Below are not only course readings, but also Web sites related to many of the topics.
The seminar reading and discussion is organized around two recent dissertations:
Garrett, Edward. “Evidentiality and Assertion in Tibetan.” UCLA PhD Dissertation. 2001.
Faller, Martina. “Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua.” Stanford PhD Dissertation. 2002.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction |
Faller, Chapter 1. Garrett, Chapter 2. Optional Readings: Faller, Martina. “Remarks on Evidential Hierarchies.” In The Construction of Meaning. Edited by David I. Beaver, Luis D. Casillas Martínez, Brady Z. Clark, and Stefan Kaufmann. Stanford: CSLI, 2002. Dendale, Patrick, and Tasmowski, Liliane. “Introduction: Evidentiality and Related Notions.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 339–348. Plungian, Vladimir A. “The Place of Evidentiality within the Universal Grammatical Space.” Journal of Pragmatics 33 (2001): 349–357. |
| 2 | More Introduction |
Lyons, J. Semantics. Cambridge University Press: 1977. Urmson, J.O. “Parenthetical Verbs.” Mind 61: 192-212. |
| 3 | Typology and Semantics | Faller, Chapter 2. |
| 4 | Performatives, Epistemic Modality | Garrett, Chapter 2. |
| 5 | Evidentials and Epistemic Modality | Faller, Chapter 3. |
| 6 | Direct Evidentiality Best Possible Grounds |
Garrett, Chapter 3. Faller, Chapter 4. |
| 7 | Indirect Evidentiality | Faller, Chapter 5. |
| 8 | Embedded Assertions |
Garrett, Chapter 5. Heycock on Embedded Root Phenomena Heycock, Caroline. “Case #035: Embedded Root Phenomena.” To appear in The Syntax Companion: An electronic encyclopaedia of case studies. Edited by Henk van Riemsdijk and Martin Everaert. The LingComp foundation. (While we are exploring the occurrence of evidential markers in embedded clauses, it may be good to look at this survey article on embedded root phenomena) |
| 9 | Evidentials in Conditionals | Garrett, Chapter 7. |
| 10 | Faller’s Ideas | Faller, Chapter 6 and 7. |
| 11 | Last Class All Questions Answered |
Three Bibliographies on Evidentiality on the Web
Robert Binnick’s Bibliography on Evidentials and Evidentiality, which is part of his larger Project on the Annotated Bibliography of Contemporary Research on Tense, Aspect, Aktionsart, and Related Areas.
Gail Brendel Viechnicki’s Bibliography on Evidentiality and Epistemology.
Izvorski on the Evidential Reading of the Perfect in Bulgarian
Garrett in his chapter 2 makes crucial reference to a paper by Roumyana Izvorski (now Pancheva):
Izvorski, Roumyana. “The Present Perfect as an Epistemic Modal.” Edited by A. Lawson and E. Cho. Proceedings from the Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT), VII. CLC Publications, Cornell University, 1997.
Some Questions on Garrett — Chapter 2:
As you’re reading Garrett’s chapter 2, here are some questions to think about.
- What are performative sentences?
- What are some other examples of performative sentences you can think of in addition to the ones Garrett mentions?
- Find as many ways as possible in which a sentence like “I declare you husband and wife” can ‘fail’.
- Why is (5) a more typical response to (1) than (6)?
- What does it mean to say that we don’t know what world we are in, and is that true?
- Look at (12) on p. 31 and at Garrett’s discussion. Can it really be that from the cumulative force of facts A, B, and C, it follows that John isn’t on his way, while from facts A and B alone, it follows that John is on his way?
- Come up with a whole bunch of possible responses to someone’s claim that ‘John must be on his way’, at least more responses than Garrett considers on p. 34.
- What is Moore’s Paradox? What accounts for it?
- Under what circumstances can the INDIRECT EVIDENTIAL marker be used for statements about oneself?
Papafragou on Epistemic Modality
In this session we will work through a recent paper on epistemic modality by Anna Papafragou.
“Epistemic Modality and Truth Conditions.” To appear in Approaches to Modality (provisional title). Edited by A. Klinge, and H. Muller, 2003.
