Schedule 77. StuTS

Evidentiality, which we understand as the verbal marking of the information source (Aikhenvald, 2004, p. 1), is a feature that, according to many linguists, is not present in most European languages. (Aikhenvald, 2004; Plungian, 2010). In this talk I will show, using the example of the German verb “sollen” and the Czech “mít+infinitive” (“to have”+infinitive) that although one cannot speak of “true evidentiality” in the form of morphological marking, Czech and German have a quite grammaticalized means of marking that the uttered information has been mediated.
The two verbs in question are classified as “modal verbs” in the grammars, but in my talk I show, based on a questionnaire study, that a more or less clear boundary can be drawn between modal and evidential use of “sollen”/”mít+infinitive”. Furthermore, I propose a fourfold typological differentiation of indirect mediated evidentials for both languages, to which I add the Czech marker “prý” and the German conditional mood (Konjunktiv I). Finally, I address the question of language contact and evidentiality, since the evidential construction “have+infinitive” exists in all West Slavic languages and is more or less identical in meaning to the German “sollen”.

Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2004). Evidentiality (Repr). Oxford Univ. Press.
Diewald, G., & Smirnova, E. (2010a). Evidentialy in German: Linguistic realization and regularities in grammaticalization. Mouton de Gruyter.
Diewald, G., & Smirnova, E. (2010b). Introduction. Evidentiality in European languages: The lexicalgrammatical distinction. In G. Diewald & E. Smirnova (Eds.), Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages (pp. 1–14). DE GRUYTER MOUTON. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110223972.1
Diewald, G., & Smirnova, E. (with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft). (2010c). Linguistic realization of evidentiality in European languages. De Gruyter Mouton.
Mortelmans, T. (2000). On the “Evidential” Nature of the “Epistemic” Use of the German Modals müssen and sollen. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 14, 131–148. https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.14.08mor
Plungian, V. (2010). Types of verbal evidentiality marking:an overview. In G. Diewald & E. Smirnova (Eds.), Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages (pp. 15–58). DE GRUYTER MOUTON. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110223972.15
Smirnova, E., & Diewald, G. (Eds.). (2013). Kategorien der Redewiedergabe im Deutschen: Konjunktiv I versus sollen. Zeitschrift Für Germanistische Linguistik, 41(3), 443–471. https://doi.org/10.1515/zgl-2013-0024
Van Der Auwera, J., & Plungian, V. A. (1998). Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/lity.1998.2.1.79
Wiemer, B. (2010). Hearsay in European languages: Toward an integrative account of grammatical and lexical marking. In G. Diewald & E. Smirnova (Eds.), Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages (pp. 59–130). DE GRUYTER MOUTON. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110223972.59
Wiemer, B. (2018). Evidentials and Epistemic Modality. In A. Y. Aikhenvald (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality (1st ed., pp. 85–108). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198759515.013.4
Wiemer, B., & Socka, A. (2022). Evidential marking in Polish. In B. Wiemer & J. I. Marin-Arrese (Eds.), Evidential Marking in European Languages (pp. 457–522). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110726077-011

Info

Day: 2025-05-17
Start time: 11:50
Duration: 00:25
Room: GWZ 2.316
Track: Typology and Variational Linguistics
Language: en

Links:

• iCalendar