"BECAUSE MOTHER ISN'T evidentials appropriately, but they see111 have little understanding of what AT HOME": these forms convey. The work fits into EVIDENTIALITY AND growing body of research on METAPRAGMATIC production and/or comprehension KNOWLEDGE evidentials and modals. It points to direction that production comprehension need not correlate. Krisadawan Hongladarom 1 1. Introduction Abstract Evidentials are linguistic units that 2 This article reports a result of an the speaker's source of information. experiment in investigating Tibetan evidentials are grammaticalized from children 's comprehension and lexical items, which are mainly verbs. It metapragmatic knowledge of evidentials. thus not surprising to find that these The experiment was conducted in a are often expressed in predicate Tibetan school in Nepal with three groups They may be verbal suffixes (e.g., of children: 9-year-olds, I1-year-olds, Turkish), auxiliaries (e.g., Tibetan), and 14-year-olds. Four questions were sentence-final particles (e.g., asked based on a story. These questions solicit answers that reflect children's Hmong, and Japanese). Speakers understanding and awareness of languages that grammaticalize Pvll1Pnn• evidential contrasts, namely direct versus have to choose among the forms indirect experience. Most children seem to appropriately describe events they want understand that when one has eyewitness report. If they have eyewitness vnnnll..,,.. knowledge of an event, s/he needs to use of an event, the form that indexes the direct evidential. In contrast, if one experience is selected. If they do not does not see what happens, slhe needs to visual evidence, they may use other resort to the indirect evidential or modal. of sensory evidence or markers of· There is a relationship between age and experience such as hearsay or inference. metapragmatic knowledge of evidentials. A low level of metapragmatic ability occurs mainly in the youngest group (the Certain Amazonian languages have 9-year-olds). The oldest group (14-year• elaborated evidentiality contrasts. olds) produce responses that reflect a (1984) reports that at least five basic higher degree of evidential awareness, such as the use of reasoning as a basis of justification. Most children who participated in the experiment produce 2 Willett (1988) suggests that the definition of evidential meaning should be narrowed down to the information source. Like Aikhenvald (2004), he does not agree with Chafe's (1986) 1 Associate Professor, Department of definition of evidentials in the broad sense as Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn encoding the speaker's attitude toward University, Bangkok, Thailand. knowledge of a situation.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access "Because Mother isn't at Home": Evidentiality and Metapragmatic Knowledge

evidence are employed in Tuyuca: tense, aspect, and mood markers- in non-visual (using other senses), Turkish by tracing the longitudinal or reported, apparent (based on development of these forms in the speech evidence), and assumed (based of four children. It is found that the speaker's logical. reasoning or acquisition of the whole range of meaning knowledge). Some Tibeto• of evidentiality does not appear until the languages such as Tibetan and children reach the ages of 4;6-5;0, Sunwar also have a subsystem of marking whereas that of temporal markings old versus new knowledge, so-called associated with the same forms appears in mirativity (DeLancey 1997; 2001). a much earlier age.4

However, in a good number of languages In a longitudinal study of sentence-ending around the world evidential is not part of modals in the speech of three Korean grammatical system. The speaker needs children aged between I ;8 and 4;0, Choi not verify his or her utterance unless being (1995) proposes to investigate the challenged. English is a clear example of acquisition of these modals by paying such a language which uses what attention to caregiver-child interactions. Aikhenvald (2004) calls "evidential Contrary to the result of Aksu-Kos:'s study, Choi found that children develop an strategies," rather than evidentials per se. understanding of epistemic modality from Evidential strategies in English are an early age (as early as 1;9). The study expressed by means of modal verbs and also reveals the developmental order: the adverbs like reportedly, allegedly and forms marking new or unassimilated vs. apparently. These forms are free lexical old or assimilated knowledge are acquired items whose extended pragmatic function before those indicating direct vs. indirect is the marking of certainty. evidence. That is, miratives are acquired before evidentials. Although there have been many works dealing with evidentiality from a variety Emphasizing on interactions between of perspectives, especially since the children and caretakers, Hongladarom pioneering collection of papers on this (1993) demonstrates how Tibetan children (between 3 and 6 years old) are socialized topic (Chafe and Nichols 1986), little study investigates in depth the development of these forms in children's 4 Aksu-Koc;; (1986, p. 258) remarks: " ... , it can speech.3 Among import~nt works, Aksu• be said that by the age of 4;6-5;0 the Kay (1986) focuses on the acquisition of tense/aspect/mood (TAM) inflections, in the linguistic means for past reference- addition to being fully mastered, are effectively used for imposing different perspectives on events: the past perfect and the past progressive are used for backgrounding, and 3 Aikhenvald and Dixon (1998) examine the foregrounded information is differently structure and distribution of evidentiality expressed depending on whether it was systems in Amazonian languages and point out obtained through direct vs. indirect that the widespread distribution of evidentiality experience." in a guven area may indicate area diffusion.

49

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access MANUSYA : Journal ofHumanities (Special Issue No. I 3. 2007)

.. to use evidentials and how they use them acquire the full range of meanings creatively. This study reveals how forms convey. Moreover, children evidentials become manipulative tools for different age groups perceive ,.,· J"'u"""''' children when they tell their imaginative forms with evidentiary stories, or argue with peers. It contends differently. This implies that that the presence of evidentials in a child's children should be able to explain speech does not necessarily mean that the evidentiality better than young ones. child possesses evidential awareness, and that evidential may be used with a wide Taking this hypothesis into accoun~ range of functions in addition to reporting conducted an experiment to test the source of information. What follows children exhibit metapragmatic ~w~1 rP.III'IIIII from this argument is that we should of evidentials. Specifically speaking, assess evidential awareness not only from attempted to determine at what children's production but also from their among 9, 11, and 14 years old, metapragmatic knowledge or an ability to were able to justify their comment on the linguistic forms, the choices. I chose Tibetan, because subject of which is treated in this present situation in this language is n~rtil'n l lolll study. striking. Evidentials in Tibetan convey other semantic categories such Works that concern children's tense-aspect and participant d' comprehension of forms that indicate so-called "conjunct and disjunct certainty are, for example, Moore, Pure, (DeLancey 1996). The latter category is and Furrow (1990). They investigate turn related to the notions volitionality English speaking children's understanding control. As there are two of belief by conducting two experiments related to the marking of knowledge dealing with modals such as must and Tibetan: mirativity in the copula might, and mental terms-verbs like know imperfective aspect, and evidentiality and think. These linguistic forms implicate the perfective aspect, an ability to different degrees of speaker certainty (for evidentials indicates that the example, must in "It must be in the red comprehends the distinction box" conveys a higher degree of certainty these two subsystems. than might). It is found that children from 4 years of age are able to locate a hidden A question may be posed why object when presented with contrasting belongs to the pragmatic realm, pairs of statements containing forms that justifying its relevance to "m~~tapragnJ8~ index speaker certainty. not simply "metalinguistic" This is because evidentials are not A conclusion that can be drawn from grammatical markers, although in previous research dealing with childr~n's languages their absence may render comprehension and use of evidentials sentence ungrammatical. Evidentials discussed above is that because evidentials closely tied up with situations. are associated with the necessity to verify presents a clear example of the truth of one's own knowledge and contextually dependent these I belief, they are complex linguistic forms forms are. Unlike case markers or that are generally acquired later in life. grammatical morphemes, evidentials Even though children may be able to use not taught in school. There is no them fluently, it does not mean that they term for the concept evidentiality

50 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access "Because Mother isn't at Home": Evidentiality and Metapragmatic Knowledge

. And unlike honorifics, they are While three adults are talking in the early taught at home. These are the forms afternoon, a 4-year-old boy who is playing must acquire through discourse. with his car toy nearby suddenly interrupts interacting with adults and peers, and them by uttering (1 ) .. Using the direct observing how other people use these evidential SO'fJ (realized as lengthened [s ] children gradually learn to use in spoken discourse), the boy may have to fulfill their specific needs at hand. wanted to draw an attention from his mother and her friends who at the time are 2. Evidentiality in Tibetan deeply engaging in their conversation. It is not likely that he has actually seen a ghost. Tibetan is a verb-final language in which As soon as uttering (1), the boy receives indexical auxiliaries indicate the attention he wants. His mother reacts multifunctions of tense-aspect, speech act to his speech· by saying khiiba khaba participants, and evidentiality or 'where, where' and tells him Jo. stay mirativity. For example, quiet.7

(1) rQ l~e-s-ta Other than marking source of information, corpse arrive-DIR (soi))-UFP5 the evidential SOl] conveys perfective aspect and is used mainly in disjunct 'A corpse (ghost) arrived' (I know statements. When it appears in a conjunct because I saw it)6 context, with first person subject in a· declarative mood (or second person subject in an interrogative mood), it conveys the speaker's lack of control such 5Abbreviations used in this paper include 3s = third person singular pronoun; DISJ = disjunct (refering to non- first person); DIR =direct evidential H = honorific; IND = indirect reported in this paper. Only two of the 44 evidential; IMPF = imperfective; INF = subjects sample used ~a in their answers. It is inferential; LOC = locative; PF = perfective; not clear whether they speak LT as a monther UFP = utterance final particle. tongue. But this does not affect the overall 6All examples discussed in this paper are from result of the experiment. Though evidentiality Standard spoken Tibetan (SST), or so-called is a novel feature of Tibetan grammar, it is by "Lhasa khoine," which serves as a lingua no means present only in SST or LT. franca in Central Tibet and in exile Tibetan According to Sun (1993), evidentiality is an communities. It is similar to but not identical important feature of the nDzor-dge dialect with, Lhasa Tibetan (LT) which is spoken in spoken in Sichuan Province, China. the Lhasa city, Tibet Autonomous Region. The Hongladarom (1996; forthcoming) points out difference that concerns us in this paper is that that evidentiality is an important feature of the LT distinguishes between experience obtained Rgyalthang Tibetan dialect spoken in through hearsay (-pa ree) and experience northwest,Yunnan. gained from inference (~a). By contrast, SST 7 The exp~ession kha-ba kha-ba 'where, where' does not make that distinction. The experiences as used by the mother of the boy in this acquired from the two channels are grouped example is ambiguous. It may indicate the together under the indirect evidential, -pa ree. mother's curiosity of where the boy has seen SST is a lingua franca in the Kathmandu the ghost. But more likely, it is used as a retort valley, where Tibetan refugees reside and is the to the boy's preposterous utterance. mother tongue of the majourity of young subjects who participated in the experiment

51

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal ofHumanities (Special Issue No. 13. 2007)

as in a dream or when s/he is sick. In that 'He went' (I know; for example, context, it has nothing to do with the his suitcase was gone, and I can marking of source of information. Other from what I know about his schedule) forms of evidentials in perfective system In ( 4) the speaker does not see include -pa rg_e and ;;Qa. The former, a happens but makes a statement periphrastic construction consisting of the direct experience of visible result nominalizer -pa and a copula rg_e, his knowledge about the referred connotes the speaker's indirect source of Note that certain languages such information. ;;Qa, a unique form found in Tuyuca (Barnes 1984) the Lhasa Tibetan dialect, marks between knowledge acquired inference. Speakers of other Central observed evidence and Tibetan dialects employ -pa rg_e to obtained from the speaker's indicate both hearsay and inference. Tibetan lumps these two together under the inferential. Examples (2) - ( 4) below will clearly illustrate the three-way evidentiality Mirativity in Tibetan deals with contrasts in this Tibetan dialect. verbs that express imperfective (2) kh61] thee sol} The major forms are t!{u and y2J r~t, 3s go (H) PF: DIR well as their quotative counterparts and y}.::J rg_esa (-sa is the 'He went' (I know because I saw him marker). As the metapragmatic leave) evidentials does not deal with them, I not go into detail about them in this (3) kh61] thee-pa rg_e Interested readers can consult the 3s go (H)-IMPF COP: IND these miratives in Hongladarom forthcoming) and DeLancey (2001). 'He went' (I know because someone told me) 3. Metapragmatic Awareness Other than marking indirect knowledge, - Evidentials: An Experiment pa rg_e in (3) can also be used to connote old knowledge: the speaker is talking 3.1 Participants about something he has known for a long time. The knowledge is well assimilated in An experiment was conducted consciousness. Therefore, information Srongsren Bhrikuti High School newly acquired such as in (2) can become Bodha (Bodhanath), a Tibetan old over the years. In that case, the community in Kathmandu, Nepal. indirect form is used. This is despite the participants are 44 Tibetan fact that the speaker acquires information schoolchildren, age between 8 and through direct experience. years old.8 They are divided into

( 4) illustrates a common usage of the inferential ;;Qa. 8 Our original plan was to have children and 6 years old participating in the (4) kh61J thee as the youngest group. But after ~.;umJu~~ull&l experiment with the 9-year-old boarding 3S go (H) PF: INF children who were available on the first~

52 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access "Because Mother isn't at Home": Evidentiality and Metapragmatic Knowledge

8-9, 10-12, and 14-15. We will Tashi Lhamo, age 2, is the to these groups according to the youngest girl of the family. This age: 9-year-olds, 11 -year-olds, family consists of (maternal) 14-year-olds respectively. The grandmother, mother, Tashi's are from various parts of Tibet older brother, age I 0, and her parents immigrated to Nepal. They older sister, age 8. Tashi Lhamo sent to the school, because their has not been to shool yet, and she want them to be educated in a still has problem with toilet run by the Tibetan government in training. She often relieves herself In this way, the parents hope the on the bed and cushions and will learn to speak Tibetan and makes it dirty around the house. in-depth knowledge about their Usually the mother goes to work, history and culture. and her older sibings go to shool. Tashi's mother sells carpets to tourists near the Bodnath Stupa, a site of tourist attraction. So during experiment tests children's ability to the daytime only Tashi stays at the normative usage of two home with her grandmother. One expressions in Lhasa Tibetan: evening her mother comes back (direct experience) and -pa rg_e home and fmds that the carpet in experience). Each child listens to the prayer room is wet. story in Tibetan and answers questions based on the story. The Questions and Question # 1 (Q 1) are recorded Ql. If you were the mother, what to the interview. When the would you say about Tashi Lhamo when arimentters (my Tibetan assistant and I) you came home and found the wet carpet? at the school, children are called Q2. Why do you answer like this on a voluntary basis. Questions (2) - (referring to the answer to QI)? are told in Tibetan to the child by my Q3. Is it okay if I say like this (using other contrastive evidentials, such as the indirect form if a child uses the direct evidential)? Q4. Why it is okay or not okay when I say like that (referring to Q3)?

Q1 is designed to test children's use of evidentials in a given context. Q2 aims at eliciting metapragmatic explanation for to realize that children age 3-6 were evidentially marked utterances. Q3 and Q4 -•Mrnnri Even older children had test a higher degree of understanding of explaining their own use of language. evidential and metapragmatic knowledge. did not expect younger children to be able ~-alllte~nplate on evidential usage, though Other than gtvmg evidentiary may have been able to acquire the forms justifications for their own usage, children use them in a similar manner as adults. who fully understand what evidentials are should be able to comment on the use of inappropriate forms.

53 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal ofHumanities {Special Issue No. 13. 2007)

3. 4 Coding ofanswers

Answers for Q 1 deal with linguistic forms. given 3 points. Those that refer only to -Pa rg_e is the expected form. Sol} is not observed evidence (the wet carpet) aie appropriate for this case, as the speaker given 2 points. It may be wondered wby does not see what actually happens (the background knowledge is given more mother was not at home; she went to sell weight than observed evidence. This is carpets). If the children use SOlJ in their because background knowledge is responses, it can be interpreted that they abstract. It is hypothesized that the oldtr do not understand evidential contrasts children become, the more they wiD conveyed by these linguistic forms. comment on evidential usage by Therefore, their answers are rated 0 point. to this notion. Younger children On the contrary, if the expected form (-pa expected to construe an evidentially rg_e) is used, their answers are rated 1 marked utterance based only on what they point. The linguistic forms that are not see. themselves evidential but convey the speaker's uncertainty (e.g., Yi1Jki rg_e, Context-related responses (such as ytnna, YilJSa rg_e) are considered directly that make indirect reference related: they are given 1 point. background knowledge) are given 1 Irrelevant responses (i.e., children Table 1. Coding of answers for Q1 the question based on their imagination, not on story Linguistic forms Points are given 0 point. An inability to -pa ree (indirect evidential) the chosen form is also given 0 point and Q4 require deeper understanding Yi1Jki ree (and other modals) 1 the epistemological nature of · SOlJ (direct evidential), other 0 A correct answer to Q3 is "no". This irrelevant forms, or no answer given 1 point. An incorrect answer, is given 0 point. The subjects' answers for Q2 are divided into six categories: reasoning, result, context-related answer, irrelevant answer, and no explanation. Answers that reflect a high degree of evidential awareness are those that refer to reasoning as a basis of rained unless I know that at that time of the inference, in this case, the mother's year in that area it usually rains. Also, background knowledge (i.e., Tashi always experience is an important basis A• .,... n.• urinates around the house).9 They are It may be easier for me to infer about something if in the past I used to make inference and if it matches with what 9 It is argued in this paper that an inferring act happens. Experience is then part of my requires both presupposition and observed background knowledge. Together with result. In my opinion, we will not be able to observed result, I can be certain to make an make ajustifiabie claim of what happens inferring act. without using our background knowledge, 10 Information in the parenthesis are my which is the basis of reasoning. If I see a wet interpretations. road, I cannot conclude that it might have

54 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access 'Because Mother isn't at Home": Evidentiality and Metapragmatic Knowledge

Table 2. Coding of answers for Q2 Categories of responses Examples of responses Points

•ons1es that refer to reasoning Tashi always urinates 3 around the house. The carpet is wet. 2

-The mother went outside (so she did not see what actually happened).10 -Tashi is a small child (so she urinates without control). -The mother wants to sell 0 the carpet. -The girl drank a lot of water. -The girl is cold. -I don't know 0 The subject keeps silent.

(i) Performances to Ql (F(2,41)=1.914; p>0.15) and Q2 (F(2,41)=3.017; p>0.05) do not show statistical significances among the three groups.

Justifications that refer to the notions source of knowledge are given 1 point. No explanation or irrelevant responses that Comletion between age and may take the form of repeating the iltDnl•arm:ratic knowledge ofevidentials answers given for Q2 is given 0 point. The criteria used in rating the above are analyzed, using one-way questions not only demonstrate how the of variance (ANOVA). The children's responses are analyzed, but of the statistical analysis are as more importantly they reveal pragmatic and epistemological conditions that govern evidentials.

Table 4. Coding of answers for Q4

Categories of responses Examples of answers Points Responses that refer to the notion -Mother didn't stay at home. source of knowledge -The mother doesn't know what happens. Irrelevant responses/no -While wiping, the mother 0 explanation found a wet spot.

55 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal ofHumanities (Special Issue No. 13. 2007)

(ii) Performances to Q3 4.2 Details ofresponses (F(2,4I)=4.067; p<0.03) and Q4 (F(2,4I )=6.I46; p<0.006) are statistically Tables 5-8 present number ofjustificatioDS significant: I4-year-olds outperform 11- and percentage per category and age group year-olds, and I1 -year-olds outperform 9- concerning QI-Q4. year-olds.

Table 5. Responses to QI: Evidential choices

Group Indirect Modals Direct evidential evidential + no answer 9-year-olds (N =I4) 6 (43%) 3 (2I%) 5 (36%) I1-year-o1ds (N =I5) IO (67%) 2 (13%) 3 (20%) 14-year-olds (N =I5) 1I (73%) 3 (20%) I ( 7%)

Table 6. Responses to Q2: Justifications for evidentiality choices

Group Reason- Result Context- Irrelevant No ing related responses explanation reseonses 9-year-olds 3 (21%) 2 (14%) 0 (0%) 3 (21%) 6 (43%) (14) 11 -year- 3 (20%) 5 (33%) 4 (27%) I (7%) 2 (13%) olds(15) 14-year- 7 (47%) 3 (20%) 3 (20%) 2 (13%) 0 (0%) olds 15

Table 7. Responses to Q3: Alternation of evidentials

Group Correct response Incorrect response 9-year-olds (I 4) I (7%) 13 (93%) 11 -year-olds (15) 1 (7%) 14 (93%) I4-year-olds ( 15) 6 (40%) 9 (60%)

56 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access "Because Mother isn't at Home": Evidentiality and Metapragmatic Knowledge

S demonstrates that 11 -year-olds year-olds and 11-year-olds view that 14-year-olds use indirect evidential alternation between indirect evidential and than 9-year-olds. Interestingly, direct evidential is possible. When also produce modals such as compared to their justifications Yi~ki ree, and YLIJsa rg_e. The first demonstrated in Table 8, we see that these forms are found only in the speech of two children are still confused about ~War·-otas and 11 -year-olds. All 14-year- evidential contrasts. use the form Yi1Jsa rg_e. These forms in degrees of certianty: Yi1Jki rg_e In a similar manner with performance to highest on the scale, followed by yinna Q3 , the majority of the subjects cannot yi_osa rg_e respectively. explain why alternation of evidential expressions is or is not possible. Those ~llelsonu1g occurs more frequently in the who answer that si51J can replace -pa rg_e of 14-year-olds, whereas 11 -year- give the same justifications as they have use observed result as a basis of done to Q2 (i.e. , Tashi always urinates). The category of no explanation Table 8 reveals that sever:al 14-year-olds 15 found mostly in the 9-year-olds. In seem to master the normative usage of addition, 9-year-olds give no context• evidentials. Five out of six responses in telated responses. this category receive full points. Examples of such responses are as follows: Most children (36 out of 44) select an iacorrect answer for this question, which (5) reflects that they have not fully Slama malg_e ki51]la moo tsinba understood the difference between indirect tg_1) y JJ. rjlWa evidential and direct evidential. The Before the mother carne, she has peed, children who select correct responses are right? mostly 14-year-olds. Their answers to this question match the justifications given in S2 amee hako meetsalJ Table 8. Only two children from the 9- Because the mother doesn't know

Table 8. Responses to Q4: Justifications for alternation of evidentials

Group Source of Same Irrelevant No knowledge responses as answer explanation those given to Q2 9-year-olds 1 (7%) 0 (0%) 2 (14%) 11 (79%) (14) 11 -year-olds 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 3 (20%) 12 (80%) (15) 14-year-olds 6 (40%) 5 (33%) 2 (13%) 2 (13%) (15

57 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal ofHumanities (Special Issue No. 13. 2007)

S3 ama ng1Jla y:Jl, marE_wa forms, which, in our case, include both The mother isn't at home, right? indirect evidential and modals. Children of all the three· groups show no difficulty These responses reveal that the children in understanding the content of the story. understand that they cannot J.!Se SO'J in this They know that a linguistic form that context, because the mother does not see conveys the speaker's indirect source of what happens-the event takes place information or lack of certainty because before she comes (S1 and S3), and she is the event is not perceived visually is not certain what has happened (S2). needed. In the conception of Tibetan speakers, 5. Discussion and Conclusion there may be a rule underlying the use of evidentials and modals. 11 When one has This study concerns Tibetan children's. eyewitness knowledge of an event, s/he is comprehension and metapragmatic certain of what happens and is entitled 10 knowledge of evidentials with a use the form that indicates direCI hypothesis that comprehension and experience. If one does not see what metapragmatic knowledge increase over happens, s/he needs to resqrt to the form age. An experiment is conducted with indexing indirect experience. Or s/he may three groups of schoolchildren. Four use epistemic modals that are not directly questions, based on a story about Tashi, a related to source of information but two-year-old girl who has a habit of concern attitude toward the situation to be urinating around the house, are asked. Ql described. From Table 5, we see that the and Q3 deal with evidential choices, number of modality choices among the namely what linguistic form the children three groups is quite low, and no grotf choose in their utterances when they outperforms the other groups in report what the mother would say after she regard. Anyway, it will be interesting came home and found a wet carpet, and find out in which situation modal Cl' whether they accept another form indirect evidential is preferred, at * provided by the experimenter to replace age children are able to distinguia the one they suggest. Q2 and Q4 are aimed between modals from evidentials, and at at investigating the children's what age they are able to discern any metapragmatic knowledge of evidentials. differentiations within the modal field The children are asked to explain why 12 itself. they choose the form appearing in their response to Q 1, and why they think alternation of the selected form is or is not possible. It is found that differences among the three groups in the mean scores 11 When I talk about the rule of using evidentials, it does not mean that I think evtty of the answers to Q 1 and Q2 are not speaker must follow the rule. Rules are norms statistically significant, but differences in of usage upon which speakers who are not the mean scores of Q3 and Q4 are. merely language users but also social agents can infringe. Without eyewitness knowledge, a That performances to Q 1 are not speaker may choose to present their statistically significant is because the information using a direct evidential. In other majority of the subjects choose to report words, no grammar prohibits speakers to lie. the event using the expected linguistic 12 In their study of English children, Hirst Wei! (1982) found that comprehension

58 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access "Because Mother isn't at Home": Evidentiality and Metapragmatic Knowledge

group tends to use When we look at details concerning a basis of justification more justifications for Q4, there are several groups. The 11-year-old points that lead to a conclusion regarding observed evidence as a the relationship between age and This is not surprising, metapragmatic knowledge of evidentials. younger children have a A low level of metapragmatic ability t1 justify their linguistic choices occurs mainly in the youngest group (9- to concrete conditions. This year-olds). Responses reflecting a high supported by Bernicot and degree of evidential awareness are made They found that French by the oldest group (14-year-olds). I do (age I 0) are able to give not find a single instance of response from about promising utterances by both the 9-year-olds and 11-year-olds to the speaker's intentions. group that may be considered to reflect the children's remarks about children's true understanding of make reference only to evidentials. of the promised action. difficult questions m the In conclusion, this study provides clear are Q3 and Q4, which evidence that evidentials are complex the subjects' deeper linguistic forms for children to of evidentiality. In order to comprehend. They are not mere the children must know that grammatical markers that can be taught convey contrastive meanings. directly. Most children who participated in is selected in the description the experiment produce evidentials event, it cannot be replaced by appropriately, but they seem to have little bm, which conveys a different understanding of what exactly these forms of infonnation. Most younger convey. The work fits into a growing to be confused by the nature number of research on children's ofthese linguistic forms. It is production and/or comprehension of that they are confused by the evidentials and modals. It points to a metapragmatic task. direction that production and comprehension need not correlate. That a to answer Q4, the children must certain linguistic expression emerges in UDderstand ( 1) what the indirect children's conversations in an early age conveys; (2) what the direct does not necessarily mean that they means; and (3) the conditions understand its true meaning. depend. Therefore, it is not to find that only the 14-year-old Acknowledgements-This research is answer this question, but even supported by the Thailand Research Fund half of them give appropriate to which I am greatly indebted. I would like to thank the principal and teachers of Srongsren Bhikuti High School, Kathmandu, Nepal for facilitating the experiment. Thanks are also due to Tempa lag behind comprehension of Sangmo for assisting in the experiment. I modals. It will be interesting to ifthis holds true for Tibetan. am grateful to Soraj Hongladarom and Sinee Wanitchanon for their help with statistics.

59 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access MANUSYA: Journal ofHumanities (Special Issue No. 13. 2007)

References DeLancey S. 1997. Mirativity: The Aksu-Ko9 A. 1986. The acquisition of grammatical marking of past reference in Turkish. In unexpected information. Studies in Turkish Linguistics, eds Linguistic Typology l.l, 33-52. D. I. Slobin and K. Zimmer, pp. Hirst W. and Weil J. 1982. Acquisition 247-64. Amsterdam: John of epistemic and deontic Benjamins. of modals. Journal ofChild Aikhenvald Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Language 9, 659-666. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hongladarom K. 1996. Rgyalthang

Aikhenvald A. Y. and Dixon R.M. W. Tibetan of Yunnan: A "''""""'.. 1 ;• 1998. Evidentials and areal report. Linguistics ofth e Tibett>• typology: a case study from Burman Area 19.2: 55-68. Amazonia. Language Sciences Hongladarom K. 1993. Evidentials in 20.3, 241 -57. Tibetan: A Dialogic Study oftM Barnes J. 1984. Evidentials in the Tuyuca Interplay between Form and verb. International Journal of Meaning. Ph.D dissertation. American Linguistics 50, 25 5-71. Indiana University, Bloolnl·lngto~~.;• Bernicot J. and Laval V. 1996. Promises Matlock T. 1989. Metaphor and the in French children: grammaticalization ofeviG· temuq Comprehension and Proceedings ofth e Berkeley metapragmatic knowledge. Linguistic Society, pp. 215-25. Journal ofPragmatics 25, 101- Moore C., Pure K., Furrow, D. 1990. 22. Children's understanding of the Chafe W. and Nichols J. (eds) 1986. modal expression of speaker Evidentiality: the Linguistic certainty and uncertainty and its Coding ofEpistemology. Ablex, relation to the development ofa Norwood, NJ. representational theory of mind. Choi S. 1995. The development of Child Development 61, pp. 722· epistemic sentence-ending modal: 30. Forms and functions in Korean Sun J. 1993. Evidentials in Amdo children. In Modality in Tibetan. Bulletin ofth e Grammar and Discourse, eds. J. History and Philology, Bybee and S. Fleischman, pp. Sinica 63. 165-204. John Benjamins, Willett T. 1988. A cross-linguistic Amsterdam. of the grammaticization of Chung S. and Timberlake A. 1985. Tense, evidentiality. Studies of aspect, and mood. In Language 12, 51-97. Typology and Syntactic Description, Vo/.3: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, ed. T. Shopen, pp. 202-258. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

60 Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 07:19:46AM via free access