Lexical Vs. Grammatical Evidentiality in French and Italian*

Lexical vs. grammatical evidentiality in French and Italian*

MARIO SQUARTINI

Abstract

This article discusses Romance data corroborating a multifarious account of evidentiality in which di¤erent dimensions connected to the source of information are distinguished. It will be demonstrated that the diverse distributional patterns of lexical items as opposed to grammatical forms in the domains of inferential and reportative evidentiality can hardly be accounted for unless a distinction is made between the source of evidence, intended as the locus where the information is acquired (internal or external source with respect to the speaker), and the mode of knowing, i.e., the process leading to the acquisition of the information (directly visual, indirectly through inferences, reports).

1. The ‘‘evidential vogue’’

Since the publication of Franz Boas’ work (especially Boas 1938: 133) it has been generally acknowledged that some languages have morpho- logical means for obligatory dedicated expression of the information source specifying how the information has been acquired, e.g., distinguishing whether it has been directly witnessed (visually, auditorily, etc.) or indirectly known either as reported information or as the result of the speaker’s own reasoning (inferences and conjectures). With respect to this or similar consensus deﬁnitions Aikhenvald (2003a: 19) recently stigmatized an increasing and ‘‘gratuitous extension’’ of evidentiality out- side its proper domain, a reminder of the misuse of ergativity in the past decades. According to Aikhenvald (2003a) the limits of evidentiality have been misconceived, dangerously blurring the distinction between languages where it is obligatorily expressed by dedicated grammatical mor- phemes and languages where it sparsely appears as a secondary meaning or a pragmatic extension (‘‘evidentiality strategies’’ in Aikhenvald

Linguistics 46–5 (2008), 917–947 0024–3949/08/0046–0917 DOI 10.1515/LING.2008.030 6 Walter de Gruyter 918 M. Squartini

2003a: 2, 18–20). Lazard (2000: 214, 2001), as well as Aikhenvald (2003a: 2), also emphasizes the importance of maintaining a sharp distinction between grammatical and lexical expressions of evidentiality, the latter possibly being a universal feature represented by lexical elements such as the English adverbs reportedly, allegedly, evidently, etc. As is apparent, Aikhenvald and Lazard are mostly concerned with setting boundaries underlining the specific nature of grammatical evidentiality (see also Aikhenvald 2004: 147–151). In what follows, the opposite view will be taken, exploring how an integrated account of both grammatical and lexical evidentiality can contribute to a better understanding of the whole domain. In so doing a comparison will be drawn between the lexical and the grammatical expressions of indirect evidence in Ro- mance,1 mainly focusing on the domain of inferentiality. It will be demonstrated that a combined treatment of lexical data and grammatical markers permits us to draw attention to the distinction between two dif- ferent evidential notions, the mode of knowing or type of evidence as opposed to the source of evidence. Although already pointed out (Botne 1997: 523–524), so far the interplay of the two notions has been neglected in most classifications, separately focusing either on the source of evidence (Frawley 1992: 413) or on the mode of knowing/type of evidence (Willett 1988), or explicitly avoiding the distinction (Aikhenvald 2003a: 26, fn. 2). The results presented in this article will also demonstrate how languages such as French and Italian, that only have ‘‘evidentiality strategies’’ (Aikhenvald 2003a: 18–20) and not a regular system of dedicated evidential grammatical a‰xes, can contribute to the discussion surround- ing the classification of evidential functions. Instead of biasing the results, the very fact that they are derived from evidentiality strategies, raises additional questions on whether the distinction between the source and type of evidence depends on the poorer grammatical status of evidentiality in such languages (see the discussion in Section 2) or whether it can be extended to systems where this category is more prominently and consistently grammaticalized.2 The data analyzed in the present article comprise the Italian modal dovere þ infinitive and the inflectional future, which will be presented here as grammatical expressions of inferentiality (Section 3). In Sections 4 and 5 they will be compared to lexical items (the Italian adverb evidentemente ‘evidently’ and the adverbial construction a quanto pare ‘apparently’) also expressing inferentiality. The comparison with the functional behavior of a quanto pare will be particularly interesting, as it requires a classificational model in which the mode of knowing interplays with the source of evidence. The same interactional model will also be proved in Evidentiality in French and Italian 919

Section 6 as relevant in accounting for the functional distinctive distribution of the French as opposed to the Italian conditional.

2. Preliminaries on grammatical evidentiality and evidentiality strategies

Grammatical evidentiality, intended in Boas’ (1938) sense as an independent functional domain separated from modality, has been traditionally considered as typologically restricted to certain given languages and linguistic areas, especially in indigenous languages of the Americas and in the ‘‘Central Eurasian’’ area (Comrie 2000: 11), thus postulating an areal coverage certainly less widespread with respect to the virtually ‘‘universal’’ status of other semantic categories such as modality, tense and aspect. This is also because, as already noticed in Section 1, the coexistence of evidential meanings in grammatical markers described as mainly expressing other functional notions has never been considered as a proper occurrence of grammatical evidentiality, being rather slotted as a marginal use (a pragmatic strategy). In this respect it must be overtly spelled out from the outset that in this article the notion of grammatical evidentiality will be used in a rather unorthodox way with respect to this traditionally settled paradigm. In particular, it will not be restricted to obligatory grammatical markers dedicated to evidential meaning, also including evidential extensions of other grammatical markers. Obviously, this is not merely a terminological question and requires further justification. First of all such a choice has an argument-internal justification with respect to the analysis put forward in this article, which focuses on a comparison between the semantic import of grammatical vs. lexical evidentiality. Given such a binary distinction, evidentiality strategies, intended as extensions of the core meaning of grammatical markers, clearly belong to what a language can express by means of the grammar. It would make no sense to consider them as expressions of lexical meaning, if one aims to discuss possible convergences and divergences between the semantics of grammatical vs. lexical evidentiality, as is the case in this article. But, a more compelling and theoretical reason for subsuming evidentiality strategies under the general realm of grammatical evidentiality is that the very distinction between grammatical evidentiality and evidentiality strategies is less clear-cut than has been assumed up to this point. Recognizing the status of grammatical forms as proper evidential markers, as opposed to evidentiality strategies, crucially elaborates on the notion of primary, as opposed to secondary meaning. Nonetheless, as discussed in Dahl (1985: 24–25), identifying what is basic and what is 920 M. Squartini derived is not always a straightforward task, the most crucial point being that in several cases the basic meaning encompasses di¤erent domains such as tense and aspect, tense and modality, making it impossible to disentangle them. The solution adopted in Dahl (1985) and pursued in Dahl (2000: 7) is based on providing definitions of the semantic content of single grammatical markers in a way that includes the interplay of di¤erent semantic domains. This is not tantamount to denying the existence of a primary meaning and the possibility of distinguishing it from a secondary and derived one, but requires transcategorial definitions of the grammatical meaning, admitting that a primary meaning can also be formed of elements derived from di¤erent semantic domains. Pursuing this methodol- ogy further, it should not be surprising that evidentiality can be conceived as a part of the primary meaning of a form that also encompasses other semantic domains, especially epistemic modality. As already noted in Mi- thun (1986: 90), the evidential ‘‘source’’ and the epistemic ‘‘probability’’ coexist in one and the same marker in di¤erent languages (in English as well in Iroquoioan languages), which might be much more widespread than so far assumed. In fact, the distinction between evidentiality and epistemic modality, although in principle possible and desirable (Comrie 2000: 2), can be di‰cult to apply (De Haan 1997: 6). In this perspective the typology of evidentiality cannot be reduced to a confrontation between languages having grammatical expression of evidentiality and languages lacking it. It seems more reasonable to imagine a set of intermediate possibilities in which evidentiality blends in di¤erent ways with epistemic modality (Plungian 2001: 354; Pietrandrea 2004: 200–203, 2005), on a parallel with what occurs with past tense and perfective aspect (Dahl 1985: 23) that are lumped together in the semantics of a form such as the French passe´ simple. The case of the French and Italian modals devoir/dovere is particularly interesting in this perspective since their evidential meaning as inferential markers and their epistemic meaning as means of downgrading the speaker’s commitment with regard to the factuality of the situation coexist in most cases, making it di‰cult to ascertain which is a pragmatic extension and which is part of the basic meaning. This makes a transcategorial solution admitting both evidentiality and epistemic modality as part of the basic meaning especially viable (on the interplay of evidentiality and epistemic modality in the semantics of modals see De Haan 1999a, 1999b, 2001a; Mortelmans 2000; Cornillie 2004; and Squartini 2004). The present article can thus be considered as an attempt to interpret evidentiality as part of the basic meaning of the modals devoir/dovere þ infinitive, which elaborates on previous research on French (especially Dendale 1994) and Italian (Squartini 2004). Such a treatment of modals Evidentiality in French and Italian 921 raises an additional preliminary question concerning their status as part of the grammatical system as opposed to their interpretation as independent lexical items. In fact, modals are mentioned in Aikhenvald (2003a: 2; see also Aikhenvald 2004: 150) as lexical expressions of evidentiality, but this is not an issue that can be theoretically solved once and for all, for it crucially depends on the morphosyntactic behavior of modals in a given language (De Haan 1997: 151). In this respect Italian modals show some morphosyntactic peculiarities, including (optional) clitic climbing and auxiliary switch (Cordin and Calabrese 1988: 572–575), demonstrating that they can form a monoclausal structure with the dependent infinitive (Rizzi 1982). Apart from the structural interpretation of monoclausality (see the discussion in Cinque 2004), the inheritance of morphosyntactic features of the infinitival verb demonstrates the reduced autonomy of the modal as main verb (Giacalone Ramat 2001: 123–124), which is prima facie evidence of an auxiliation process (Ramat 1987: 16) and has in fact been interpreted as signaling the auxiliary status of Romance modals (Ledgeway 2000: 155–184; see also Cinque 2004: 142, 170, Fn. 24). The corresponding French modal devoir, even if showing the opposite behavior as far as clitic climbing and auxiliary selection are concerned (Kayne 1980), also has specific morphosyntactic features common to proper French auxiliaries (Pollock 1989: 386–391). It is also significant that Old French modals have morphosyntactic properties, including auxiliary switch (Pearce 1990: 18–25) as well as clitic climbing and also prefix climbing (Benucci 2001: 65–68), which permit a monoclausal interpretation comparable to the structural interpretation of contemporary Italian modals. Such a diachronic discrepancy, apart from suggesting a non- strictly unidirectional grammaticalization process, also confirms the intrinsic scalar nature of the very notion of auxiliarity (Heine 1993; Kuteva 2001). In this scalar perspective, modals, although not proper grammatical markers, are undoubtedly ‘‘more’’ grammatical than pure lexical items. This makes significant a comparison between the modals described in Section 3 and the adverbs in Section 4, considering them as representatives of grammatical and lexical evidentiality, respectively.

3. The inferential gradient

While inferences correspond to a major semantic function in most classi- ﬁcations of evidentiality (from Willett 1988: 57 to Aikhenvald 2003a), their role and status is still a much debated point a¤ecting the boundaries between evidentiality and epistemic modality. Even those who stress the epistemic interpretation of inferences (van der Auwera and Plungian 922 M. Squartini

1998: 85–86), admit their intermediate status as a case of interaction with evidentiality. Their mixed nature is also recognized by Palmer (1986: 57– 60, 69–70), who treats inferentials under the heading of judgments if languages such as English or German are concerned (as in English John must be at home), while including them in the section devoted to evidentials in a language such as Tuyuca. Whatever the ultimate interpretation might be, it cannot be denied that by marking information as inferential the speaker provides information on the source of the information, which is undoubtedly connected with evidentiality. As for Romance languages, an evidential interpretation has been proposed for the French modal devoir ‘must’ þ infinitive by Dendale (1994), who insists on its function as evidential (inferential) marker in contrast to more current interpretations in which devoir þ infinitive is considered an epistemic marker, marginally admitting evidentiality as a secondary feature (Kronning 1996, 2003, 2004). The inferential function is also produc- tive in other Romance languages, as the Italian modal dovere þ infinitive (1) demonstrates. (1) [Indicando un ragno] Attento, deve essere ancora vivo, perche´ ho visto che si muove ‘[Pointing to a spider] Be careful! It must still be alive, for I saw it moving’ The context in (1) is a type of reasoning which, acknowledging Anderson (1986: 274), can be defined as a circumstantial inference, i.e., a mental process based on external sensory evidence (‘for I saw it moving’). As has been repeatedly pointed out (Dendale 1994; Dendale and De Mulder 1996: 312, 316–317) not all inferential processes are strictly ‘‘abductive’’ as is the case in (1), where the inference derives a given consequence from an antecedent (in (1) the external sensory evidence). In particular, the Italian modal dovere, its French counterpart as well as the corresponding English modal must (Plungian 2001: 354), can also convey inferential processes in which any external observable evidence is lacking and the speaker only bases his/her reasoning process on previous personal experience or general world knowledge. In (2), a canonical example of similar mental processes, the speaker knows that the postman regularly rings the bell around the same time and presumes that this is also the case on that occasion. (2) [Suonano alla porta] Deve essere il postino ‘[The doorbell rings] It must be the postman’ The distinction between the two di¤erent inferential processes, the circumstantial inference in (1) and the inference lacking any external sensory Evidentiality in French and Italian 923 evidence in (2), is mentioned in typological descriptions of evidential systems, being referred to as the opposition between apparent (inferred) vs. assumed knowledge (Barnes 1984: 257–258 on Tuyuca), as well as inferential vs. expectational (Schlichter 1986: 51–52 on Wintu). A comparable distinction between ‘‘inference inferred from direct physical evidence’’ and ‘‘information from general knowledge’’ is also morphologi- cally marked in Tsafiki (Dickinson 2000: 407–408, see also Aikhenvald 2004: 54–57). Significantly, these two are dubbed as Inferred (1) and Inferred (2) in Aikhenvald (2003a: 5), suggesting their semantic connection under the general umbrella of inferentiality. Consistently with this assumption, Aikhenvald (2003a, 2004: 174–176) uses the label ‘‘inferences’’ as a cover term for di¤erent semantic nuances of the category. This is apparent when considering Aikhenvald’s (2003b: 139) description of Tariana markers of ‘‘inferred’’ knowledge, which cover ‘‘generic inferences’’ (based on world knowledge) as well as ‘‘specific inferences’’ (based on results). In Romance a distinction between generic and specific (circumstantial in Anderson’s 1986 terms) inferences, even if neutralized by the modal dovere, has to be maintained in comparing dovere with the inflectional future, which shows a di¤erent functional pattern. Unlike dovere þ infinitive the future only expresses generic (3) and not circumstantial (4) inferences: (3) [Suonano alla porta] Sara` il postino ‘[The bell rings] It must be (be:fut) the postman’3 (4) ??[Indicando un ragno] Attento, sara` ancora vivo, perche´ ho visto che si muove ‘[Pointing to a spider] Be careful! It must be (be:fut) still alive, for I saw it moving’ A similar contrast has been pointed out in French (5), where the future is not grammatical in circumstantial inferences based on external sensory evidence (‘for he is tottering with every step’), the modal devoir þ infinitive being instead current in such contexts: (5) Au loin on voit apparaıˆtre un homme. Il doit eˆtre (*sera)a` bout, car il chancelle a` chaque pas ‘A man appears far away. He must be (*be:fut) exhausted, for he is tottering with every step’ (Tasmowski and Dendale 1998: 330) Tasmowski (2001: 339) has also shown that when external evidence is explicitly missing the opposite distribution can be found, as in (6) and (7), where only the future (6) is grammatical: 924 M. Squartini

(6) On sonne. Je n’attendais personne pourtant. Çasera Jean peut-eˆtre. [The bell rings] I was not expecting anybody though. It’s (be:fut) J., perhaps (7) ??On sonne. Je n’attendais personne pourtant. Çadoit eˆtre Jean. [The bell rings] I was not expecting anybody though. It must be J. Nonetheless, reference to external evidence is not obligatory for devoir þ infinitive, which, like its Italian counterpart, is also grammatical (8) in generic inferential contexts (see also Stage 2003: 207). Also comparable to Italian is the possibility of interchanging a future in the same context (9): (8) Tiens on sonne a` la porte. Çadoit eˆtre le facteur. ‘[The bell rings] It must be the postman’ (Dendale 1994: 38) (9) On sonne, ce sera le facteur (Sundell 2003: 224) ‘[The bell rings] It must be (be:fut) the postman’ What Tasmowski (2001: 339) notices with respect to the French inferential markers can also be extended to Italian, for the modal dovere þ infinitive and the future show the same complementary distribution. As in French, the Italian future (10), unlike dovere þ infinitive (11), is grammatical in contexts that can be defined as purely conjectural, their basic feature being that any evidence, both external and based on general world knowledge, is lacking. (10) [Suonano alla porta] Non aspettavo nessuno; sara` Gianni. [The bell rings] I was not expecting anybody. It might be (be:fut) G. (11) ??[Suonano alla porta] Non aspettavo nessuno; deve essere Gianni. [The bell rings] I was not expecting anybody. It must be G. The set of Romance data presented so far demonstrates that the general domain of inferentiality not only includes the distinction between inferred and assumed knowledge, here labeled as circumstantial and generic inferences, but also comprises pure conjectures, lacking any sensory evidential basis. With respect to these three semantic functions the modal dovere þ infinitive and the future show a complex distributional pattern that can be diagrammed as in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, the functional distribution of the two grammatical markers considered here is only partially overlapping in expressing generic inferences, while a complementary distribution can be observed as far as circumstantial inferences and conjectures are concerned. The intermediate position of generic inferences is also derivable from Anderson’s (1986: 284) semantic map of evidentiality positing ‘‘weak inferences’’ Evidentiality in French and Italian 925

Table 1. Form/function correlations in the inferential domain

Circumstantial Generic Conjectures inferences inferences

Future þþ DOVERE þþ

(i.e., generic inferences) in the same column between circumstantial inferential and conjectures. The coexistence of an overlapping area and two functionally divergent values suggests the interpretation of the relevant functional domain as a gradient, whose opposite poles are represented by the nonoverlapping functions, i.e., circumstantial inferences on the one hand and conjectures on the other. The overlapping area represented by generic inferences can be conceived as an intermediate functional domain between the two opposite poles:4 Diagram (a) circumstantial inferences —— generic inferences —— conjectures What is common to the whole gradient is the mode of knowing or type of evidence (Willett 1988), i.e., ‘‘the path by which the information was obtained’’ (Botne 1997: 24). Circumstantial, generic inferences as well as conjectures are all based on the same mode of knowing, the three of them being products of the speaker’s reasoning process and therefore inferential processes. However, the three are di¤erentiated along a parameter that is connected to the balance between the speaker’s involvement as opposed to the import of external evidence. While in one of the two poles (circumstantial inferences), the speaker’s own reasoning is heavily supplemented by external sensory evidence, in the opposite pole, all external evidence is missing, the speaker being solely responsible for the reasoning process. In between, the intermediate area of generic inferences can be found with a balanced proportion of the speaker’s own reasoning and external information deriving from general world knowledge. The distinction between generic and specific (circumstantial in Ander- son’s 1986 terms) inferences permits us to return to the issue raised at the outset of this section, namely the interpretation of the inferential markers either as epistemic (expressing the commitment of the speaker on the factuality of the situation), or as evidential (referring to the source of the information). In this respect it is important to underline that the inferential gradient charted in (a) cannot be interpreted as an epistemic scale directly derived from the factuality of the situation, as proposed in Frawley’s (1992: 413) interpretation of a similar gradient in terms of 926 M. Squartini strength of knowledge. Obviously, an inferential process based on external sensory evidence corresponds to a stronger epistemic commitment, while the speaker’s conjectures, lacking any sensory support, are intrinsi- cally weaker if evaluated on the epistemic scale (Givoń 1982). This is the reason why Dendale (2001: 12), as well as Tasmowski and Dendale (1998) and Tasmowski (2001: 338–339), insist on the noninferential (therefore nonevidential and exclusively modal) nature of the French future as opposed to the modal devoir. Nevertheless, such a categorial sepa- ration does not appear to be borne out by the very fact that the modal devoir and the inflectional future share the same functional domain, as is demonstrated by their functional overlapping with respect to generic inferences. In the perspective adopted in the present article, the epistemic scale and the inferential gradient can therefore be considered as two independent dimensions, as already recognized by Anderson (1986: 284), who presents them as two parallel columns of his semantic map. Given their parallel distribution, some connections between the two can be admitted, as is most prominently the case with conjectures, linked to epistemic possibility, while circumstantial inferentials are linked to epistemic certainty or strong probability. In this perspective French and Italian do not sub- stantially di¤er from languages with a more consistent evidential system such as Tariana, in which ‘‘specific (circumstantial) inferences’’ are considered as more reliable than generic inferences (Aikhenvald 2003b: 140), due to the intrinsic reliability of sensory evidence. Moreover, the preferential connections between di¤erent kinds of inferential processes and degrees of epistemic commitment should not be represented as categorial. As noted by Dendale (2001: 15–16) with respect to the French inferential forms, the interpretation of the epistemic balance between the future and the modal devoir is not straightforward, so opposite views can be found in the literature. In principle, the speaker can be totally confident about the epistemic status of his/her conjectures, as is demonstrated by the fact that the Italian future can be combined with epistemic adverbs expressing dif- ferent degrees of factual commitment that span from higher (12) to lower degrees of certainty (13): (12) [Suonano alla porta] Sara` sicuramente il postino. ‘[The bell rings] It is (be:fut) certainly the postman’ (13) [Suonano alla porta] Forse sara` il postino. ‘[The bell rings] Perhaps it is (be:fut) the postman’ The interaction with the epistemic scale is more cogent if one considers that the modal dovere, similarly to the French devoir (Tasmowski and Dendale 1998: 330), is not compatible with the weaker epistemic adverb forse (14), and only admits a stronger epistemic commitment (15):5 Evidentiality in French and Italian 927

(14) [Suonano alla porta] ??Forse deve essere il postino. ‘[The bell rings] Perhaps it must be the postman’ (15) [Suonano alla porta] Deve essere sicuramente il postino. ‘[The bell rings] It must certainly be the postman’ Nonetheless, data such as (14) and (15) only demonstrate that the inferential gradient is biased by the epistemic scale, particularly a¤ecting the opposite poles of the gradient, but this is not tantamount to interpreting the whole inferential gradient as epistemic. Otherwise one could not explain why the Italian future, while being compatible with adverbs denoting a strong epistemic commitment such as sicuramente in (12), is still incompatible with circumstantial inferential contexts (see [4] above).6 The contrast between (12) and (4) can only be explained assuming that the latter has a di¤erent evidential basis (sensory evidence) with respect to the former.7 The data presented in this section show that Italian makes a categorial distinction between the two opposite poles of what has been called the inferential gradient. This gradient can be represented as a tension field between the speaker’s most subjective reasoning, where conjectures originate, and a more objective kind of reasoning based on external evidence.8 An intermediate stage is represented by generic inferences that are less subjective than conjectures, for they are based on (possibly intersubjective) world knowledge, even though they lack the external val- idation provided by sensory evidence. Significantly, the intermediate status of this kind of inference is confirmed by the behavior of the Ital- ian verb forms under scrutiny that can more freely interchange in such cases. In Sections 4 and 5 these results on the grammatical expression of inferentiality will be compared to the lexical means used with the same function, focusing on di¤erences with respect to form/function correlations.

4. Lexical expressions of inferentiality

In this section the functional distribution of two lexical items, the adverb evidentemente ‘evidently’ and the adverbial construction a quanto pare ‘apparently’, will be presented elaborating on their inferential meaning. What is most significant in the spirit of the present article is that the distributional patterns of these lexical items correspond to none of the cases discussed above, neither to the modal dovere nor to the inflectional future. This raises new issues in the classification of inferentiality that will be discussed at the end of this section as well as in Section 5. 928 M. Squartini

The main di¤erence with respect to the grammatical markers analyzed above is that evidentemente and a quanto pare are restricted to the more ‘‘objective’’ pole of the inferential gradient. Both lexical forms are grammatical in circumstantial inferential contexts, where external sensory evidence is explicitly available: (16) [Indicando un ragno] Attento, evidentemente e` ancora vivo, perche´ ho visto che si muove ‘[Pointing to a spider] Be careful! Evidently it is still alive, for I saw it moving’ (17) [Indicando un ragno] Attento, a quanto pare e` ancora vivo, perche´ ho visto che si muove ‘[Pointing to a spider] Be careful! Apparently it is still alive, for I saw it moving’ But, unlike the modal dovere, they are not compatible with generic inferences: (18) [Suonano alla porta] ??Evidentemente e` il postino ‘[The bell rings] Evidently it is the postman’ (19) [Suonano alla porta] ??A quanto pare e` il postino ‘[The bell rings] Apparently it is the postman’ First of all, the functional behavior of the two adverbials provides an independent empirical test of the inferential gradient, whose gradual nature implies that only uninterrupted stretches of the continuum can be covered by one form. Thus, if the intermediate area is not covered, as is the case with the adverbials considered here (18)–(19), the implication may be derived that the opposite pole is also barred for these forms (otherwise, the functional distribution would cover interrupted stretches of the continuum). Such an implicational interpretation of the gradient is confirmed by the two adverbials, which are only acceptable in the circumstantial inferential (16)–(17), but not in the conjectural pole (20)–(21): (20) [Suonano alla porta] ??Non aspettavo nessuno; evidentemente e` Gianni [The bell rings] I was not awaiting anybody; evidently it is J. (21) [Suonano alla porta] ??Non aspettavo nessuno; a quanto pare e` Gianni [The bell rings] I was not awaiting anybody; apparently it is J. These data show that the two adverbials partially share the functional domain of dovere þ infinitive, which is confirmed by the possible collocation of evidentemente (22) and a quanto pare (23) with the modal dovere when expressing circumstantial inferences: Evidentiality in French and Italian 929

Table 2. Form/function distribution in the inferential domain

Circumstantial Generic Conjectures inferences inferences future þþ dovere þþ evidentemente þ a quanto pare þ

(22) [Indicando un ragno] Attento, evidentemente deve essere ancora vivo, perche´ ho visto che si muove ‘[Pointing to a spider] Be careful! Evidently it must be still alive, for I saw it moving’ (23) [Indicando un ragno] Attento, a quanto pare deve essere ancora vivo, perche´ ho visto che si muove ‘[Pointing to a spider] Be careful! Apparently it must be still alive, for I saw it moving’ In Table 2 the results of this section are summarized showing the di¤eren- tial behavior of grammatical and lexical means of expressing inferentiality. As mentioned above, the basic result of this comparison is that the lexical means show a more restricted functional domain concentrating on the one end of the inferential gradient. The results charted in Table 2 can be interpreted in di¤erent ways, but one point that should be stressed is the non-neutralizing behavior of the lexical markers vs. the tendency of the grammatical markers to span over wider stretches of the inferential gradient with neutralizing e¤ects. Such a distinction can be interpreted both diachronically and synchronically. From a diachronic point of view it is compatible with more general conclusions on the grammaticalization process of grammatical markers. A well-known tenet of grammaticalization studies derives from the empirical observation that in most cases the more the grammaticalization pro- ceeds, the more the meaning of the grams involved becomes general (By- bee et al. 1994: 5–10). Obviously, lexical items are less grammaticalized than grammatical expressions. Therefore, it is not surprising that the inferential adverbs here presented have a more restrictive meaning than grammatical markers. These results are also compatible with Traugott’s (1989) account of the grammaticalization of epistemic modality as a process of gradual subjectiﬁcation, since the adverbials, representing the non- grammaticalized members of the set, also correlate with the most ‘‘objective’’ pole of the continuum. On the contrary, the most grammaticalized member of the set, the inﬂectional future, spans over the most subjective side. 930 M. Squartini

From a synchronic perspective the most interesting point is the di¤erent behavior of circumstantial inferences with respect to the other semantic functions. It is apparent from Table 2 that circumstantial inferences are the only kind of inferential processes showing a biunivocal mapping with a given evidential marker. On the contrary, generic inferences and conjectures have no biunivocal means of expression, since they are always combined with other semantic functions: generic inferences can be lumped together either with circumstantial inferences (dovere þ infinitive) or with conjectures (future), so that they do not appear separately. Similarly, conjectures only appear combined with generic inferences and never alone. As far as the semantics of inferences is concerned, this raises a basic question about the nature of circumstantial inferences: What makes them so semantically distinct, that they can be expressed by dedicated means of expression? In the endeavor to find an answer to this question, a significant element can be found in the role of external sensory evidence. As also noted in Plungian (2001: 352–353), the existence of visible traces or signs makes inferences radically di¤erent from other reasoning processes, suggesting a distinction between ‘‘reasoning-motivated vs. observation-motivated knowledge’’. This is a basic di¤erence if one considers the evidential meaning of inferentiality: as also suggested by De Haan (2001b: 217– 218) circumstantial inferences, being based on sensory evidence, turn out to be doubly marked as far as evidentiality is concerned. According to De Haan’s (2001b) analysis, they are at the same time marked as [þ direct], which refers to their sensory circumstantial basis, and [ firsthand], due to their nontestimonial nature. Nevertheless, circumstantial inferences can also be described as doubly marked for they elaborate on a double source: not only the speaker as initiator of the reasoning process, but also the external source of evidence from which the reasoning process derives. This is radically di¤erent from the evidential mechanism of the other kinds of reflected evidence (Plungian 2001: 353), for generic inferences and conjectures are only based on the speaker’s own reasoning excluding external evidence. My suggestion in order to make sense out of this distinction is to capitalize on the interaction between the mode of knowing and the source of evidence, as already suggested in Botne (1997) and Squartini (2001).9 What all the members of the inferential gradient have in common is the cognitive process on which the utterance is based, in all cases being some form of the speaker’s inferential reasoning. This means that they share the same mode of knowing, even if they di¤er as far as the source of the evidence is concerned, with circumstantial inferences crucially involving an external source.10 Elaborating on Fraw- ley’s (1992: 413) distinction between the two basic sources, self and Evidentiality in French and Italian 931 other, it is possible to conclude that circumstantial inferences are marked both by the feature [þ other], representing the external sensory evidence, and by the feature [þ self], representing the role of the speaker’s own reasoning. On the contrary, generic inferences and conjectures, being only the product of the speaker’s own reasoning, can be described as simply [þ self]. The di¤erence is represented in Diagram (b), which is a modified version of the inferential gradient presented in Diagram (a) above. Diagram (b) circumstantial inferences generic inferences conjectures [þ other]/[þ self][þ self][þ self] The representation given in Diagram (b) corresponds to an unorthodox use of Frawley’s (1992) categorization, for in his model any inferential process is conflated into the category self, but the data presented in Sec- tions 3–4 demonstrate the peculiarities of circumstantial inferences urging a revised interpretation of the distinction between self and other. Focus- ing on the di¤erent source of evidence of circumstantial inferences as opposed to generic inferences and conjectures is not tantamount to neglect- ing what they have in common, for, unlike Frawley, the notion of source of evidence is supplemented by another evidential category, the mode of knowing, since the three kinds of mental processes considered here are ultimately all conceivable as inferences. Even if a distinction between the mode of knowing or type of evidence and source of evidence has been proposed in Botne (1997) most classifications tend to implicitly or explicitly neglect it. Instead of considering the two as di¤erent interacting dimensions, classificational models have been generally preferred in which one of the two dimensions is considered as the basic organizational principle. This has also led to divergent structures depending on whichever dimension has been considered as preva- lent. Thus, Frawley’s (1992: 413) account, which is based on the preliminary distinction between internal (self) and external (other) sources of evidence, di¤ers from Willett’s (1988: 57) model, which elaborates on the primary branching of direct and indirect type of evidence (see also Squar- tini 2001 for a comparative appraisal of the two classificational models). The crucial point is that none of these models can adequately represent the special nature of circumstantial inferences, empirically demonstrated by the data presented in Sections 3–4. Circumstantial inferences challenge Willett’s (1988) model since they are at the same time definable as a case of direct evidence (the sensory evidence directly perceived by the speaker) and indirect (as inferences they are indirectly produced by the speaker’s own reasoning). As mentioned above, Frawley’s classification also proves inadequate, for circumstantial inferences are simultaneously expression of 932 M. Squartini the category self (as inferential processes produced by the speaker) and the other (as based on external sensory evidence). In such a deadlock, the solution here proposed envisages a combination of Willett’s type of evidence and Frawley’s source of evidence, which can account for the peculiarities of circumstantial inferences marked as [þ other] and at the same time expressing an indirect mode of knowing. In Section 5 additional empirical arguments will be provided confirming the role of the feature [þ other] in the functional distribution of one of the lexical items here considered (a quanto pare) and corroborating the hypothesis of a multifarious account in which the source of evidence and the mode of knowing can be conceived as two interacting dimensions.

5. Inferences, reports, and the feature [B other]

The data presented in Section 4 demonstrate that the two lexical items considered here, a quanto pare and evidentemente, cover the same functional stretch of the inferential gradient, being both restricted to circumstantial inferences. However, if the whole evidential domain is taken into account, the functional distribution of the two adverbs turns out to be distinct. In particular, a quanto pare is also compatible with reports (24), while evidentemente disallows them (25).11 This property is tested in (24– 25) using the collocation of the two adverbs with the inflectional form of the conditional, whose evidential reportative function has been repeatedly pointed out in Romance (see Dendale 1993 among others and the discussion in Section 6 below): (24) A quanto pare il presidente sarebbe scomparso: lo dicono i giornali ‘Apparently the president has disappeared (be:cond disappeared): that is what the newspapers say’ (25) ??Evidentemente il presidente sarebbe scomparso: lo dicono i giornali ‘Evidently the president has disappeared (be:cond disappeared): that is what the newspapers say’ The behavior of a quanto pare, neutralizing the distinction between inferences and reports, is not surprising, if one considers that some of the corresponding adverbials in other languages show the same neutralization pattern. The French adverb apparemment, mentioned by Lazard (2000: 214) in his list of French evidential lexemes, has been proved in Ramat (1996: 293) as occurring as a reportative (corresponding to En- glish allegedly) as well as an inferential marker (English evidently), and the same neutralization is also demonstrated in Ramat’s data by the Irish Evidentiality in French and Italian 933 construction is cosuíl. However, apart from Dendale (1994: 37), who inci- dentally notes the di¤erent behavior of the French adverb apparemment as opposed to the modal devoir, what has not been focused on is that the distributional patterns of a quanto pare and similar adverbs in other languages do not cover the whole domain of inferentiality, being restricted to circumstantial inferences. Now, the distributional pattern of a quanto pare can be connected to the conclusions reached in Section 4 with respect to the interaction of the source of evidence and the mode of knowing. Being restricted to circumstantial inferences, a quanto pare can be considered as marked with the feature [þ other]. Thus, it is not surprising that it also expresses reports, which, being based on external evidence, can also be defined as [þ other]. Such a characterization of reports as [þ other] is obviously compatible with Frawley’s (1992: 413) original account, in which they are primary representatives of his category other. What Frawley does not recognize is the role of the category other as a way of connecting reports and circumstantial inferences, provided that in his model the latter depend on the category self. Although a di¤erent ter- minology and a di¤erent model are used, such a connection is recognized in Plungian (2001: 352), who suggests treating reports as a special case of inferences, which he describes as ‘‘synchronic inference’’: instead of having access to sensory evidence, as is the case in ‘‘retrospective inferences’’, the speaker reports a synchronic indication gathered from other people. While in Plungian (2001) this is only a working hypothesis, his final model preferring a solution in which reports are separated from inferences (Plungian 2001: 353), the solution proposed here maintains the connection throughout, considering it as another instance of the interaction between the mode of knowing and the source of evidence. In this perspective the neutralization pattern shown by a quanto pare can be described as a spread of the feature [þ other] across di¤erent modes of knowing, including all cases based on an external source of evidence, i.e., circumstantial inferences and reports, and excluding those lacking it, i.e., generic inferences and conjectures. If compared to a quanto pare, the non- neutralizing behavior of evidentemente can be deemed as confirming the independence of the source of evidence and the mode of knowing. While a quanto pare can be described exclusively by means of the feature [þ other], irrespective of the mode of knowing, evidentemente requires a double descriptive label, including reference to the mode of knowing (inference) and the source (other). The neutralization of inferences and reports characterizing a quanto pare also confirms the internal flaws of most current classificational models of evidentiality, making their deficiencies even more apparent than in the conclusions of Section 4. The problems noted in Section 4 with 934 M. Squartini respect to Willett’s (1988) and Frawley’s (1992) models basically derive from the inaccurate account of the special nature of circumstantial inferences, which makes it impossible to single them out from the rest of the inferential gradient. The additional problem made apparent by the data presented in this section is that a quanto pare also requires a model that accounts for the neutralization of circumstantial inferences and reports. Deriving such a neutralization pattern from Willett’s and Frawley’s accounts is made impossible by the same structural reasons that hinder the singling out of circumstantial inferences. Since all kinds of inferences are dominated by the same hierarchical node, the node labeled ‘‘inferring’’ in Willett (1988: 57) and the node self in Frawley (1992: 413), any neutralization pattern including other modes of knowing necessarily comprises the whole inferential gradient, which is not desirable since the neutralization pattern demonstrated by a quanto pare only a¤ects circumstantial inferences, excluding other kinds of inferential reasoning. To sum up, the data presented here can be considered a challenge to the hierarchical structure that characterizes the current classificational models of evidentiality, urging revisions that could allow us to disentangle the role of circumstantial inferences. In a sense, Plungian’s (2001: 353) classification can be considered a revision of the unidirectional hierarchical models represented by Willett’s (1988) and Frawley’s (1992). The main novelty in Plungian’s (2001: 353) classification is that it can be interpreted both top down and bottom up: in the former case the main hierarchical distinction is between direct vs. indirect evidence, while in the latter there is the basic opposition of personal (speaker’s own) evidence vs. mediated evidence. Nonetheless, Plungian’s (2001) model, although less rigid than Willett’s and Frawley’s in its bidimensional orientation, is still incompatible with the behavior of the adverbial a quanto pare, for Plungian’s reflected evidence comprises the whole inferential gradient (inferentials and presumptives), so that circumstantial inferences cannot be singled out and connected to ‘‘mediated evidence’’ (reports).12 The disadvantages of the hierarchical models presented so far could be avoided radically, i.e., by dismissing any hierarchical layering and treating all evidential types as an unlayered set of meanings which can be or- ganized and neutralized without restrictions. In a sense, this is the path taken by Aikhenvald (2003a: 3–5), who distinguishes di¤erent language types according to the neutralizations empirically attested in her sample without proposing any principled and unitary model. Thus, Aikhenvald’s (2003a) model does not exclude a priori the possibility of an evidential marker covering reports and circumstantial inferences, which in fact corresponds to her definition of ‘‘nonfirsthand’’ that ‘‘typically covers inference based on visible traces and reported information’’ (Aikhenvald Evidentiality in French and Italian 935

2003a: 4). Nonetheless, the totally nonhierarchical model proposed by Ai- khenvald (2003a) has the disadvantage of not providing any principled account of preferable form/function correlations, making any neutralization pattern equally possible. On the contrary, the solution proposed here is based on the assumption that a hierarchical model such as Willett’s or Frawley’s can be maintained, provided that it is conceived as covering only one dimension of evidentiality (either the mode of knowing or the source of evidence), while the other dimension is considered to be inde- pendently interacting. The above discussion was intended to demonstrate the empirical adequacy of a system based on the distinction between the source of evidence and the mode of knowing. Actually, the whole argument can be considered as flawed by one of its major prerequisites, i.e., the assumption that lexical and grammatical markers of evidentiality should be accounted for by one and the same model. Nonetheless, the basic empirical result re- mains that the major classificational models proposed for grammatical markings of evidentiality cannot account for the functional distribution of a lexical item such as the Italian a quanto pare. Moreover, as is apparent from the definition of Aikhenvald’s (2003a: 4) ‘‘nonfirsthand’’ mentioned above, the neutralization of reports and circumstantial inferences is also a typical feature of grammatical markings of evidentiality, which makes a revision of the current classificational models even more urgent. Further research is needed in order to verify the wider typological coverage of the interactional model proposed here. In the meantime, the discussion in the next section will demonstrate that the interaction of the mode of knowing and the source of evidence not only accounts for the behavior of a quanto pare, but is also more adequate in accounting for some peculiarities of the Romance grammatical system.

6. Inference, reports and the feature [C self]

The basic result of the discussion on a quanto pare is that the source of evidence and the mode of knowing are two independent dimensions, possibly interacting one with the other. This implies that none of the recognized modes of knowing (inferences and reports) is totally equivalent to one given source of evidence, as postulated in Frawley’s (1992: 413) classification, where all inferential processes are derived from the self source, while all reports are derived from the category other. This result has been made apparent considering an evidential lexical marker crosscutting the distinction between inferences and reports. In order to demonstrate that similar conclusions can also be extended to grammatical markers, 936 M. Squartini the analysis will now focus on a form that also shows a neutralization pattern of inferences and reports. This is the case of the French conditional (26) whose reportative evidential function has often been pointed out, either as a proper evidential marker (Dendale 1993) or as a ‘‘mixed marker’’ expressing both evidential and modal meaning (Kronning 2003). (26) Aux dernie`res informations, les concurrents auraient franchi le Cap Horn (Charaudeau 1992: 464) ‘According to the latest information, the competitors have rounded (have:cond rounded) Cape Horn’ The French conditional also has an inferential function, whose evidential meaning has been explicitly noted in Tasmowski (2001). A significant point is that the inferential conditional is restricted to questions (27), which makes its distribution di¤erent from other French inferential markers mentioned above: (27) On sonne; serait-ce Ge´raldine? ‘[The bell rings] Is (be:cond) it G.?’ (Melis 2001: 75) Interestingly this neutralizes the distinction between inferences and reports in questions, given that the conditional also occurs in questions with the speaker reporting an opinion attributed to the addressee, who is asked for confirmation: (28) — Ce que vous dites est terrible: l’angoisse serait le prix a` payer pour l’e´mancipation de l’individu? ‘What you are saying is terrible: is (be:cond) anguish the price to pay for the individual’s emancipation?’ (Le Nouvel Observateur 1634, 1996: 14, Haillet 2001: 319) The di¤erent function of the conditional in (27) and (28) is demonstrated by a comparison with Italian in which the two contexts are not neutralized by the same form, a conditional being required in the reportative question (30), while a di¤erent inferential marker (the future) occurs in (29). As shown in (29–30), the two forms have a complementary distribution in these contexts (see also Jensen 2000: 1279), which makes them uninterchangeable. (29) Suonano. Sara` (*sarebbe) G.? ‘[The bell rings] Is (be:fut/*be:cond) it G.?’ (30) — Cio` che lei dice e` terribile: l’angoscia sarebbe (*sara`) il prezzo da pagare per l’emancipazione dell’individuo? ‘What you are saying is terrible: is (be:cond/*be:fut)13 anguish the price to pay for the individual’s emancipation?’ Evidentiality in French and Italian 937

The comparative appraisal of French and Italian requires a classificational model of evidentiality allowing for the divergent behavior of the two languages. Since in French the two functions (reports and inferences) are neutralized, they need to have something in common, but, at the same time, since they are expressed by di¤erent forms in Italian, the classification should also account for the divergences between the context in (29) and the one in (30). Drawing a lesson from the results of Sections 4 and 5 it could be noted that the di¤erence between French and Italian cannot be grasped using only Willett’s (1988) category of indirect (type of ) evidence. Proceeding from Willett one could conclude that the French conditional neutralizes the distinction between inferences and reports, being definable as a general marker of indirectivity. In a sense this is correct and permits us to highlight the di¤erent behavior of the Italian conditional, which, unlike its French counterpart is restricted to one single function (report) not extending to the whole domain of indirectivity. Nonetheless, this cannot comprehensively account for the behavior of the French conditional, which, as noticed above, does not neutralize the whole set of functions connected to inferentiality. Indeed, the French conditional is only admitted in direct and indirect (Korzen and Nølke 2001: 142) questions, but not in declarative sentences (32), where other inferential markers are required (31). (31) Max doit eˆtre la`: je vois sa voiture ‘M. must be there: I see his car’ (Leeman 2001: 226–227) (32) ??Max serait la`: je vois sa voiture ‘M. is (be:cond) there: I see his car’ (Leeman 2001: 226–227) Due to these restrictions, the French conditional cannot be simply defined as a general marker of indirect evidence covering all kinds of reports and inferences. In this respect, a parallelism can be found with the behavior of a quanto pare, that shows a neutralization pattern covering reports and only a subset of the inferential domain. As shown above, this makes it impossible to account for it in a hierarchical model such as Willett’s (1988) and Frawley’s (1992), in which the whole inferential domain is totally contained under the general category of indirect evidence (Willett 1988) or self (Frawley 1992). Similarly, the French conditional covers reports and only some inferences (those embedded in a question), which makes it equally incompatible with a hierarchical model including all inferences under the same overarching category. The puzzle concerning the behavior of a quanto pare was solved above by disentangling the notion of source of evidence from the mode of knowing. The same procedure will now be 938 M. Squartini followed in an attempt to find a solution that may account for the distribution of the French conditional. It must be admitted that the results reached on the behavior of a quanto pare cannot be extended as such to the French conditional, the way the latter crosscuts the inferential gradient being di¤erent from the former. As shown in Section 4, the adverbial a quanto pare is restricted to circumstantial inferences, which are distinguished by the feature [þ other]. On the contrary, the French conditional occurs in generic inferential (33) and purely conjectural contexts (34): (33) On sonne; serait-ce Ge´raldine? ‘[The bell rings] Is (be:cond) it G.?’ (Melis 2001: 75) (34) On sonne. Je n’attendais personne pourtant. Serait-ce Jean peut-eˆtre? [The bell rings] I was not expecting anybody. Is (be:cond)itJ, perhaps? (Tasmowski 2001: 339) However, as repeatedly pointed out (Diller 1977; Haillet 2001) the conditional is also compatible with inferential processes based on sensory evidence, thus spanning the whole inferential gradient. (35) Aurait-il froid, que je le vois si transi? ‘Is (have:cond) he cold, for I see him so numbed’ (Tasmowski 2001: 338) Due to the absence of restrictions, it would make no sense to use the feature [þ other], which in connection with inferences accounts for the re- striction to external sensory evidence, as is the case with a quanto pare. However, what the French conditional has in common with a quanto pare is the connection with the source of evidence. As noted by Aikhen- vald (2003b: 144–145), ‘‘The use of an evidential in a question presupposes the questioner’s assumption about the answerer’s source of information.’’ Therefore, if an inferential marker occurs in a question, the questioner assumes that the answerer will be able to produce an inferential statement. More generally speaking, a question involves a switch of the evidential responsibility from the questioner to the answerer, the former explicitly negating its role as the source of the information. This is a marked configuration in which the speaker ceases to be the source of the information, as is the default case, attributing it to the addressee. Using Frawley’s features [other]/[self] such a configuration can be described as [ self], indicating that the speaker has given up his/her role as the source of the information. In this perspective, the divergent behavior of Evidentiality in French and Italian 939

French and Italian could be explained as follows: the French conditional is a marker of the source of evidence sensitive to the feature [ self], while the Italian conditional as reportative marker is sensitive to the other dimension of evidentiality, the mode of knowing. This explains why the Italian conditional is restricted to one given mode of knowing (reports), while the French conditional is more generally compatible with any functions characterized by the feature [ self], irrespective of the mode of knowing (either inferences or reports). One consequence of this analysis is that reports can be described either as [þ other]oras[ self] depending on what source of evidence is concerned. This forces us to consider the category report as internally structured in order to admit di¤erent reportative submodes, which is not surprising if one considers that most classifications distinguish di¤erent kinds of reports (see among others Frawley 1992: 413 distinguishing quote, report, hearsay, etc.). Particularly interesting from my point of view is Aikhenvald’s (2003a: 15, 2004: 50–51, 177–178) subdistinction between reported or hearsay and quotative, distinctive elements being the degree of accuracy of the speaker in reporting another’s utterances and, what is mostly relevant, in stating the exact authorship of the report. Unlike quotatives, proper reports do not necessarily indicate the exact source, thus admitting a lower degree of accuracy and frequently acquiring ‘‘an overtone of information the speaker does not vouch for’’ (Aikhenvald 2003a: 15, 2004: 179–186).14 In my interpretation this overtone is not an ‘‘epistemic extension’’, but rather a di¤erent evidential function: the speaker explicitly distances him/herself from the informational content of the utterance by stressing his/her role as the nonsource [ self]. On the contrary, the feature [þ other] could cover the case described by Aikhenvald (2003a: 15) as quotative, in which the speaker accurately reports other utterances, without overmarking any evidential distance.15 The interpretation of the French conditional as a way of marking some form of distance with respect to the informational content of the utterance is current in most analyses of the evidential status of this form: Vet- ters (2001: 198–199) particularly insists on the refusal of the ‘‘prise en charge eńonciative’’ as the main semantic element of the French reportative conditional and, even more explicitly, Tasmoswki (2001: 342) considers the ‘‘non-prise en charge eńonciative’’ as the common element linking the reportative conditional and the inferential conditional in questions. From this point of view the analysis proposed here is totally compatible with Tasmowski’s (2001) conclusions on the common evidential status of these two uses of the French conditional. Still, my analysis di¤ers from Tasmowski’s with respect to the semantic interpretation of what she calls 940 M. Squartini the ‘‘non-prise en charge eńonciative,’’ since Tasmowski (2001: 340) considers the speaker to be the source of the information in the inferential use of the French conditional in (27), which is obviously in contrast with the idea of labeling this use as [ self]. Actually, Tasmowski’s assumption is totally compatible with some occurrences of the French inferential conditional, such as (36), in which the speaker uses the conditional in order to express his/her own inference. In this particular case it would make no sense to consider the addressee as the source of the information, for he actually knows whether his wife is out of town or not and cannot be ex- pected to produce an inference on a piece of information that he knows as a fact. (36) X: Ta femme serait-elle absente? Y: Qu’est-ce qui te fait croire ça? X: Eh bien! Il manque un bouton a` ta chemise et tu as une tache de jaune d’oeuf sur ta cravate ‘X: Is (be:cond) your wife out of town? Y: What makes you think that? X: Well, one of your shirt buttons is missing and you have an egg yolk stain on your tie’ (from Diller 1977: 5) Interestingly, the comparison with Italian provides additional clues in order to detect the peculiar nature of a context such as (36) as opposed to more canonical uses of the conditional in (27). The significant comparative point is that Italian does not admit any inferential verb form in a context such as (36). Obviously the conditional cannot occur in (36), this being due to the nonexistence of inferential conditional in Italian as opposed to French (see [29] and [30] above). What is more relevant is that, unlike (29), where the French conditional can be translated by an Italian conjectural future, in (36) the future (Sara` via tua moglie? ‘Is (be:fut) your wife out of town?’) is barred. The Italian conjectural future becomes grammatical only if a canonical inferential context is restored, i.e., if the context makes it clear that the speaker attributes to the addressee the role of source in the inferential process (Che pensi, sara` via tua moglie? ‘What do you think? Is (be:fut) your wife out of town?’). The comparison of French and Italian makes it apparent that (36) is not a canonical context of questioned inferences. It can be regarded rather as a pragmatic extension of the inferential conditional towards the direction of a mirative usage expressing surprise with respect to new or unexpected information (DeLancey 1997, 2001; Lazard 1999). The point made here is that, apart from noncanonical extension, the French conditional occurring in proper inferential questions, can be interpreted as shifting the evidential Evidentiality in French and Italian 941 source from the speaker to the addressee, thus making the label [ self] reasonable.

7. Conclusion

This article has demonstrated that the study of the lexical expression of evidentiality is not only significant from a diachronic point of view, i.e., with respect to the grammaticalization path of evidential markers (Ai- khenvald 2003a: 26), but it is also synchronically relevant in determining a consistent classificational model of evidentiality as a linguistic category. Crucially elaborating on the unitary treatment of lexical and grammatical markings, the above discussion has focused mainly on the inferential sub- domain of evidentiality, investigating its internal structure. The data presented have demonstrated the internal partition of the inferential gradient ranging from circumstantial inferences to conjectures and including generic inferences as an intermediate step. More significantly, a preferential connection between circumstantial inferences and reports was demonstrated, challenging most current classifications of evidentiality and providing further evidence in favor of a distinction between the mode of knowing and the source of evidence. More research is now needed in order to test the explanatory adequacy of such a bidimensional model with respect to the internal structure of reports. The behavior of the Romance conditional suggests that some subdistinctions in the reportative area, including preferential neutralization patterns with other evidential domains, can also be accounted for by postulating an interaction between the source of evidence and the mode of knowing.

Received 30 July 2004 University of Turin Revised version received 23 January 2006

Notes

* I am indebted to two anonymous referees for their most valuable comments. This research was funded by the FIRB 2003–2005 grant L’italiano nella varieta` dei testi directed by Carla Marello (Universita` di Torino). Correspondence address: Mario Squartini, Dipartimento di Scienze del Linguaggio e Letterature moderne e compa- rate, Universita` di Torino, Via S. Ottavio 20, I-10124 Torino, Italy. E-mail: mario. [email protected]. 1. Although in this article attention will be paid mainly to French and Italian, some generalizations on the grammatical expression of evidentiality can also be extended to 942 M. Squartini

Ibero-Romance languages (see Squartini 2001). As for Ibero-Romance, see also Costa Campos (2003), Cornillie (2004), Haßler (2002, 2003). 2. See Squartini (2005) for a comparison of French and Italian with Rumanian, the only Romance language with clear grammatical markers dedicated to evidentiality (Fried- man 2003: 212–213). 3. Abbreviations used: fut ¼ Future, cond ¼ Conditional. 4. This inferential gradient expands on the current typological distinction between generic and circumstantial inferences, adding conjectures as an opposite pole with respect to circumstantial inferences. Nonetheless, this does not exclude that a wider typological application of the gradient might require subtler distinctions in the inferential domain (see the case of Kashaya in Oswalt 1986: 38–39, 41–42), especially in languages that mark the type of sensory evidence (visual, auditory, etc.) for directly perceived situa- tions (see the discussion in Anderson 1986: 279–280). 5. Pietrandrea (2004: 188) mentions some marginal cases showing collocations of dovere with forse ‘perhaps’, which require further research. 6. Elaborating on similar French data Tasmowski and Dendale (1998: 330) suggest that the epistemic notion of certainty can be interpreted either with respect to the speaker’s confidence or to the communicated message, the French future expressing the former kind of certainty and devoir þ infinitive the latter. However, referring to the speaker as the locus where the confidence expressed by the future is formed is equivalent to admitting a di¤erent source as opposed to the external, and potentially objective, sensory evidence on which the judgment expressed by devoir þ infinitive is based. 7. Other evidence showing that the distribution of the epistemic adverb sicuramente is independent from the evidential interpretation of the future can be found in (i–ii), which demonstrate that sicuramente, unlike the future, is not sensitive to the evidential source available, being compatible both with circumstantial (i) and generic inferences (ii):

(i) [Indicando un ragno] Attento, e` sicuramente ancora vivo, perche´ ho visto che si muove ‘[Pointing to a spider] Be careful! It is certainly still alive, for I saw it moving’ (ii) [Suonano alla porta] E` sicuramente il postino. ‘[The doorbell rings] It is certainly the postman’.

8. Recognizing a sort of objectivity ranking of evidential sources is not tantamount to interpreting them as epistemic: di¤erent sources can be ranked on an evidential scale that is independent from the epistemic scale of certainty (see Oswalt 1986: 38–39). See also Nuyts (2001a: 34–35, 2001b), introducing the notion of intersubjective evidentiality. 9. As noted by an anonymous referee the distinction between mode of knowing and source of evidence is di‰cult to apply to the grammatical expression of direct evidence, due to the intrinsic connection between the source itself (visual, auditory, etc.) and the way it is acquired (vision, audition, etc.). Nonetheless, the distinction can be more safely applied to the speaker’s internal cognitive processes such as inferences, which, being based on indirect sources of evidence (Willet 1988), involve two di¤erent dimensions: the inferential process itself (corresponding to the mode of knowing) and the source on which the speaker bases the cognitive process (external sensory source, logical expectations, etc.). 10. Actually, any inferential process involves some form of external input internally elabo- rated by the speaker. However, circumstantial inferences still di¤er from other types of inferential reasoning, due to the necessary requirement of an additional external source based on a posteriori evidence (‘retrospective evidence’ in Plungian 2001: 352–353). Evidentiality in French and Italian 943

11. Apart from the adverb asseritamente, which only occurs in juristic specialized texts (Venier 1991: 34), in standard colloquial Italian there is no adverb restricted to reportative contexts such as English allegedly, reportedly or French pre´tendument (Nøjgaard 1992–1995: 235–236). 12. As noted above, a way of singling out sensory evidence inferences connecting them to reports (described as ‘synchronic inferences’) is tentatively proposed in Plungian (2001: 353), but the suggestion is ultimately dropped in favor of his alternative ﬁnal model. 13. The future becomes grammatical in Italian if temporal reference is shifted to the deictic future, while the conditional in (30) can also refer to the deictic present. 14. Note, however, that this is only a possible extension of the distinction: as also noted by Aikhenvald (2003a: 6, 2004: 58–59) subtypes of reportivity can be distinguished on a di¤erent basis (see also Anderson 1986: 289), as is the case of the opposition between reported (1) and reported (2) in Uto-Aztecan (‘‘previously known to the hearer’’ vs. ‘‘previously unknown to the hearer’’, Willett 1991: 161–166). This presupposes a pragmatic interpretation (old vs. new information) of reportative evidentials, on which see also Blass (1989). Furthermore, two di¤erent reportative markers in one language may also be distinguished on a textual and genre-sensitive basis, one of the two forms only occurring in narratives (myths or stories), as is the case in Tonkawa (Aikhenvald 2004: 51). 15. Palmer’s (1986: 70, 73) distinction between quotative and report, based on data from Hidatsa, partially overlaps Aikhenvald’s (2003a: 15) opposition, even though in Palmer the main focus is on the ‘‘intersubjective’’ nature of quotatives (‘‘the speaker regards what he has said to be something that everyone knows’’, i.e., including the speaker) as opposed to the totally external character of reports (information given by someone else, i.e., originally not shared by the speaker). For a distinction between subjective and intersubjective evidentiality see Nuyts (2001a: 34–35, 2001b).

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