Types of grammatical evidentials in the languages of the Balkan and Baltic linguistic areas

1. Types of grammatical evidentials in the languages of the Balkan and Baltic linguistic areas Petar Kehayov University of Tartu / University of Antwerp petar.kehayov@ua.ac.be

2. What is grammatical evidentiality? “In about a quarter of the world’s languages, every statement must specify the type of source on which it is based – for example, whether the speaker saw it, or heard it, or inferred it from indirect evidence, or learnt it from someone else. This grammatical category, whose primary meaning is information source is called ‘evidentiality’.” (Aikhenvald 2004: 1)

3. Outline • Areal clustering of grammatical evidentiality in Europe • Parameters for comparison – formal – semantic and pragmatic – structural availability (combinability with adjacentfunctional categoriesand clause types) • Results • Conclusions

4. Areal clustering of grammatical evidentiality in Europe KOMI EST LIV LAT UDM MARI LIT TAT CHV BSK KAZ GAG NOG CHE ABK GOD BUL ING MAC AROM TUR ALB MGLR

5. The sample EST LAT LIT BUL MAC ALB TUR

6. Formal parameters • Past participle as evidential form: Bulgarian Toj otišăl na svadba. he go-PST.PTCP to wedding ‘Allegedly, he went to a wedding.’ 2) Present participle as evidential form: Lithuanian Jisrašąslaišką. hewrite-PRS.PTCP letter-ACC ‘Reportedly he is writing a letter.’

7. Other nominalization (e.g. infinitive) as evidential form: Estonian Ta olla pulmas. s/hebe-INF wedding-INE ‘Reportedly s/he is at the wedding.’ • Obligatory ellipsis of the finite auxiliary in the evidential past: Latvian Jana vakar atnākusimājās. Jana yesterday  come-PST.PTCPhome ‘Reportedly Jana has come home yesterday.’

8. 5) The existence of dedicated evidential morpheme: Latvian Jana esot mājās. Jana be-RM home ‘Reportedly Jana is home.’ • The use of the participle of the auxiliary verb as a “distance particle” (Johanson 1998: 146), cf.: Bulgarian Тoj živeelmnogo dobre. He live-PST.PTCPvery well ‘Reportedly he lives very well.’ Тоj bil živeelmnogodobre. He be-PST.PTCP live-PST.PTCPvery well ‘Reportedly (+ lower commitment) he lives very well.’

9. The use of voice distinction as an evidential strategy: Lithuanian Jo rašoma laiškas.(Gronemeyer 1997: 103) he-GENwrite-PASS.PRS.PTCP.NT letter ‘He is evidently writing a letter.’

10. Semantic and pragmatic parameters • The system covers reported evidentiality • The system covers inferentiality • The system covers mirativity Albanian Sa bukur folke shqip! (Eintrei 1982: 111) how well speak-ADM.2SG AlbanianADV ‘How well do you speak Albanian!’

11. 4) The existence of means for expressing a tripatrite distinction [UNMARKED / + feature / – feature]:Macedonian (Friedman 1986)

12. A subtype of evidentiality is specified out of umbrella term, cf.: Turkish (Slobin & Aksu 1982: 194) Kemal gelmiş Kemal come-PST.INDIR ‘Kemal has reportedly/evidently come.’ Kemal gelmiş- (i)miş Kemal come-PST.INDIR- be-PST.INDIR ‘Kemal has reportedly come.’ 6)The evidential encodes generic statements (i.e. expressions of epistemic necessity): Albanian (Duchet & Përnaska 1996: 37) Po ja kë fati qenka fat. Et voilà que destin.le être (Prés.Adm.3SG) destin ‘Et voilà que le destin est le destin.’

13. 7) Evidential forms are used when the speaker refers to his own dreams: Turkish (Meydan 1996: 131) Bu gece çokgüzel birrüya gör-dü-m. Büyükbir DÉM nuit trés beauun rêve voir-DI-1SGgrandun bahçe-dey-miş-im. jardin-LOC-miş-1SG ‘Cette nuit, j’ai fait un trés beau rêve. J’étais dans un jardin immense.’ • Evidential forms are used with sensory and mental state verbs as objectivizers of speaker’s feelings: Albanian (Duchet & Përnaska 1996: 36) –Pomëardhka keqperFranin, –tha vëllai. mevenir(Prés.Adm.3SG)malpourFran dire(Aor.3SG) frère.le ‘– Je regrette beaucoup pour Fran, dit le frère.’

14. Evidential forms are conventionalized in the traditional narratives (fairy tales, legends etc.) as basic forms of the predicate. • Evidential forms are conventionalized in historical discourse.

15. Structural availability • Evidentials are used in non-echoic interrogative clauses. There is a further distinction between yes/no-questions: Bulgarian Takava li bilarabotata? suchYES/NObe-PST.PTCP affair ‘Is that really so?’ wh-questions: Albanian Ku qenkamjeshtri? (Friedman 2003: 201) where be-ADM.3SGboss-DEF ‘Where is the boss?’

16. Evidentials are used to express reported commands: Bulgarian Neka da otideli v Sofia. let CONJgo-PST.PTCPtoSofia ‘Reportedly they should go to Sofia.’

17. Evidential forms coincide with morphological mood: Turkish yazmalıymış(Kononov 1956: 251) write-DEB-PST.INDIR.3SG ‘Evidently/reportedly he has to write a letter.’ Latvian Bûtuõt labâk palikusi te. (Rudzīte 1984: 246) be-COND-RM better stay-PST.PTCP there. ‘It is said that it would have been better to stay there.’

18. 4) Evidentials fall in the scope of conditional: Albanian (Buchholz & Fiedler 1987: 159) … të mos e paskish thirrur, zoti edi,sa gjatë CONJNEG him have-ADM-3SG call-PTCP lord-DEFitknows howlong do të kishte mbetur ashtu. FUTCONJ have-PST-3SG remain-PTCP that.way ‘If she had not called him, Lord knows how long he would have stayed like that.’

19. ResultsLegend: + the feature is present, (+) the feature is documented, but it is not central to the category, is very unfrequent or is restricted only to some dialects, – the feature is not present, ? no information available. Formal parameters

20. Semantic and pragmatic parameters

21. Structural availability

22. EST LAT LIT BUL MAC ALB TUR Degree of similarity to Lithuanian ≥ 16 shared features ≥ 12 shared features ≥ 9 shared features

23. EST LAT LIT BUL MAC TUR ALB Degree of similarity to Turkish ≥ 16 shared features ≥ 11 shared features ≥ 9 shared features

24. EST LAT LIT BUL MAC ALB TUR Degree of similarity to Estonian ≥ 18 shared features ≥ 10 shared features ≥ 8 shared features

25. EST LAT LIT BUL MAC ALB TUR Degree of similarity to Albanian ≥ 12 shared features ≥ 9 shared features ≥ 7 shared features

26. EST LAT LIT BUL MAC ALB TUR clusters sharing 18 or more features clusters sharing 16 or more features

27. Conclusions • The evidentiality system of Lithuanian stands typologically closer to the Balkan systems (with the exception of the Albanian) than to those of Latvian and Estonian. • The evidentiality systems of Turkish, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Lithuanian are prototypical representatives of the Euroasiatic type of grammaticalized evidentiality. The rise of this type is probably due to universal processing principles, e.g. the development from perfective past to evidential. • The evidentiality systems of Estonian, Latvian and Albanian are the result of geographically restricted innovation. • A closer look at the properties of the evidential systems allows us to outline areas of affinity which are rather different from the classical Sprachbunds.

28. References • Aikhenvald, A. 2004: Evidentiality. Oxford. • Buchholz, O, Fiedler, W. 1987: Albanische Grammatik. Leipzig. • Duchet, J.-L., Pernäska, R. 1996: L’admiratif albanais: recherche d’un invariant sémantique. In Z. Guentchéva, éd., L’Énonciation médiatisée. Louvain – Paris, 31–46. • Eintrei, T. I. 1982: Аlbanskij jazyk. Leningrad. • Friedman, V. A. 1986: Evidentiality in the Balkans: Bulgarian, Macedonian and Albanian. In W. Chafe, J. Nichols eds., Evidentiality: the Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Advances in Discourse Processes 20. Norwood, New Jersey, 168–187. • Friedman, V. A. 2003: Evidentiality in the Balkans with special attention to Macedonian and Albanian. In A. Y. Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon, eds., Studies in Evidentiality. Typological Studies in Language 54. Amsterdam – Philadelphia, 189–218. • Gronemeyer, C. 1997: Evidentiality in Lithuanian. In Working Papers 46. Lund University, Department of Linguistics. Lund, 93–112. • Johanson, L. 1998:Zum Kontakteinflu türkischer Indirektive. N. Demir, E. Taube eds., Turkologie heute – Tradition und Perspektive. Veröffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica 48. Wiesbaden, 141–150. • Kononov, A. N. 1956: Grammatika sovremennogo tureckogo jazyka. Moskva – Leningrad. • Lindstedt, J. 2000a:The Perfect – Aspectual, Temporal and Evidential. Ö. Dahl ed.,Tense and Aspect in the Languages in Europe. Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, vol. 20, no. 6 = Eurotyp, no. 6. Berlin – New York, 365–383.

29. Meydan, M 1996: Les emplois médiatifs de -mışen Turc. In Z. Guentchéva, éd., L’Énonciation médiatisée. Louvain – Paris, 125–143. • Rudzīte, M 1964: Latviešu dialektoloģija. Rīga. • Slobin, D., Aksu, A. 1982: Tense Aspect and Modality in the Use of the Turkish Evidential. P. J. Hopper ed., Tense-Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics. Amsterdam –Philadephia, 185–200. Abbreviations: ACC– accusative, ADM – admirative mood, ADV – adverb(ial), AOR – aorist,COND – conditional mood, EV – evidential, DEB – debitive, DEF – definite, DEM – demonstrative, CONJ – conjunctive, HAB – habere, INDIR – indirective, LOC – locative, INE – inessive, IMPF – imperfect, NEG – negative, NT – neuter,PASS – passive,PRS – present, PST – past, PTCP – participle, RM – renarrated mood, SG – singular, 1 – first person, 2 – second person, 3 – third person Language abbreviations:ABK – Abkhaz,ALB – Albanian, AROM – Aromanian, BSK – Bashkir, BUL – Bulgarian, CHE – Chechen, EST – Estonian, GAG –Gagauz, GOD – Godoberi, ING – Ingush, KAZ – Kazakh, LAT – Latvian, LIT – Lithuanian, LIV – Livonian, MAC – Macedonian, MGLR – Megleno-Romanian, NOG – Noghai, CHV – Chuvash, TAT – Tatar, TUR – Turkish, UDM – Udmurt