Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 15:2 (2024) ► pp.275–294

Common ground management via evidential markers in Turkish

ORCID logo | Bartın University
This paper is a reanalysis of the Turkish evidential markers as Common Ground management tools. Based on conversational data from Turkish National Corpus and a real-life example from the media, I demonstrate how the traditional description of these markers fails to account for their dialogic uses. The data presented in this paper show that Turkish speakers alternate between these markers in order to mark their epistemic relation to the utterance content relative to their addressee. The relevant pragmatic notions marked with the Turkish evidential system are asymmetric and symmetric epistemic relation of the speaker and addressee, resulting in the speaker’s evaluation of epistemic primacy and shared information, respectively. Turkish also has another symmetric position where the speaker abstains from primacy claim without specifying the addressee’s epistemic relation. These observations lead to the conclusion that Turkish evidentiality is in fact an intersubjective epistemic category in the pragmatic component of language where intersubjectivity is defined as the speaker’s evaluation of the interlocutors’ differential perspectives.
Keywords: Turkish evidentials, Common Ground, epistemic primacy, shared information, intersubjectivity, multiple perspectives
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Epistemic primacy and common ground (management)
  • 2.Evidentiality in Turkish
  • 3.CG Management in Turkish
    • 3.1Data and methodology
    • 3.2Epistemic primacy via -mIş/ -DI alternation
    • 3.3Common ground management with -mIştI
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.21058.kur
References (32)
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2003. “Evidentiality in Typological Perspective.” In Studies in Evidentiality, ed. by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon, 1–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aksan, Mustafa and Yeşim Aksan. 2018. “Linguistic Corpora: A View from Turkish”. In Studies in Turkish Language Processing, ed. by Kemal Oflazer and Murat Saraçlar, 301–327. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aksu-Koç, Ayhan and Dan I. Slobin. 1986. “A Psychological Account of the Development and Use of Evidentials in Turkish”. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, ed. by Wallace L. Chafe and Johanna Nichols, 159–167. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.Google Scholar
Aksu-Koç, Ayhan. 1988. The Acquisition of Aspect and Modality: The Case of Past Reference in Turkish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anlı, Müge (host) and Ahmet Şirin (director) 15 October 2021. Müge Anlı ile Tatlı Sert 15 Ekim 2021. In Taner Canlı (executive producer), Müge Anlı ile Tatlı Sert. Mavi Klaket. Available at [URL]. Accessed on 20 October 2021.
Bergqvist, Henrik. 2017. “The Role of ‘Perspective’ in Epistemic Marking.” Lingua 186–1871: 5–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. and Susan E. Brennan. 1991. “Grounding in Communication.” In Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition, ed. by Lauren B. Resnik, John M. Levine and Stephanie D. Teasley, 127–149. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Assosication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 1997. “Mirativity: the Grammatical Marking of Unexpected Information.” Linguistic Typology 11: 33–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. “The Mirative and Evidentiality.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (3): 369–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erguvanlı-Taylan, Eser. 2000. “Semi-grammaticalized Modality in Turkish”. In Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages, ed. by Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake, 113–143. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Evans, Nick. 2005. “View with a View: Towards a Typologoy of Multiple Perspective.” Berkeley Linguistic Society 311: 93–120.Google Scholar
Faller, Martina T. 2002. Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University.
Gipper, Sonja. 2015. “(Inter)subjectivity in Interaction: Investigating (Inter)subjective Meanings“ STUF – Language Typology and Universals 68 (2): 211–232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Göksel, Aslı and Celia Kerslake. 2005. Turkish, A Comprehensive Grammar. London and New York, N.Y.: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grzech, Karolina. 2020a. “Managing Common Ground with Epistemic Marking: ‘Evidential’ Markers in Upper Napo Kichwa and their Functions in Interaction.” Journal of Pragmatics 1681: 81–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020b. “Epistemic Primacy, Common Ground Management, and Epistemic Perspective.” In Evidentiality, Egophoricity, and Engagement, ed. by Henrik Berqgvist and Seppo Kittilä, 23–60. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Kökpınar-Kaya, Emel. 2014. An Analysis of Conversational Narratives in Turkish. Ph.D. dissertation, Hacettepe University.
Krifka, Manfred. 2007. “Basic Notions of Information Structure.” In The notions of information structure, ed. by Caroline Féry, Gisbert Fanselow and Manfred Krifka, 13–56. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam. (Working Papers of the SFB 632, 6)Google Scholar
Kuram, Kadri. 2022. “A Morpho-pragmatic Classification of Turkish TAM markers.” Dilbilim Araştırmaları Dergisi 33 (2): 145–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William and Joshua Waletzky. 1967. “Narrative Analysis”. In Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, ed. by June Helm, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (Reprinted 1997 in Journal of Narrative and Life History 71:3–38.)Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, Frank R. 2001. Mood and Modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rumsey, Alan. 2020. “Egophoricity, Engagement, and the Centring of Subjectivity.” In Evidentiality, Egophoricity, and Engagement, ed. by Henrik Bergqvist and Seppo Kittilä, 61–93. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
San Roque, Lila, Simeon Floyd and Elisabeth Norcliffe. 2017. “Evidentiality and Interrogativity”. Lingua 1861: 120–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1981. “Tense Variation in Narrative”. Language 57(1): 45–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I. and Ayhan Aksu. 1982. “Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Use of the Turkish Evidential”. In Tense-Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics, ed. by Paul J. Hopper, 185–200. Amsteredam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 2002. “Common Ground.” Linguistics and Philosophy 251: 701–721. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada and Jakob Steensig. 2011. “Knowledge, Morality and Affiliation in Social Interaction.” In The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation, ed. by Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada and Jakob Steensig, 3–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Temürcü, Ceyhan. 2007. A Semantic Framework for Analyzing Tense, Aspect and Mood: An Application to the Ranges of Polysemy of -Xr, -Dir and -∅ in Turkish. Ph.D. dissertation, Antwerp University.
Willet, Thomas. 1988. “A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticization of Evidentiality.” Studies in Language (12)11: 51–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wolfson, Nessa. 1979. “The Conversational Historical Present Alternation.” Language 55(1): 168–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar