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Evidentials in questions | החוג לבלשנות

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Evidentials in questions

תאריך: 
ג', 27/03/201815:00-16:30
מיקום: 
Room 530, Mandel Building
מרצה: 
Prof. Regine Eckardt (University of Konstanz)

 

Abstract:

Evidential markers in assertions S indicate the kind and quality of evidence for the speaker’s assertion S. 

Many languages also allow for the use of evidentials in question Q which can have different pragmatic effects. One effect can be the following:

The question Q with evidential marking asks the addressee to provide answers to Q *with the indicated level of evidential certainty*. For instance, if Q is marked with inferential evidentials, it can be paraphrased as “give me an answer A to Q that you can *infer* from what you know” (which is usually less certain than answers A that are “known for certain”). This interpretation is also called the evidential flip in questions and has been reported for German, Quechua, Korean and other languages. English evidential might in questions shows the same flip effect.

 

Another possible effect of evidential markers in question Q is the interpretation of Q as a conjectural (or “self-addressed”) question. A possible paraphrase of this reading in English could be “Q, I wonder…”. The utterance does not request an answer and serves to express curiosity / interest by the speaker. This reading arises for example in various Salish languages, Italian and — again — German.

 

Curiously, both readings of evidentials in questions have received fully compositional analyses in the literature (e.g. Lim 2011 for Korean and Littell et al 2004 for Salish languages). Inherent in all these analyses is the claim that the reading should systematically and universally arise when evidentials are used in questions. This, obviously, can not be the case.

 

The talk provides an in-depth case study of evidential wohl in questions in German and its possible interpretations. These will be contrasted with Italian questions with evidential future. We will finally attempt to infer some universals and no-universals about evidentials in questions.

 

Lim, Dongsik. 2011. Evidentials in Interrogatives. In I. Reich (ed.): Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 15 (2011); 419 - 433.

Littell, Patrick, Lisa Matthewson and Tyler Peterson. 2010. On the Semantics of Conjectural Questions. In Peterson, T. et al. (eds.) Evidence from Evidentials. University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 28: 89 - 104.