferred–assumed’ distinction in Aikhenvald

(2004a). As for extragrammatical markers, this distinction is not only supported by Slavic
languages (e.g. Russian, Bulgarian, Polish; cf. Wiemer 2006a: 53–9; Wiemer 2008a; Kampf
and Wiemer 2011a; 2011b), but also implied by the behaviour of markers derived from
SEEM-verbs (see §4.2.2).
Page 26 of 29

(12) Jakovleva referred to it differently, at a time when evidentiality was still conceived of
as a subdomain of epistemic modality. Cf. also Bulygina and Šmelev (1993 [1997]), the
source of (2a–b).
(13) Different labels have been used: ‘Reasoning’ or ‘Assumption’ (Palmer 2001),
‘Assumed’ (Aikhenvald 2004a; 2014: 9), and ‘Acquired knowledge’ (Tantucci 2013). In
larger evidential systems encyclopedic knowledge is often treated differently from
assumptions, namely by extensions of direct or visual evidentials (see §4.2.2).
(14) For this argument cf. also Brugman and Macaulay (2015: 205–6).
(15) It also appears difficult to distinguish A2 from A1 systems, with the latter having an
equipollent opposition between firsthand and non-firsthand terms. Consider, for instance,
Tatar (Greed 2014: 74).
(16) Reportives often show extensions into pretence games or irony. These are probably
pragmatic extensions of the epistemic extensions, not extensions of the reported
meanings themselves (cf., however, Aikhenvald 2004a: 184 on Shipibo-Konibo -ronki).
(17) Among others, cf. Cornillie (2007a) for Spanish parecer, Dixon (2005: 203–5) on
English seem, Diewald (2001) and Diewald and Smirnova (2010b) for German scheinen,
De Haan (2007) on several Germanic languages, Wiemer (2006a: 53–9) on Polish zdawać
się and Wiemer (2010b: 104–6) for an overview of European languages.
(18) These three components together make up the conversational background (Kratzer
1981).
(19) This opens up questions regarding how the quantifier approach may be applied to
direct and reportive evidence. Cf. Faller (2011) for a relevant discussion.
(20) A more appropriate translation might be Obviously, it’s this one.
(21) In formal approaches, discourse-oriented accounts of evidentials have postulated a

similar relation between semantics and pragmatics. According to these approaches,
interlocutors continuously update their common ground with not-at-issue content; the
speaker proposes, and the hearer either accepts or rejects the new information. This
includes an assessment of information source, which is either made explicit or left
implicit, as well as an assessment of the speaker’s reliability. Information source and
reliability jointly yield some degree of assertion strength, which is thereby no part of the
semantics of the relevant propositional modifiers, but which is inferred “online” (Speas,
§15.4 of this volume, and concluding paragraph, with references).
(22) Generally, the social status of dreams differs among cultures. Consequently, we
observe amazing variation as to whether a direct evidential can or has to be used, or
when an indirect or reportive is instead required (Aikhenvald 2004a: 309; 2014: 33–4,
and elsewhere).
Page 27 of 29

(23) Instead of cancellation or suppression, ‘neutralization’ is another way of saying the

same thing (e.g. Remberger 2010: 172).
(24) Currently, jakoby is almost restricted to hearsay; diachronically, it belongs to the ‘as
if’-comparison units mentioned in §4.2.2.
(25) Replies by both ‘naïve’ and informed native speakers concerning epistemic overtones
are as divergent as are descriptions in the linguistic literature. A similar picture arises for
English allegedly, reportedly (Celle 2009), Czech prý (Hoffmannová 2008), and German
angeblich. One wonders whether a tendency to ascribe epistemic overtones to hearsay
markers (sentence adverbs, auxiliaries or tense-aspect grams, etc.) is due to an ‘epistemic
bias’ in European grammaticography (see the remarks in §4.2) or due to the relative
scarcity and optionality of grammatical evidentiality marking.
(26) Cf. Wiemer and Kampf (2012 [2015: 177–81]) for a comprehensive evaluation of the
facts. A very similar distribution of usage domains can be observed in the case of
firsthand -DY versus non-firsthand -GAn in Tatar (Greed 2014: 82).
(27) While this feature is common in A3 systems (‘reported’ versus everything else), it can
also be found in A1 and A2 systems (e.g. in Turkic languages), as well as in larger
systems (Aikhenvald 2004a: 310–14).
Björn Wiemer
Björn Wiemer received his PhD in Slavic and general linguistics in 1996 (Hamburg
University). He worked as research assistant at the chair of Slavic Languages at
Constance University from 1996 to 2003. Subsequent to his postdoctoral thesis
(2002, venia for Slavic and Baltic linguistics) he continued doing research and
teaching at Constance University until 2007, when he was appointed to the chair of
Slavic Linguistics at Mainz University. His main topics of interest are aspect and
other verbal categories, voice related phenomena, evidentiality and modality, clausal
complementation, also from a diachronic perspective and in non-standard varieties,
language contact and areal linguistics. He has contributed to all mentioned domains
with publications both on synchronic and diachronic issues. He has (co)edited
thirteen volumes on Slavic, Baltic, and general linguistics.
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Page 29 of 29

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Evidentials and Epistemic Modality

Oxford Handbooks Online

Abstract and Keywords

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Evidentiality comprises grammatical(ized) reference to an information source. In

(p. 86) 4.1. Setting the scene

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

4.2. Determining the relation between

meaning can be shown to be reportive (i.e. indication of hearsay5), in the grammars of

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Plungian’s generalization may be read to suggest a conceptual dominance of source-

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

At present it seems impossible to answer this question without circularity (Aikhenvald

From a semasiological viewpoint, evidentials often show properties related to (a)

4.2.1. Grammatical distribution, system organization, and evidential

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

However, also in many languages without grammatical evidentials we observe a cross-

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Kažetsja (originally ‘seem[IMPERV].PRS.3SG’) can be used only if the speaker has

For inferences based not on perception but on deductive reasoning or on general

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Squartini (§14.4.4.1 of this volume). Inferentiality, together with direct experience, is

4.2.2. Extensions either way: A selective survey

I start with epistemic extensions of evidential expressions. In general, if epistemic

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

The road into epistemic extensions is mediated by ‘conceptual distance’ if an inferred or

With regard to reportive markers, the cross-linguistic occurrence of epistemic extensions

distancing or weakening a claim to outright rejection of the truth of the reported

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Let us now look at evidential extensions of epistemic expressions. Non-indicative moods

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

4.2.3. The contribution made by formal semantics

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This ‘sharework’ of contributions to inferences confirms that inferences are no primitive

In practice, divergent opinions as to what constitutes a genuine component in the

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Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

4.2.4. Reliability as a mediating concept

‘Evidence type’ rephrases known parameters of evidentiality; ‘evidence location’ is

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Reliability is a synonym of trustworthiness and has recently been highlighted, from a

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Furthermore, reliability is at stake when SEEM- and LOOK-verbs, or AS IF-units (see

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Whatever the relation between evidential and epistemic or the direction of

4.3. Semantics versus pragmatics

4.3.1. Generalized Conversational Implicatures

Epistemic overtones can often be captured as Generalized Conversational Implicatures

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Epistemic GCIs can correspond to epistemic (or other non-evidential) meaning

Arguably, a change of prominence between epistemic and evidential contributions to

What about epistemic overtones of inferential markers? As mentioned in §4.2.2, if they

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

4.3.2. Perspective shift in reportive evidentials

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

4.3.3. GCIs and discourse norms

As argued in §4.3.1, GCIs can be tested empirically to distinguish meaning components

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

Subscriber: University College London; date: 03 July 2018

This mechanism allows changes of focalized evidential or epistemic meaning