The coding of evidentiality: a comparative look at Georgian and Italian

Abstract

Drawing on a comparison of two geographically and typologically distant languages, Georgian and Italian, this paper aims to provide some insights into the patterning of lexical and grammatical strategies in the domain of evidentiality. First of all, in the systems described in this paper evidentiality is signaled in opposition to neutral unmarked discourse. In both languages some verb forms, associated with various temporal and aspectual values, have taken on evidential meanings in specific contexts. Neither language has developed a morphological evidential category. A typologically relevant feature is that inferential and reportive evidentiality are articulated differently: they cluster together in the Georgian perfect but are distinguished in Italian. A further conclusion of this study is that the means to express evidentiality are a domain in movement, which admits several intermediate stages, as is manifested by the presence of grammaticalization processes involving lexical items and the increasing use of adverbial constructions. 1 1. Some introductory remarks 1.1. The encoding of evidentiality Not every language has evidentiality markers, but every language can express how information about events is acquired and can also convey the speaker’s attitude towards that information. In the large number of publications which have appeared over the last twenty years, the distinction between grammatical markers and lexical means for expressing the source of knowledge is not always clear, not to mention the variety of terminologies that have been proposed (Dendale & Tasmovski 2001). We will start our discussion with Aikhenvald’s (2004) position, namely that grammatical evidentiality (henceforth EV) is concerned with obligatory markers. This is a restrictive, but probably necessary and reasonable, definition if one wants to establish a common conceptual ground for a cross-linguistic analysis and to evaluate the various forms of EV. In some languages, EV meanings have developed as secondary mean

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