Epistemic modality

Epistemic modality is a sub-type of linguistic modality that deals with a speaker's evaluation/judgment of, degree of confidence in, or belief of the knowledge upon which a proposition is based. In other words, epistemic modality refers to the way speakers communicate their doubts, certainties, and guesses — their "modes of knowing".

Epistemic modality may be indicated:

* (a) "grammatically": through
** modal verbs (e.g., English: "may", "might", "must"; German: "sollen"),
** a particular grammatical mood on verbs, or
** a specific grammatical element, such as an affix (Tuyuca: "-hīyi" "reasonable to assume") or particle; or

* (b) "non-grammatically" (often lexically): through
** adverbials (e.g., English: "perhaps", "possibly"), or
** through a certain intonational pattern.

Many linguists consider evidentiality (the indication of the source of the information upon which a proposition is based) to be a type of epistemic modality. An English example follows:

: I doubt that it rained yesterday. ("epistemic": judgment of information source): I heard that it rained yesterday. ("evidential": identification of information source)

However, other linguists feel that evidentiality is distinct from and not necessarily related to modality. Some languages mark evidentiality separately from epistemic modality.

References

* Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (2004). "Evidentiality". Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926388-4.
* Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.; & Dixon, R. M. W. (Eds.). (2003). "Studies in evidentiality". Typological studies in language (Vol. 54). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 90-272-2962-7; ISBN 1-58811-344-2.
* Blakemore, D. (1994). Evidence and modality. In R. E. Asher (Ed.), "The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics" (pp. 1183-1186). Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-035943-4.
* Kiefer, Ferenc. (1986). Epistemic possibility and focus. In W. Abraham & S. de Meij (Eds.), "Topic, focus, and configurationality". Amsterdam: Benjamins.
* Kiefer, Ferenc. (1994). Modality. In R. E. Asher (Ed.), "The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics" (pp. 2515-2520). Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-035943-4.
* Palmer, F. R. (1979). "Modality and the English modals". London: Longman.
* Palmer, F. R. (1986). "Mood and modality". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26516-9, ISBN 0-521-31930-7. (2nd ed. published 2001).
* Palmer, F. R. (2001). "Mood and modality" (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80035-8, ISBN 0-521-80479-5.
* Palmer, F. R. (1994). Mood and modality. In R. E. Asher (Ed.), "The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics" (pp. 2535-2540). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
* Saeed, John I. (2003). Sentence semantics 1: Situations: Modality and evidentiality. In J. I Saeed, "Semantics" (2nd. ed) (Sec. 5.3, pp. 135-143). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22692-3, ISBN 0-631-22693-1.

ee also

* Linguistic modality
* Epistemic mood
* Grammatical mood
* Evidentiality
* Epistemic probability
* Epistemology

External links

* [http://www.hku.hk/linguist/program/semantics6.html Modality and Evidentiality]
* SIL: [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsMoodAndModality.htm mood and modality]
* SIL: [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsEpistemicModality.htm epistemic modality]
** SIL: [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsJudgmentModality.htm judgment modality] : ( [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAssumptiveMood.htm assumptive mood] , [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsDeclarativeMood.htm declarative mood] , [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsDeductiveMood.htm deductive mood] , [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsDubitativeMood.htm dubitative mood] , [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsHypotheticalMood.htm hypothetical mood] , [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsInterrogativeMood.htm interrogative mood] , [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsSpeculativeMood.htm speculative mood] )
** SIL: [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsEvidentiality.htm evidentiality]