The Web of Knowledge

Evidentiality at the Cross-Roads
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-46641-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 140 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 275 g

Reihe: Brill Research Perspectives in Humanities and Social Sciences / Brill Research Perspectives in Linguistics

Knowledge can be expressed in language using a plethora of grammatical means. Four major groups of meanings related to knowledge are Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source; Egophoricity: grammatical expression of access to knowledge; Mirativity: grammatical expression of expectation of knowledge; and Epistemic modality: grammatical expression of attitude to knowledge. The four groups of categories interact. Some develop overtones of the others. Evidentials stand apart from other means in many ways, including their correlations with speech genres and social environment. This essay presents a framework which connects the expression of knowledge across the world's languages in a coherent way, showing their dependencies and complexities, and pathways of historical development in various scenarios, including language obsolescence.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

List of Tables and Illustrations

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

1 Knowledge through Grammar: A Preamble

2 Links between the Four Groups of Grammatical Categories Related to Knowledge

3 How Evidentials Are Special

4 Access to Information and Information Source: Evidentiality Meets Egophoricity

5 Unequal Relations between Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality

6 Dependencies between Evidentiality and Other Grammatical Categories

7 What Can We Conclude?

Appendix: Knowledge through Grammar: Further Categories, Further Options

Commentary

Books by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Distinguished Professor, Australian Laureate Fellow and Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University. She has published grammars of languages from Amazonia and Papua New Guinea, monographs on Amazonian languages, plus several monographs on topics in linguistic typology.