Evidentiality

· from English

What is evidentiality?

Evidentiality is grammatical marking of how the speaker knows something: seen it, heard it from others, or inferred it.

Some languages, such as Turkish, Tibetan and Quechua, require evidential markers. Korean has a retrospective -더- and hearsay endings like -대, and Japanese uses そうだ sō da, らしい rashii and ようだ yō da to signal hearsay or inference. Learners often forget them and sound too certain.

Examples

Japanese 雨が降るそうだ ame ga furu sō da (I hear it will rain); 雨が降りそうだ ame ga furisō da (it looks like rain); Korean 비가 온대요 biga ondaeyo (they say it is raining)

Kungfucius says: Grammar that forces you to cite your sources. Journalists could learn from it.