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Article published In: Aspects of Metaphor
Edited by Maria Theodoropoulou
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 23:1] 2025
► pp. 152–181

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Evidential propositions as situational scenarios

From semantic structure to meaning construction

 | University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Published online: 19 October 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00163.red
Abstract
This study examines the interpretation of evidential propositions using insights from the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM), including its recent classification of situational scenarios (cognitive models) into three sub-types: descriptive, attitudinal and regulatory. The aim is to show that processing the meaning of an evidential proposition can require profiling parts of all three types of situational scenarios– a process that is activated (at the lexical-constructional, discourse and implicational levels) by such cognitive operations as echoing, contrast and metonymy. This is consistent with the principles of Relevance according to which the contextual information required for interpreting the speaker’s explicit/implicit meaning (i.e., explicating/implicating it) is not limited to a particular knowledge type or source (encyclopaedic, socio-cultural, religious and so on). The study, thus, complements work on evidentiality by going beyond its features, markers and behaviour in discourse to focus on the interpretation of evidential propositions in connection with cognitive models and operations.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and background
  • 2.Evidentiality
  • 3.The Lexical Constructional Model (LCM)
  • 4.The view of the LCM on the interpretation of situational scenarios
    • 4.1Descriptive scenarios
    • 4.2Attitudinal scenarios
    • 4.3Regulatory scenarios
  • 5.The interpretation of evidential propositions
    • 5.1Evidential propositions based on visual evidence
    • 5.2Evidential propositions based on reported evidence
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (53)
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