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In:Evidentiality Revisited: Cognitive grammar, functional and discourse-pragmatic perspectives
Edited by Juana I. Marín-Arrese, Gerda Haßler and Marta Carretero
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 271] 2017
► pp. 171–192

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Chapter 7
Potential vs Use

Revisiting an evidential participial construction in Lithuanian

 | Vilnius University
 | Vilnius University
Published online: 21 March 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.271.08uso
Abstract
The paper deals with the existing potential of the grammatical realizations of evidentiality (so-called “passive evidentials”) in Lithuanian, which has been described theoretically in literature; however there are no studies that would attest to the frequency and patterns of actual use of this construction in authentic contemporary Lithuanian. The analysis has been carried out in the light of the theoretical approach (Boye and Harder 2009; Boye 2012) and the template of the database of evidential markers in European languages (Wiemer and Stathi 2010). The study employs corpus based quantitative and qualitative methodology in order to investigate the distributional patterns of the -ma/-ta construction in different types of discourse. Though -ma/-ta participles are very frequent in contemporary Lithuanian, their use in the evidential construction is very rare.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Data and method
      • 1.1.1Data selection criteria
    • 1.2Indirect evidentiality – an epistemic qualification
  • 2.Results and discussion
  • 3.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • List of abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by three other publications

Mazzitelli, Lidia Federica
2019. Referential and pragmatic-discourse properties of Lithuanian reference impersonals: 2sg-imp, 3-imp and ma/ta-imp. Kalbotyra 72 ► pp. 32 ff. DOI logo
Usonienė, Aurelija & Nigel Vincent
2018. Non-finiteness, complementation and evidentiality. In Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality [Studies in Language Companion Series, 197], ► pp. 239 ff. DOI logo
Usonienė, Aurelija & Audronė Šolienė
2017. Reportive evidentials in English and Lithuanian. In Cross-linguistic Correspondences [Studies in Language Companion Series, 191], ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo

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