Is evidentiality a useful notion for English?
Résumé
This paper argues that evidentiality (i.e. the expression of information sources) is a necessary notion for a thorough description of English grammar. First, adopting a functionalist perspective that examines evidentiality as a semantic domain makes it possible to describe the behaviour of linguistic forms that are particularly frequent in English. Inferential markers such as I guess, look like, must and apparently compete for a similar semantic space, but knowing the appropriate contexts of use of each form is a major challenge for L2 English speakers. Accounting for the various parameters that motivate one form over another requires in-depth, corpus-based analyses, and has implications in teaching and translation. Secondly, several signs reveal that evidentiality is as grammaticalized in English as other notions, such as epistemic modality. Large sections are devoted to the various types of modality in English grammar books, but the detailed description of grammatical evidential markers is still in its infancy. Thirdly, specifying one's sources of information by means of evidential markers enables us to legitimize our knowledge, and position ourselves in relation to the opinions of our interlocutors. These markers allow us to negotiate the information flow, and thus deserve to be included among the descriptive tools of discourse analysis, particularly for the study of misinformation or conspiracy theories. Finally, the investigation of evidentiality from a diachronic and typological perspective has revealed cross-linguistically recurrent patterns of semantic change. The documentation of languages with evidential paradigms can help us identify and describe some recent changes in English grammar. For example, we will see how the deontic semi-auxiliary have to has acquired an inferential semantic feature, and how the grammaticalization of the semi-copula sit is associated with a recurrent implicature of direct evidentiality.
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