DEFINITIONS OF EVIDENTIALS DEFINITIONS OF EVIDENTIAL MODAL MARKERS

by the degree of confidence that the speaker has in the assertion, which produce two
subcategories: necessary judgments and possible judgments, respectively based upon
inference and confidence, deduction and speculation, or strong and weak judgment. It is observed that Judgments in English, which have a variety of modal auxiliaries to indicate the
speaker’s assessment of the content of the proposition. It is well described in these following examples:
13 Michael might lead the league in scoring next season. 14 There must have been many chairs in that room.
In contrast to Judgments are Evidentials, which encode the grounds on which a speaker makes an overtly qualified assertion. Unlike Judgments, Evidentials explicitly signal the
collateral that a speaker takes as substantiating an assertion. The concepts as well as the types of Evidentials will be discussed further and detailedly presented in the next part.

1.3. CONCEPTS OF EVIDENTIALS

1.3.1. DEFINITIONS OF EVIDENTIALS

As mentioned above, Evidentials encode the grounds on which a speaker makes an overtly
qualified assertion. To put it in another way, Evidentials encode the speakers’ source of information as well as indicate the reliability of the information. They put in perspective or
evaluate the truth-value of a sentence both with respect to the source of the information contained in the sentence, and concerning the degree to which this truth can be verified or
justified. Synonymously, Evidentials illustrate the type of justification for a claim that is available to the person making that claim. This justification can be expressed by markers
referring to immediate evidence on the basis of visual observation, to inference on the basis of nonobservable facts, to deduction or inference, etc. In “Chafe Nicholas” 1986,
briefly, they represent a “natural epistemology”.
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More clearly stated, Evidentials also are to relativize or measure the information status of the sentence. The term “information status” is intended to include both the truth-value of a
sentence and the relative importance accorded to it. Evidentials are said to own itself two essential properties. First and most importantly, a source of evaluation or reliability of the
sentence is involved. This “source of information” defines who stands for the information status of the sentence. Secondly, the information status of the sentence is most often
measured on the type varies: the sentence is measured with respect to reliability, probability, expectation or desirability.

1.3.2. DEFINITIONS OF EVIDENTIAL MODAL MARKERS

Evidential modal markers are defined as lexical categories which indicate how and to what extent speakers stand for the truth of the statements they make. In English, all Evidential
modal markers are lexical. English does not have grammaticalized Evidentials, but there are lexicalized Evidentials. The lexicalized Evidentials of English include the Evidential modal
senses of verbs of expression and verbs of appearance, and Evidential adverbs such as “evidently and apparently”. Other language units for Evidential modal markers are about to
be well-mentioned later.

1.3.3. TYPES OF EVIDENTIALS