Cover not available

Article published In: The Rise and Development of Evidential and Epistemic Markers
Edited by Silvio Cruschina and Eva-Maria Remberger
[Journal of Historical Linguistics 7:1/2] 2017
► pp. 9–47

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Evidential adverbs in German

Diachronic development and present-day meaning

 | University of Tübingen
 | University of Tübingen
Published online: 23 November 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.7.1-2.02axe
Abstract
This article addresses the semantic and morphosyntactic development of the German evidential adverbs offensichtlich, offenbar, anscheinend, and scheinbar ‘obviously’/‘apparently’/‘seemingly’ and their meaning contribution in present-day German. It will be argued that these expressions, most of which are historically derived from adjectives, innovated separate lexical entries as sentence adverbs in New High German resulting from a morphosyntactic reanalysis of an ambiguous surface structure. This reanalysis was accompanied by a profound semantic change, as a result of which the expressions acquired a wide-scope reading of the type ‘there is (clear) evidence that p’. The diachronic results are corroborated by experimental data from Present-Day German that show that these evidential sentence adverbs are underspecified with respect to evidence type (inference and report). The diachronic and synchronic findings are furthermore discussed in the light of grammaticalization and subjectification theory.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.General diachronic development
  • 3. Scheinbar and scheinen in Old and Middle High German
  • 4.Development into sentence adverbs
    • 4.1Interpretation of sentence adverbials
    • 4.2Ambiguity as a source of reanalysis
    • 4.3Syntactic reanalysis and the grammar of adverbials
  • 5.Meaning contribution in Present-Day German
    • 5.1Evidence type and degree of reliability
    • 5.2Evidence type: Corpus examples
    • 5.3Evidence type and degree of reliability: A study on acceptability in context
      • Predictions
      • 5.3.1Method
        • Participants
        • Design
        • Materials
        • Procedure
        • Data analysis
      • 5.3.2Results
      • 5.3.3General discussion
      • 5.3.4Evidentiality
  • 6.Metaphorization, subjectification, and grammaticalization
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • References
References (87)
Primary sources
Elias von Steinmeyer und Eduard Sievers, gesammelt und bearbeitet von Elias von Steinmeyer und Eduard Sievers. 51 Bände. Berlin 1879–1922: Weidmann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeReKo = Deutsches Referenzkorpus / Archiv der Korpora geschriebener Gegenwartssprache 2015-II (Release vom 28.09.2015). Mannheim: Institut für Deutsche Sprache. Available online at [URL].
Deutsches TextarchivDTA = Deutsches Textarchiv. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften Deutsches Textarchiv. Available online at [URL].
DUDEN Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, 7., überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage, hrsg. von der Dudenredaktion. Berlin: DUDEN-Verlag, 2011.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grimm, Jacob & Wilhelm GrimmDWb = Grimm, Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm. 1854–1954: Deutsches Wörterbuch. Band 1–16. Leipzig: Hirzel. See also CD-ROM 2004: Der digitale Grimm. Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins. Available online at [URL].
Middle High German Conceptual Database of the University of SalzburgMHDBDB = Middle High German Conceptual Database of the University of Salzburg. Available online at [URL].
TITUS = Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien. Available online at [URL].
References
Abraham, Werner. 2011. Über Unhintergehbarkeiten in der modernen Modalitätsforschung. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova, eds., 149–169.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Abraham, Werner & Elisabeth Leiss, eds. 2009. Modalität. Epistemik und Evidentialität bei Modalverb, Adverb, Modalpartikel und Modus. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2003. Evidentiality in Typological Perspective. Studies in Evidentiality ed. by Alexandra Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon, 131–164. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2007. Information Source and Evidentiality: What can we conclude. Rivista di Linguistica 19:1.209–227.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Lloyd B. 1986. Evidentials, Paths of Change, and Mental Maps: Typologically regular asymmetries. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols, eds., 273–312.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Askedal, John Ole. 1998. Satzmustervariation und Hilfsverbproblematik beim deutschen Verb ‚scheinen’. Deutsche Grammatik – Thema in Variationen ed. by Karin Donhauser & Ludwig Eichinger, 49–74. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Axel-Tober, Katrin. 2016. Satzadverbiale im Deutschen: synchrone und diachrone Fragen bei einem ‘scheints’ alten Thema. “dat ih dir it nu bi huldi gibu” – Linguistische, germanistische und indogermanistische Studien Rosemarie Lühr gewidmet ed. by Sergio Neri, Roland Schuhmann & Susanne Zeilfelder, 23–33. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ballweg, Joachim. 2009. Modalpartikel. Handbuch der deutschen Wortarten ed. by Ludger Hoffmann, 547–554. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bellert, Irena. 1977. On Semantic and Distributional Properties of Sentential Adverbs. Linguistic Inquiry 81.337–351.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace & Johanna Nichols, eds. 1986. Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology. Norwood: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. Evidentiality in English Conversation and Academic Writing. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols, eds., 261–272.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads: A cross-linguisic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cornillie, Bert. 2007. The Continuum Between Lexical and Grammatical Evidentiality: A functional analysis of Spanish ‘parecer’. Rivista di Linguistica 19:1.109–128.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cornillie, Bert. 2010. An Interactional Approach to Evidential and Epistemic Adverbs in Spanish Conversation. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova, eds., 309–330.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cruschina, Silvio. 2010. On the Syntactic Status of Sentential Adverbs and Modal Particles. STUF Language Typology and Universals 63:4.345–357. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cruschina, Silvio & Eva Remberger. 2008. Hearsay and Reported Speech: Evidentiality in Romance. Selected Proceedings of the 34th Incontro di Grammatica Generativa ed. by Paola Benincà, Federico Damonte, & Nicoletta Penello. Special issue of the Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 331.99–120.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Haan, Ferdinand. 1999. Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality: Setting boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 18:1.83–101.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dendale, Patrick & Julie van Bogaert. 2007. A Semantic Description of French Lexical Evidential Markers and the Classification of Evidentials. Rivista di Linguistica 19:1.65–89.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diewald, Gabriele & Elena Smirnova. 2010a. Evidentiality in German: Linguistic realization and regularities in grammaticalization. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diewald, Gabriele & Elena Smirnova, eds. 2010b. The Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diewald, Gabriele & Elena Smirnova, eds. 2011. Modalität und Evidentialität. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ebert, Robert P. 1976. Infinitival Complement Constructions in Early New High German. Tübingen: Niemeyer. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Peter. 1999. Grundriss der deutschen Grammatik. Vol. 2: Der Satz. Stuttgart: Metzler. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ernst, Thomas. 2002. The Syntax of Adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eroms, Hans-Werner. 2006. Satzadverbien und Diskurspartikeln. Dependenz und Valenz, Band 2, ed. by Vilmos Ágel, 1017–1036. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fabricius-Hansen, Cathrine & Kjell J. Sæbø. 2004. In a Mediative Mood: The semantics of the German reportive subjunctive. Natural Language Semantics 12:3.213–257. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faller, Martina. 2002. Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua. Stanford University PhD thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferraresi, Gisella. 2011. Das Vorfeld als Baustelle des Deutschen: Wandel und Variation bei Adverbkonnektoren. Konnektoren im Deutschen und im Sprachvergleich: Beschreibung und grammatische Analyse ed. by Gisella Ferraresi, 225–250. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flury, Robert. 1964. Struktur- und Bedeutungsgeschichte des Adjektiv-Suffixes ‘-bar’. University of Zurich PhD thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frey, Werner & Karin Pittner. 1998. Zur Positionierung der Adverbiale im deutschen Mittelfeld. Linguistische Berichte 1761.489–534.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, Paul. 1975. Logic and Conversation. Syntax and Semantics 3 ed. by Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hacquard, Valentine. 2013. On the Grammatical Category of Modality. Proceedings of the 19th Amsterdam Colloquium ed. by Maria Aloni, Michael Franke, and Floris Roelofsen. Available online at [URL].
Haider, Hubert. 2000. Adverb Placement: Convergence of structure and licensing. Theoretical Linguistics 261:1–2.95–134. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haider, Hubert. 2004. Pre- and postverbal adverbials in OV and VO. Lingua 1141.779–807. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd ed. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Helbig, Gerhard. 1970. Sind Negationswörter, Modalwörter und Partikeln im Deutschen besondere Wortarten? Deutsch als Fremdsprache 71.393–401.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hetland, Jorunn. 1992. Satzadverbien im Fokus. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Elisabeth C. Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Katny, Andrzej. 1980. Die Modalverben und Modalwörter im Deutschen und im Polnischen. Rzeszów, Wyd. Uczelniane.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1991. Modality. Semantics: An international handbook of contemporary research ed. by Dieter Wunderlich & Arnim von Stechow, 639–650. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 2012. Modals and Conditionals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lang, Ewald. 1979. Zum Status der Satzadverbiale. Slovo a Slovenost XL1 31.200–213.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leiss, Elisabeth. 2009. Drei Spielarten der Epistemizität, drei Spielarten der Evidentialität und drei Spielarten des Wissens. Modalität. Epistemik und Evidentialität bei Modalverb, Adverb, Modalpartikel und Modus ed. by Werner Abraham & Elisabeth Leiss, 3–24. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leiss, Elisabeth. 2011. Lexikalische versus grammatische Epistemizität und Evidentialität: Plädoyer für eine klare Trennung von Lexikon und Grammatik. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova, eds., 149–169.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matthewson, Lisa, Henry Davis, & Hotze Rullmann. 2007. Evidentials as Epistemic Modals: Evidence from St’át’imcets. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 71.201–254. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moltmann, Friederike. 2007. Events, Tropes and Truthmaking. Philosophical Studies 1341.363–403. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moltmann, Friederike. 2009. Degree Structure as Trope Structure: A trope-based analysis of comparative and positive adjectives. Linguistics and Philosophy 321.51–94. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mortelmans, Tanja. 2000. On the Evidential Nature of the Epistemic Use of the German Modals ‘müssen’ and ‘sollen’. Modal Verbs in Germanic and Romance Languages ed. by Johan van der Auwera & Patrick Dendale, 131–148. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick. 2001. Deconstructing Grammaticalization. Language Sciences 231.187–229. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paraschkewoff, Boris. 1976. Zur Entstehung und Entwicklungsgeschichte der Bildungen auf ‘-weise’ (part 1). Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle) 971.165–211.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pittner, Karin. 1999. Adverbiale im Deutschen. Untersuchungen zu ihrer Stellung und Interpretation. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Plungian, Vladimir. 2010. Types of Verbal Evidentiality Marking: An overview. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova, eds., 15–58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Portner, Paul. 2009. Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reis, Marga. 2001. Bilden Modalverben im Deutschen eine syntaktische Klasse? Modalität und Modalverben im Deutschen ed. by Reimar Müller & Marga Reis, 287–318. Hamburg: Buske.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reis, Marga. 2005. Zur Grammatik der sog. Halbmodale drohen/versprechen +  Infinitiv. Deutsche Syntax: Empirie und Theorie ed. by Franz J. D’Avis, 125–145. Göteborg. (Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reis, Marga. 2007. Modals, So-called Semi-Modals, and Grammaticalization in German. Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 121.1–57.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. Elements of Grammar. A handbook in generative syntax ed. by Liliane Haegeman, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian & Anna Roussou. 2003. Syntactic Change: A Minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rullmann, Hotze, Lisa Matthewson, & Henry Davis. 2008. Modals as Distributive Indefinites. Natural Language Semantics 16:4.317–357. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schäfer, Martin. 2013. Positions and Interpretations. German Adverbial Adjectives at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schenner, Mathias. 2008. Double Face Evidentials in German: Reportative ‘sollen’ and ‘wollen’ in embedded contexts. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 121.552–566.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schützeichel, Rudolf. 2012. Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Socka, Anna. 2010. Reportative Partikeln in kontrastiver Sicht (Polnisch – Deutsch). Modalität, Temporalität in kontrastiver und typologischer Sicht ed. by Andrzej Katny & Anna Socka, 239–264. Frankfurt: Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Socka, Anna. 2011. Evidentialität und Epistemizität in der Bedeutung reportativer Satzadverbien im Polnischen und Deutschen. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova, eds., 49–68.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stolterfoht, Britta. 2015. Ambiguity and Sentence Position: An experimental case study on manner adverbs. Ambiguity ed. by Susanne Winkler, 171–183. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Störzer, Melanie. 2013. Syntaktische Basispositionen für Adjunkte? Psycholinguistische Untersuchungen zum Stellungsverhalten von Frameadverbialen und Satzadverbialen. Hamburg: disserta Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swan, Toril. 1981. Modal Adverbs. Papers from the First Nordic Conference for English Studies ed. by Stig Johansson & Bjørn Tysdahl, 17–19. Oslo: Institute of English studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swan, Toril. 1988. Sentence Adverbials in English: A synchronic and diachronic investigation. Oslo: Novus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tabor, Whitney & Elizabeth C. Traugott. 1998. Structural Scope Expansion and Grammaticalization. The Limits of Grammaticalization ed. by Anna Giacalone Ramat, & Paul J. Hopper, 227–270. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1989. On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change. Language 571.33–65.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 2010. Revisiting Subjectification and Intersubjectification. Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization ed. by Kristin Davidse, Lieven Vandelanotte, & Hubert Cuyckens, 29–70. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Gelderen, Elly. 2004. Grammaticalization as Economy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Gelderen, Elly. 2011. The Linguistic Cycle: Language change and the language faculty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:  Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wiemer, Björn. 2005. Conceptual Affinities and Diachronic Relationships Between Epistemic, Inferential and Quotative Functions. Modality in Slavonic Languages: New perspectives ed. by Bjoern Hansen & Petr Karlík, 107–131. München: Sagner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wiemer, Björn. 2010. Hearsay in European Languages. In Gabriele Diewald & Elena Smirnova, eds., 59–129.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zifonun, Gisela, Ludger Hoffmann, & Bruno Strecker. 1997. Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Axel-Tober, Katrin, Marco Coniglio, Kalle Müller & Katharina Paul
2025. Grammaticalization of sentence adverbs and modal particles revisited. In Historical Linguistics 2022 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 369], ► pp. 232 ff. DOI logo
Coniglio, Marco & Sergio Monforte
2025. Peripheral versus non-peripheral optative particles. Folia Linguistica 59:2 ► pp. 351 ff. DOI logo
Paul, Katharina & Marco Coniglio
2025. Adjectival adverbs or adverbial adjectives?. In The Diachrony of Word Class Peripheries [Studies in Language Companion Series, 238], ► pp. 60 ff. DOI logo
Drolma, Dawa & Hiroyuki Suzuki
2024. The paradigmaticity of evidentials in the Tibetic languages of Khams. Studies in Language 48:3 ► pp. 723 ff. DOI logo
Coniglio, Marco
2022. On the adverbial origin of German modal particles. In Discourse Particles [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 276], ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo
Ruskan, Anna
2021. Visual perception-based adverbials: Cross-linguistic equivalence and differences. Journal of Pragmatics 186 ► pp. 208 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue