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In:English Noun Phrases from a Functional-Cognitive Perspective: Current issues
Edited by Lotte Sommerer and Evelien Keizer
[Studies in Language Companion Series 221] 2022
► pp. 171–204

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Shell nouns as epistemic stance devices in English

A study of four epistemic modal nouns and four evidential nouns

 | Complutense University of Madrid
Published online: 21 January 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.221.05car
Abstract
This paper is concerned with the role of English Noun Phrases headed by shell nouns with epistemic modal and evidential meanings as devices for expressing epistemic stance. In line with previous work (Schmid 2000, Carretero 2016), this research adopts the notion of modal and evidential frames (Talmy 1996). The paper focuses on the distinction between epistemic uses, i.e. those uses that express commitment to communicated information, and non-epistemic uses. On the basis of data from the British National Corpus of four epistemic modal nouns (possibility, probability, likelihood, certainty) and four evidential nouns (evidence, indication, proof, sign), four factors that determine (non-)epistemicity have been identified, which are shown to have different relative weight for each of the nouns analysed. Based on these factors, an annotation scheme is proposed for the annotation of epistemic and non-epistemic uses of these nouns in further research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Epistemic stance, epistemic modality, and evidentiality
  • 3.Epistemic nouns as shell nouns
    • 3.1Types of shell nouns
    • 3.2Epistemic modal nouns as shell nouns
    • 3.3Evidential nouns as shell nouns
    • 3.4Discourse functions of shell nouns with special emphasis on epistemic modal and evidential nouns
  • 4.Methodology of the qualitative and quantitative analysis
  • 5.Factors that determine the classification of the uses of the nouns as (non-)epistemic
    • 5.1Factor 1: Lexical meanings, uses and collocations
    • 5.2Factor 2: Retrievability of the belief
    • 5.3Factor 3: Status of the modaliser or the relation as a real entity
    • 5.4Factor 4: Speaker / writer at the speech time as conceptualiser
    • 5.5Summary of the factors that determine the (non-)consideration of occurrences of epistemic modal and evidential nouns as devices for expressing epistemic stance
  • 6.Quantitative analysis on the nouns under study in terms of the factors: Results and discussion
  • 7.Proposal of an annotation scheme geared at annotating epistemic stance expressed with epistemic modal and evidential nouns
  • 8.Conclusions and suggestions for further research
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpus
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