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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2014

At the Crossroads of Evidentiality and Epistemicity: So-called Evidential Uses of English Copular Perception Verbs

Résumé

The present study focuses on the so-called evidential uses of English copular perception verbs (henceforth CPVs) and their relationship with the two notions of evidentiality and epistemicity for two main reasons: - First, the term ‘evidential’ is sometimes used in the literature on perception verbs but authors do not always give a clear-cut definition – if any – of what is meant by ‘evidentiality’. - Second, there is much debate over how to define evidentiality, which is not a grammatical category in English. Some authors subsume evidentiality under (epistemic) modality, while others (e.g. De Haan, Aikhenvald) argue that they are clearly distinct from each other. Other linguists contend that the two attitudinal categories of ‘evidentiality’ and ‘epistemicity’ overlap (van der Auwera & Plungian 1998). This paper thus aims at defining as best as possible the two concepts of evidentiality and epistemicity, and at showing how the use of English copular perception verbs has indeed both evidential and epistemic dimensions. The question is: does one of the two concepts play a predominant role in copular perception verb sentences? Given these observations, the current study begins by reviewing different positions concerning the usage of CPVs and their semantics regarding evidentiality and epistemicity. In doing so, I also try to delimit these two categories more precisely, taking into account the three different types of viewpoint relating to evidentiality on the one hand, and its relation with epistemicity on the other hand, as a result of which I address the corollary concepts of subjectivity and speaker stance. This corpus-based analysis also develops a typology of predicative complements, which helps to accomplish three goals: first, to demonstrate what characteristics make CPVs evidentials; second, to determine what features of the verb and/or the sentence convey – or help to convey – an epistemic reading, which is in part achieved by comparing CPVs to epistemic modal auxiliaries; third, to show that CPV sentences display converse degrees of evidentiality and epistemicity. The main objective of this presentation is to provide an account for the fact that a CPV has both an evidential meaning and a modalising use or epistemic extension as it expresses a (speaker) judgement based on sensory data or appearances.
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Dates et versions

hal-03808784 , version 1 (10-10-2022)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03808784 , version 1

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Christelle Lacassain-Lagoin. At the Crossroads of Evidentiality and Epistemicity: So-called Evidential Uses of English Copular Perception Verbs. 47th Annual Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), workshop « Corpus and discourse approaches to epistemic stance and evidentiality: subjectivity and intersubjectivity at the crossroad », Sep 2014, Poznan, Poland. ⟨hal-03808784⟩

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