Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-1432

Title: The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality
Series Title: Oxford Handbooks
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Oxford University Press
http://www.oup.com/us
Book URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-evidentiality-9780198901013?utm_source=linguistlist&utm_medium=listserv&utm_campaign=linguistics

Editor(s): Alexandra Aikhenvald

Reviewer: David Robertson

SUMMARY

(xxv, 882 pp.) This paperback is the latest edition of a valuable anthology originally published in 2018; it is the most recent among several such under the same editor/author, and incorporates the insights of those collections. As the book points out, evidentiality is a topic that is fairly newly recognized in general linguistics. It probably is still not taught in any depth to most undergraduates or even grad students; an impressionistic Google Books search of recent introductory linguistic textbooks suggests as much. This volume supplies a grounding in, and a typological survey of, evidentiality, which is definable as the ways, particularly those that are grammaticalized and in many languages obligatory, in which speakers specify the source, or means, of their knowledge about propositions that they are discussing, ranging from direct observation to inference, hearsay, and commonly shared knowledge. Collected in this book are chapters involving various subdisciplines and a fairly large typological sampling of detailed studies.

Orientational preliminaries are taken care of with a Preface (xi), List of Maps (xiii), List of Tables (xv-xvii), List of Figures (xix), a tally of Abbreviations and Conventions (xxi-xxv), and short biographies of The Contributors (xxvii-xxxv). As is customary, these, with the References (755-842), Author Index (843-857), Language Index (859-871), and Subject Index (873-882), bracket the main text.

The body of the volume begins with Chapter 1, an essay by editor Aikhenvald, “Evidentiality: The Framework” (1-36), whose summation of what is currently known of the phenomenon is further distilled into “Appendix A: Fieldworker Guide to Evidentiality Systems: Checklist of Points” (37-40) and “Appendix B: Evidentiality and Related Concepts: Glossary of Terms” (40-43).

After that introduction come four groups of studies by contributors. Part I, examining the interactions of evidentiality with other categories, and its diachronic course, is “Evidentiality: Its Expression, Scope, and History”. Included in it are Chapter 2 “Evidentials and Person” by Jackson T.S. Sun (47-63); Chapter 3 “Evidentiality and Its Relations with Other Verbal Categories” by Diana Forker (65-84); Chapter 4 “Evidentials and Epistemic Modality” (85-108); Chapter 5 “Non-Propositional Evidentiality” by Guillaume Jacques (109-123); Chapter 6 “Where Do Evidentials Come From?” by Victor A. Friedman (124-147); and Chapter 7 “Evidentiality and Language Contact” by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (148-172).

The most socio- and psycho- linguistically oriented portion of the volume is Part II, “Evidentiality in Cognition, Communication, and Society”. Here we find Chapter 8 “Evidentials, Information Sources, and Cognition” by Ercenur Ünal and Anna Papafragou (175-184); Chapter 9 “The Acquisition of Evidentiality” by Stanka A. Fitneva (185-201); Chapter 10 “The Interactional and Cultural Pragmatics of Evidentiality in Pastaza Quichua” by Janis B. Nuckolls (202-221); Chapter 11 “Evidence and Evidentiality in Quechua Narrative Discourse” by Rosaleen Howard (222-242); and Chapter 12 “Stereotypes and Evidentiality” by Michael Wood (243-257).

The most theoretically-oriented, and briefest, section is Part III, “Evidentiality and Information Sources: Further Issues and Approaches”. Its contents are Chapter 13 “Evidentiality: The Notion and the Term” by Kasper Boye (261-272); Chapter 14 “Extragrammatical Expression of Information Source” by Mario Squartini (273-285); and Chapter 15 “Evidentiality and Formal Semantic Theories” by Margaret Speas (286-311).

The main body of this book is the collection of numerous descriptive case studies that make up Part IV “Evidentiality across the World”. These encompass Chapter 16 “Evidentiality and the Cariban Languages” by Eithne B. Carlin (315-332); Chapter 17 “Evidentiality in Nambikwara Languages” by David M. Eberhard (333-356); Chapter 18 “Evidentiality in Tukanoan Languages” by Kristine Stenzel and Elsa Gomez-Imbert (357-387); Chapter 19 “Evidentiality in Boran and Witotoan Languages” by Katarzyna I. Wojtylak (388-408); Chapter 20 “Evidentiality in the Uto-Aztecan Languages” by Tim Thornes (409-430); Chapter 21 “Evidentiality in Algonquian” by Marie-Odile Junker, Conor M. Quinn, and J. Randolph Valentine (431-462); Chapter 22 “Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality in Gitksan” by Tyler Peterson (463-489); Chapter 23 “Evidentiality in Nakh-Daghestanian Languages” by Diana Forker (490-509); Chapter 24 “Turkic Indirectivity” by Lars Johanson (510-524); Chapter 25 “Evidentials in Uralic Languages” by Elena Skribnik and Petar Kehayov (525-553); Chapter 26 “Evidentiality in Mongolic” by Benjamin Brosig and Elena Skribnik (554-579); Chapter 27 “Evidentiality in Tibetic” by Scott DeLancey (580-594); 28 “Evidentiality in Bodic Languages” by Gwendolyn Hyslop (595-609); Chapter 29 “Evidentiality and the Expression of Knowledge: An African Perspective” by Anne Storch (610-628); Chapter 30 “Evidentiality in the Languages of New Guinea” by Hannah Sarvasy (629-656); Chapter 31 “Evidentiality in Formosan Languages” by Chia-Jung Pan (657-673); Chapter 32 “The Reportative in the Languages of the Philippines” by Josephine S. Daguman (674-692); Chapter 33 “Evidentiality in Korean” by Ho-Min Sohn (693-708); Chapter 34 “Evidentiality in Japanese” by Heiko Narrog and Wenjiang Yang (709-724); Chapter 35 “Dizque and Other Emergent Evidential Forms in Romance Languages” by Asier Alcázar (725-740); and Chapter 36 “Evidentiality and Information Source in Signed Languages” by Sherman Wilcox and Barbara Shaffer (741-753).

EVALUATION

It is impossible to do full justice to each of the contributions in such a large and multifarious volume, which is why I evaluate each section somewhat shallowly but highlight some portions therein that I think will be of especial use for researchers.

The editor’s introductory chapter is striking as a comprehensive and concise account of what the research in this linguistic topic has so far discovered. On the one hand, that is merely customary for the handbook genre. But on the other, AIkhenvald would seem to have exceeded expectations and hugely added to that previous work. Among the outstanding features of this exemplary chapter, which by itself is a reasonable candidate for a university seminar or outline thereof are the following points: Aikhenvald gives unusually thorough and clear recognition to antecedent research by Franz Boas, Roman Jakobson, and others (3). Aikhenvald provides a novel dimension of critique of established research methods by emphasizing that evidential structures are rather unlikely to be found by elicitation using an intermediary language (7-8). For the majority of conventionally-trained linguists who remain more or less unfamiliar with it, she does a great service by explaining how evidentiality can still be a slippery phenomenon to identify, being expressed by multiple morphosyntactic means in many a language, sometimes non-obligatorily, and having various scopes (8ff). From her considerable field experience and that of the assembled contributors, she thoughtfully guides us through various further overtones (e.g. of doubt or certainty) that evidentiality can accrue which may mislead the unwary researcher (16-17). For instance it strikes me as enormously useful to be advised by her that evidentiality is typically expressed less often in certain tenses, sentence types, and so on (17ff), and that it can closely interact with egophoricity (24-27). Another example of new insights that she conveys to the linguistics community with this essay is her firsthand immersive experience, reinforced by many of the chapters, that pragmatic and cultural considerations influence one’s choice of evidential, with a cross-linguistic preference for visually directly perceived information over other sources, making that therefore the less-marked term among most languages’ evidentials (27ff). It cannot be overemphasized that this chapter by the editor is perhaps the best existing roadmap to the investigation of evidentiality. I now go on to extract a number of points from the following chapters that I see as insightful and suggestive of promising future research, likely to include a good deal of revisitation of already described languages with (to make an evidential pun) fresh eyes.

In Part I, Sun’s Chapter 2 shows that evidential marking uses a simple dichotomy between speaker and non-speaker, quite unlike person marking with its distinction of speech act participant versus other; the former can sometimes exist in the absence of the latter (48ff), and the addressee “is often treated in a similar manner as the first person in true questions, and as the third person in statement” (59). Forker’s Chapter 3, besides other important inter-category interactions, especially emphasizes the need for vigilance in differentiating a language’s treatment of evidentiality from its use of the conceptually similar category of epistemic modality (71ff). Crosslinguistically, evidential morphology stands closer to a predicate stem than do person, mood, or speech act markers, but less close than do aspect and polarity marking (83). Jacques’ Chapter 5 valuably surveys what we can think of as the non-canonical evidential domain, nouns, on which a relatively few languages signal evidentiality via adverbs, demonstrative pronouns, particles, etc. Sensory rather than non-sensory (inferential etc.) sources are preferred (112ff); some languages have a generic “best sensory evidence” inferential, whose type of evidence varies as appropriate with the real-world traits of the accompanying noun (e.g. a book versus some drinking water; 114-115). Historical linguists may take note that Friedman’s Chapter 6 shows that evidential systems can both “develop and degrade in relatively short periods”, and most of these systems are of recent vintage. Relatedly, Aikhenvald’s Chapter 7 finds that evidential systems often result from language- and culture contact, often from repurposing of grammaticalization of existing forms, and can be lost due to contact with evidential-less languages (171).

In Part II, Chapter 10, Nuckolls’ focused study of one Quichua variety benefits from its insightful cultural observations: small-scale cultures “value precision when claiming knowledge” and members are disinclined to speak for others (206), and this is a language very different from Standard Average European in having extremely few, and imprecise, speech-act verbs (like ‘warn’, ‘announce’, ‘proclaim’, etc.), such that it instead finds precision in communication by “abundant use of speech reports” and of evidential marking (207).

In Part III, Squartini’s Chapter 14 illustrates which means besides grammatical marking can often express evidential sorts of meaning; certain sections of the lexicon are found to be recurrently used in this way, such as adverbials and perception verbs. This is sure to inspire new insights for those in the business of language documentation and typology.

Coming to Part IV, Carlin’s Chapter 16 benefits from a culturally informed approach that finds it “useful to explore the phenomenon of veridical speech in the broader context of Amazonian peoples” (332), wherein it is important to proceed from an assumption that states of being are inherently changeable, with repercussions for marking of information source and certainty. Chapter 18 by Stenzel and Gomez-Imbert also advantageously takes overt consideration of the cultural attitudes to, and metalinguistic commentary on, evidentials by Tukanoan speakers – a precious addition to our knowledge, considering how hard (as noted above) it can be to even document evidentials in use (pages 381-383 are illuminating). Wojtylak’s Chapter 19 is a nice case study in how two closely neighboring language families can differ greatly in the complexity and the frequency and flexibility of use of evidential systems; an unusual point of precedence worth investigating further in other languages is that “[w]here two evidentials co-occur, the [I]nferred ‘determines’ the source of reported information” (403). Thornes’ Chapter 20 on Uto-Aztecan does a fine job of demonstrating how even closely related languages may vary greatly in their expressions of evidentiality, and even in their degree of grammaticalization of similarly sourced evidentials. Peterson’s unique Chapter 22 demonstrates with Gitksan data the promise that principled syntactic and semantic tests hold out for elucidating and defining both semantic and pragmatic properties of evidentials; this approach will be fascinating to see applied to more languages. Johanson’s Chapter 24 interfaces less seamlessly with the rest of the volume than do other contributions, using more specialist Turcological terminology and making little crossreference to the other chapters; it may therefore be harder for the reader to use its data and conclusions.

I found Delancey’s Chapter 27 on Tibetic a particularly compelling presentation, with its attention to paralinguistic factors such as speaker’s intent and customary usages; his comments on an autobiographical narrative are like an admonition to linguists wanting to research the manifestations of evidentiality: “...these categories are not objectively recoverable...There is no way that one could consistently predict choice of verb form from some ‘objective’ characterization of the situation” (593-594). Also very stimulating for similar reasons is Chapter 29 by Storch, who is able to show that one pragmatic use of logophoric markers, areally common in the Sudanic Belt, is to indicate information source, and that choice of evidential marking has much to do with African cultural ideologies about the power of language to change reality. Another contribution that exemplifies the dictum that cultural context can importantly deepen our grasp of linguistic behavior generally, and evidentials particularly, is Daguman’s incisive Chapter 32 on Philippine languages, where she finds that the Reportative marker can be deleted or else can occur in varying positions “as long as the resulting construction is intelligible” (678); that that marker can suffice as the answer to a yes/no question (685); that it has established, conventional uses in discourse (687-8) and newscasting (689-91); and that “written forms of traditional stories are not inclined to keep the reportative as used in the source genre” (691). Finally, Wilcox and Shaffer’s Chapter 36 is highly intriguing for its view into an area (signed languages) that the great majority of linguists are unfamiliar with and which is typologically very different from spoken languages; we have to take this chapter as a valuable pioneering step in “a vastly under-studied area of signed language linguistics” (752).

This volume is overall approachable, with most of its contributions demanding little more than a good general grasp of linguistic concepts. It may be daunting as a sum total, but any given chapter would make excellent reading for a seminar or a solid reference with which to build one’s own further research. The reader will come away with a proper sense of the significant variability – but fundamental unities – among human languages, and an appreciation that our field continues to make new discoveries as we become better acquainted with more and more of them.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

David Douglas Robertson, PhD (University of Victoria, Canada, 2012, Linguistics) is a freelance consulting linguist who works with the pidgin-creole Chinook Jargon/Chinuk Wawa and with Southwest Washington (“Tsamosan”) Salish languages, among others. Current projects include a grant-funded 3-year “Teach Yourself Northern-Dialect Chinook Jargon” course; a dictionary and grammar of Lower Chehalis Salish (Ɬəw̓ál̓məš); and publications on the etymology of the name “Chinook” and on the Nicola Athabaskan/Dene language of British Columbia. He publishes daily at http://chinookjargon.com.