The Pragmatics of Evidentiality: Inter- and intra-linguistic perspectives on pragmatic aspects of evidentiality marking in communication

ORGANIZERS: Roland Hinterhölzl (University of Ca’ Foscari) Viviana Masia (University of Roma Tre)

Over the last decades, evidentiality has become one of the central concerns of theoretical linguistics (cf. Chung 2005, Faller 2002, 2007, Izvorsky 1997, Matthewson et al. 2007, Squartini 2004 among many others) and of typological research (Chafe & Nichols 1986; Friedman 1986; Willett 1988; Aikhenvald 2004). Most of the theoretical research has investigated the relation between evidentiality, epistemic modality and speech act operators/modifiers, while the more pragmatically oriented research investigated the role of evidential markers in regulating social interactions (Aikhenvald 2004) and in establishing different conceptualizations of experience (Anderson 1986). If a lot has been said on the explicit morphological encoding of evidentiality in the world’s languages, little is known on its discourse dimension and, precisely, on the relation it bears on both the micro- and macro-pragmatic level of utterances. In fact, in some languages, evidential morphological markers seem to intersect with the expression of distinct illocutionary acts (Faller 2006, Murray 2017), with factuality of knowledge (Ohta 1994) or even with different informational articulations of utterances (Sánchez 2010; Shireman 2012). Within some relevance theoretic frameworks (Blakemore 1986; Ifantidou 2001), the encoding of evidential meanings has also been investigated in terms of the inferential reconstruction of the source of information and/or the speaker’s commitment to truth based on the evaluation of contextual and co-operational parameters (Grice 1975). The workshop aims at a better understanding of the relation between (broad and narrow) evidentiality marking and these aspects of the discourse, with a view to probe into the discourse pragmatics of evidential values conveyed in an utterance and, precisely, those pragmatic strategies through which evidentiality encoding contributes to expressing usage conditions in conversation. Moving from the foregoing premises, the proposed workshop will address (but will not be limited to) the following topics:

1. Evidentiality and speech acts 2. Evidentiality and epistemic modality 3. Evidentiality and Information Structure: evidence from typological data and discourse analysis 4. Implicit communication and the encoding of evidential meaning 5. The evidential value(s) of presupposition and assertion in discourse 6. The pragmatic dimension of evidentiality in different text genres 7. Evidential pragmatic values conveyed by phonological patterns 8. Information structure and the grammaticalization of speaker commitment and types of sources of information.

Deadline for abstract submission: 31 March 2020 Notification of acceptance: 30 April 2020 Registration deadline: 15 June 2020 Workshop dates: 2-3 July 2020 Registration fees: 50 euros

Invited speakers: Martina Faller (University of Manchester) Uli Reich (Freie Universität Berlin) Roumyana Pancheva (University of Southern California, Los Angeles)

Abstract should not exceed 350 words (references excluded) and should be sent to the following email address: [email protected] by March 31.

N.B. BANK TRANSFER DETAILS FOR REGISTRATION WILL BE COMMUNICATED ALONG WITH NOTIFICATIONS OF ACCEPTANCE.

References

Anderson, L. B. (1986). Evidentials, paths of change, and mental maps: Typologically regular asymmetries. In W. Chafe & J. Nichols (Eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology (pp. 273–312). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Aikhenvald, A. Y. (2004). Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blakemore, D. (1987). Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. Chafe, W. L., & Nichols, J. (Eds.). (1986). Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Chung, K. (2005). The Interaction between Tense, Aspect, Evidentiality and Speech Act in Korean. PhD thesis, Simon Fraser University. Faller, M. (2002). Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua. PhD thesis, Stanford University. Faller, M. (2006). Evidentiality below and above Speech acts. Draft version to Functions of Language on evidentiality. Faller, M. (2007). The Cuzco Quechua reportative evidential and rhetorical relations. Linguistische Berichte, Sonderheft 14. Friedman, V. A. (1986). Evidentiality in the Balkans. Macedonian and Albanian. In W. Chafe & J. Nichols (Eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology (pp. 168–187). Norwood: Ablex. Grice, P. H. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Ifantidou, E. (2001). Evidentials and Relevance. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins. Izvorsky, R. (1997). The present perfect as an epistemic modal. In A. Lawson and E. Cho (eds.) SALT VII. Cornell: CLC Publications. Matthewson et al. (2007). Evidentials as Epistemic Modals: Evidence from St’àt’imcets. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 7: 201 – 254. Murray, S. E. (2017). The Semantics of Evidentials. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Ohta, A. S. (1991). Evidentiality and Politeness in Japanese. Issues in Applied Linguistics 2(2): 211-238. Sanchez, L. (2010). The morphology and syntax of topic and focus: Minimalist inquiries in the Quechua periphery. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Shireman, J. (2012). Focus in Ecuadorian Quechua. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 33: 16-26. Squartini, M. (2004). Disentangling evidentiality and epistemic modality in Romance. Lingua 114: 873 – 895. Willett, T. (1988). A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticization of evidentiality. Studies in language, 12: 51–97.