Evidential Marking in European Languages: Toward a Unitary Comparative Account (Studia Typologica [Sttyp])

How are evidential functions distinguished by means other than grammatical paradigms, i.e. by function words and other lexical units? And how inventories of such means can be compared across languages (against an account also of grammatical means used to mark information source)? This book presents an attempt at supplying a comparative survey of such inventories by giving detailed “evidential profiles” for a large part of European languages: Continental Germanic, English, French, Basque, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Modern Greek, and Ibero-Romance languages, such as Catalán, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish. Each language is treated in a separate chapter, and their profiles are based on a largely unified set of concepts based on function and/or etymological provenance. The profiles are preceded by a chapter which clarifies the theoretical premises and methodological background for the format followed in the profiles. The concluding chapter presents a synthesis of findings from these profiles, including areal biases and the formulation of methodological problems that call for further research. Sommario fornito dall'editore 'Studia typologica' ist der Titel der Beihefte zur Zeitschrift 'Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung/Language Typology and Universals (STUF)'. In den 'Studia typologica' werden Beiträge veröffentlicht, die den höchsten wissenschaftlichen Standards genügen und wissenschaftlich vielversprechende neue Themen im Bereich der allgemein-vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft ansprechen. Insbesondere empirisch gut fundierte Beiträge mit crosslinguistischer Orientierung, die neue Problemstellungen auf innovative Art präsentieren, sind in den 'Studia typologica' willkommen. Die Beiheftereihe unterstützt nachdrücklich Studien zu weniger gut erforschten Sprachen und/oder Phänomenen. Von großem Interesse für die 'Studia typologica' sind auch areal-typologische Arbeiten sowie Beiträge, die sich dem Zusammenspiel von Sprachkontakt und Sprachtypologie widmen. Die 'Studia typologica' sind theorie- und modellübergreifend als Forum für typologisch ausgerichtete Forschungsarbeiten gedacht. Die Beihefte umfassen sowohl Monographien als auch thematisch homogene Sammelbände. Alle eingehenden Manuskripte werden begutachtet (double blind). Die Publikationssprache ist Englisch. 'Studia typological' is the companion series of the journal 'Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung/Language Typology and Universals (STUF)'. 'Studia typological' publishes scholarly studies of high quality dedicated to promising new topics in the realm of general-comparative linguistics. The series welcomes especially contributions which argue on a solid empirical foundation, have a cross-linguistic orientation and raise new issues which are addressed in innovative ways. The series encourages work on understudied languages and understudied phenomena. 'Studia typological' is interested also in areal-typological studies and research on the interface of language contact and language typology. 'Studia typological' is meant as a forum for typologically minded investigations independent of the school of thought the authors adhere to. Monographs as well as collections of articles (sharing a common theme) are published in this series. All manuscripts are peer-reviewed (double blind). The language of publication is English Preface 5 Contents 7 Part I: Prolegomena 19 1 Introduction 19 Part II: Language Profiles – Germanic 75 2 Evidentiality in English 75 3 Tanja Mortelmans: Evidentiality in Dutch 113 4 Tanja Mortelmans and Katerina Stathi: Evidentiality in German 155 Part III: Language Profiles – Romance 189 5 Evidentiality in French 189 6 Juana I. Marín-Arrese and Marta Carretero: Evidentiality in Spanish 253 7 Andreu Sentí: Evidentiality in Catalan 305 8 Mercedes González Vázquez and Elena Domínguez Romero: Evidentiality in Galician 349 9 Elena Domínguez Romero, Victoria Martín de la Rosa and Viviane de Moraes Abrahão: Evidentiality in Portuguese 389 Part IV: Language Profiles – Slavic 415 10 Evidential marking in Russian 415 11 Björn Wiemer and Anna Socka: Evidential marking in Polish 475 Part V: Language Profiles – Other 543 12 Evidentials in Lithuanian 543 13 Katerina Stathi: Evidentiality in Standard Modern Greek 581 14 Karlos Cid Abasolo and Marta Carretero: Evidentiality in Basque 603 Part VI: Results 651 15 Conclusions and outlook 651 List of Contributors 733 Index of Authors 739 Index of Languages 746 Index of Subjects 748 How are evidential functions distinguished by means other than grammatical paradigms, i.e. by function words and other lexical units? And how inventories of such means can be compared across languages (against an account also of grammatical means used to mark information source)? This book presents an attempt at supplying a comparative survey of such inventories by giving detailed "evidential profiles" for a large part of European languages: Continental Germanic, English, French, Basque, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Modern Greek, and Ibero-Romance languages, such as Catalan, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish. Each language is treated in a separate chapter, and their profiles are based on a largely unified set of concepts based on function and/or etymological provenance. The profiles are preceded by a chapter which clarifies the theoretical premises and methodological background for the format followed in the profiles. The concluding chapter presents a synthesis of findings from these profiles, including areal biases and the formulation of methodological problems that call for further research