Chapter 7
Reportive sollen in an exclusively functional view of evidentiality
Jeroen Vanderbiesen | Universiteit Antwerpen, Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen (FWO)
First, this chapter discusses some problems with a ‘narrow’ view of evidentiality that imposes structural requirements, both in its analysis of evidentiality as a whole and in its analysis of the reportive vs. quotative distinction in particular. It argues instead for a ‘broad’, exclusively functional view where evidentiality is seen as relating to justification for knowledge. On this basis, reportive evidentials are distinguished from quotatives, which are non-evidential forms that attribute information to a source. Second, the chapter substantiates its claims with a case study of specific uses of German sollen ‘shall’ that are analyzed as non-quotative, non-epistemic modal, reportive evidential constructions. Finally, sollen is related to ‘referral’, a newly-coined concept that captures the functional relation between quotatives and reportives.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.A narrow view
- 2.1Evidentiality
- 2.2Reportives, quotatives, and reported speech
- 2.3Analytical difficulties
- 3.A broad view
- 3.1Evidentiality (and related categories)
- 3.2Reportives, quotatives, and reported speech
- 4.Case study: soll
- 4.1Excursus: evidentiality in European languages
- 4.2
soll: descriptive analysis
- 4.3A reportive evidential
- 4.4A non-epistemic-modal epistemic modal
- 5.Conclusions and the notion of referral
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Notes
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References