Generalizaciones y evidencialidad en español

Normally, European languages are considered to express evidentiality only by lexical means, while numerous non-Indo-European languages present specific grammatical items which function as evidential markers. In recent years, numerous studies have pointed out the existence of evidential markers in various Indo-European languages, included Spanish. This article intends to be another contribution to the study of evidentiality in Spanish.

My claim is that generalizations expressed with the particle se, on the one hand, and generalizing constructions with uno, 2nd person singular and 3rd person plural, on the other hand, contrast with each other in terms of evidentiality. While the latter constructions express a generalization based on the speaker’s personal experience, the se-construction refers to established rules or hearsay.