Cover not available

In:New Directions in Grammaticalization Research
Edited by Andrew D.M. Smith, Graeme Trousdale and Richard Waltereit
[Studies in Language Companion Series 166] 2015
► pp. 93–120

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

Epistemic/evidential markers of the type verb + complementizer

Some parallels from English and Romance

 | University of Santiago de Compostela
 | University of Santiago de Compostela
Published online: 8 April 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.166.05lop
English and Romance possess a particularly interesting way of expressing evidentiality and epistemicity, namely markers involving a verb of saying, knowing, or seeming followed by a complementizer (Verb+C), as Spanish dizque, Galician seica, and English looks like. In this chapter we consider the parallels between the English and the Romance formations and describe them as resulting from processes of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification. We show that in their development these Verb+C epistemic/evidential markers undergo decategorialization, morphosyntactic fixation, and fusion, and acquire new semantico-pragmatic functions, encoding subjective meanings such as evidentiality and epistemic stance. The study of these Verb+C markers contributes to broader theoretical discussions about the predictive power of grammaticalization and about the origin of clausal parentheticals.
References (71)
Corpora used
Davies, Mark. 2008- The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 450 million words, 1990-present. [URL] (March 2010)
. (2010- The Corpus of Historical American English: 400 million words, 1810-2009. [URL] (March 2012)
. 2002-Corpus del Español: 100 million words, 1200s-1900s. [URL] (April 2012, March 2013)
. 2012- The Corpus of American Soap Operas: 100 million words, 2001-2012. [URL] (March 2013)
Instituto da Lingua Galega: Tesouro Informatizado da Lingua Galega (TILG) [URL] (May 2012)
Real Academia Española: Banco de datos (CORDE) [online]. Corpus Diacrónico del Español. [URL] (March 2012)
: Banco de datos (CREA) [online]. Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual. [URL] (March 2012)
References
Aijmer, Karin 2009. Seem and evidentiality. Functions of Language 16(1): 63-88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2003. Evidentiality in typological perspective. In Studies in Evidentiality [Typological Studies in Language 54], Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M.W. Dixon (eds), 1–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Babel, Anna M. 2009. Dizque, evidentiality, and stance in Valley Spanish. Language in Society 38: 487-511. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boye, Kasper & Harder, Peter. 2007. Complement-taking predicates. Usage and linguistic structure. Studies in Language 31(3): 569-606. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 1996. Pragmatic Markers in English. Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. The Comment Clause in English. Syntactic Origins and Pragmatic Development. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Discourse markers. In Historical Pragmatics, Andreas H. Jucker & Irma Taavitsainen (eds), 285–314, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope & Levinson, Stephen C. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell, Lyle. 2001. What’s wrong with grammaticalization? Language Sciences 23(2-3): 113-186. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casseb-Galvão, Vânia Cristina. 2004. De predicação matriz a operador evidencial. A gramaticalização de diz que. VEREDAS 8(1–2): 163-181.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1986. Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (eds), 261-272. Norkwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Company Company, Concepción. 2004. Gramaticalización por subjectivización como pres-cindibilidad de la sintaxis. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica LII(1): 1-27.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006a. Zero in syntax, ten in pragmatics: Subjectification as cancellation. In Subjectification: Various Paths to Subjectivity, Angeliki Athanassiadou, Costas Canakis & Bert Cornillie (eds), 375-397. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006b. Subjectification of verbs into discourse markers: Semantic-pragmatic change only? Belgian Journal of Linguistics 20(1): 97–121. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cruschina, Silvio. 2013. The expression of evidentiality and epistemicity: Cases of grammaticalization in Italian and Sicilian. Probus. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cruschina, Silvio & Remberger, Eva-Maria. 2008. Hearsay and reported speech: Evidentiality in Romance. Rivista de Gramatica Generativa 33: 95-116.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 1997. Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information. Linguistic Typology 1: 33-52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. The mirative and evidentiality. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 369-382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dendale, Patrick & Van Bogaert, Julie. 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 & Smirnova, Elena. 2010. Evidentiality in German. Linguistic Realization and Regularities in Grammaticalization [Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 228]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DPD: Real Academia Española. 2005. Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas. <[URL]>Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DRAE: Real Academia Española. 2001. Diccionario de la Lengua Española. 22nd edn. <[URL]>Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DRAG = Diccionario da Real Academia Galega. 1997. 1st edn. A Coruña: Real Academia Galega.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds). 2011. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. <[URL]> (March 2013)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DXL = Carballeira Anllo, Xosé María (coord.), Carme Ares Vázquez, Carme Hermida Gulías, Primitivo Iglesias Sierra, Xosé María Lema Suárez, Rosa López Fernández. 2008. Dicionario Xerais da Lengua. 6th edn. Vigo: Edicións Xerais.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Olga. 2007. Morphosyntactic Change. Functional and Formal Perspectives. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gisborne, Nikolas & Holmes, Jasper. 2007. A history of English evidential verbs of appearance. English Language and Linguistics 11(1): 1-29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gómez Torrego, Leonardo. 1999. Los verbos auxiliaries. Las perífrasis verbales de infinitivo.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1995. Conceptual grammaticalization and prediction. In Language and the Cognitive Construal of the World, John R. Taylor & Robert E. MacLaury (eds), 119-135. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Grammaticalization. In The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Brian D. Joseph & Richard D. Janda (eds), 575-601. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticization. In Approaches to Grammaticalization, Vol. 1 [Typological Studies in Language 19], Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds), 17-35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther, Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania. 2011. On thetical grammar. Studies in Language 35(4): 848-893. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kany, C.E. 1944. Impersonal dizque and its variants in American Spanish. Hispanic Review 12: 168-177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lapesa, Rafael. 1980. Historia de la lengua española, 8th edn. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian. 1985. Grammaticalization: Synchronic variation and diachronic change. Lingua e Stile 20(3): 303-318.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1991. Grammaticalization and related changes in Contemporary German. In Approaches to Grammaticalization, Vol. 2 [Typological Studies in Language 19], Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds), 493-535. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López-Couso, María José. 1996. On the history of methinks: From impersonal construction to fossilized expression. Folia Linguistica Historica 17: 153-169.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López-Couso, María José & Méndez-Naya, Belén. 2012. On the use of as if, as though and like in Present-day English complementation structures. Journal of English Linguistics 40(2): 172-195. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014a. From clause to pragmatic marker: A study of the development of like-parentheticals in American English. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 15(1): 66–91. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014b. On the origin of clausal parenthetical constructions: Epistemic/evidential parentheticals with seem and impersonal think . In Diachronic Corpus Pragmatics, [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 243], Irma Taavitsainen, Andreas H. Jucker & Jukka Tuominen (eds), 189–212. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López-Couso, María José & Belén Méndez-Naya. 2014c. On the history of maybe and related forms. Paper presented at the International Workshop Outside the clause: Form and function of extra-clausal constituents . Vienna, 4–5 July 2014.
López Izquierdo, Marta. 2006. L’émergence de dizque comme stratégie médiative en espagnol médiéval. Cahiers de linguistique et de civilisation hispaniques médiévales 29: 483-495. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miglio, Viola G. 2010. Online databases and language change: The case of Spanish dizque . In Proceedings of the American Association of Corpus Linguistics 2008, Stefan Th. Gries, Stefanie Wulff & Mark Davies (eds), 7-28. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mithun, Marianne. 1986. Evidential diachrony in Northern Iroquoian. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nichols (eds), 89-112. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noonan, Michael. 1985. Complementation. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. 2, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 42-140. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olbertz, Hella. 2005. Dizque en el español andino ecuatoriano: Conservador e innovador. In Encuentros y conflictos: Bilingüismo y contacto de lenguas, Hella Olbertz & Pieter Muysken (eds), 77-94. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Dizque in Mexican Spanish: The subjectification of reportative meaning. Rivista di Linguistica 19(1): 151-172.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Palander-Collin, Minna. 1999. Grammaticalization and Social Embedding: I THINK and METHINKS in Middle and Early Modern English [Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 55]. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Palmer, Frank R. 2001. Mood and Modality, 2nd edn. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Plungian, Vladimir A. 2001. The place of evidentiality within the universal grammatical space. Studies in Language 12(1): 349-357.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosales Sequeiros, Xosé. 2000. Uso interpretativo de la lengua: Disque y seica en lengua ga-llega’. In Panorama Actual de la Lingüística Aplicada: Conocimiento, Procesamiento y Uso del Lenguaje, Vol. 1, Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (ed), 375-385. Logroño: Universidad de la Rioja.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schneider, Stefan. 2007. Reduced Parenthetical Clauses as Mitigators [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 27]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sousa, Xulio. 2012. Estrategias evidenciales y expresión de la fuente de información en gallego: Los marcadores gramaticalizados. In Estudios sobre variación sintáctica peninsular, Xulio Viejo Fernández (ed), 75–98. Uviéu: Universidá d’Uviéu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. & Mulac, Anthony. 1991. A quantitative perspective on the grammaticalization of epistemic parentheticals in English. In Approaches to Grammaticalization, Vol. 2 [Typological Studies in Language 19], Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds), 313-329. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1995. Subjectification in grammaticalisation. In Subjectivity and Subjectivisation: Linguistic Perspectives, Dieter Stein & Susan Wright (eds), 31-54. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Dasher, Richard B. 2002. Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Travis, Catherine E. 2006. Dizque. A Colombian evidentiality strategy. Linguistics 44(6): 1269-1297. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van der Auwera, Johan & Plungian, Vladimir A. 1998. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology 2: 79-124. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wischer, Ilse. 2000. Grammaticalization versus lexicalization: Methinks there is some confusion. In Pathways of Change. Grammaticalization in English [Studies in Language Companion Series 53], Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach & Dieter Stein (eds), 355-370. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Fleissner, Fabian
2025.  132133How to Get into Containers. In Dynamics at the Lexicon-Syntax Interface, ► pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
Grutschus, Anke
2021. Y yo en plan: “¿Qué es esto?”:. Spanish in Context 18:3 ► pp. 409 ff. DOI logo
Blanco-Suárez, Zeltia & Mario Serrano-Losada
2017. The rise and development of parentheticalneedless to say. Journal of Historical Linguistics 7:1-2 ► pp. 134 ff. DOI logo
Cruschina, Silvio & Eva-Maria Remberger
2017. Before the complementizer. In Adjective Adverb Interfaces in Romance [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 242], ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
López-Couso, María José & Belén Méndez-Naya
2016. From clause to adverb. In Outside the Clause [Studies in Language Companion Series, 178], ► pp. 157 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 december 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