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32: You heard about it but I was there - Evidentiality
🕑 Added 2019-05-16 23:12:04 +0000 UTCSometimes, you know something for sure. You were there. You witnessed it. And you want to make sure that anyone who hears about it from you knows that you’re a direct source. Other times, you weren’t there, but you still have news. Maybe you found it out from someone else, or you pieced together a couple pieces of indirect evidence. In that case, you don’t want to overcommit yourself. When you pass the information on, you want to qualify it with how you found out, in case it turns out not to be accurate.
In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how we come to know things, and how different languages let us talk about this. Some languages, like English, give us the option of adding extra adverbs and clauses, like “I’m sure that” or “I was told that” or “maybe” or “apparently”. In other languages, like Syuba, indicating how you’ve come to know something is baked right into the grammar. We also talk about what this means for how kids learn languages and how English might evolve more evidentials.
Merch update!
Have you ever browsed the “Insert Symbol” menu just for fun? Do you stay up late reading Wikipedia articles about obscure characters? Or do you just…somehow…know a little bit too much about Unicode?
Introducing the new ESOTERIC SYMBOLS scarves!
We’ve hand-picked and arranged in a pleasing array our favourite symbols from the editing, logic, music, game piece, punctuation, mathematics, currency, shapes, planets, arrows, and Just Plain Looks Cool sections of Unicode!
Including fan favourites like: the interrobang ‽ multiocular o ꙮ the old school b&w snowman, the pilcrow ¶ the one-em, two-em AND three-em dashes And yes, the classic Unicode error diamond with question mark itself
We’re also very excited to announce that all our scarf designs (IPA, trees, and esoteric symbols) are now available on mugs and notebooks, for those who prefer to show off their nerdery in household object rather than apparel form.
By popular demand, we’ve made LITTLE LONGITUDINAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION PROJECT onesies and kiddy tshirts available for everyone! Available in Mum’s, Dad’s, Mom’s, and without possessor marking (because it turns out that there are a LOT of kinship terms).
For links to everything mentioned in this episode go to https://lingthusiasm.com/post/184928796346/lingthusiasm-episode-32-you-heard-about-it-but-i
Comments
Lingthusiasm
You're very welcome! Hope you enjoy!
OMG that paper sounds great! Thanks for sharing!
Lingthusiasm
Aww, we love those moments too and we're so glad that we made you experience them! I could get into wizarding linguistics all day (how do they learn to read and write before Hogwarts? do they go to muggle school for that and thereby pick up their peers' accents?) but you might also enjoy this real academic paper about the pragmatics of spells in Harry Potter https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/DVlNjg1Y/How%20to%20Do%20Things%20with%20Wands%20and%20Words.pdf
Every so often, I am listening a podcast and the host(esse)s say something so mind-blowing that I need to pause and mutter or shout (depending on how public a place I find myself in) a few "holy crap"s to myself before continuing. I just wanted to let you know that "hyperlinks are Internet for evidentials" was one of these moments! This episode, combined with the fact that I'm in the middle of "The Art of Language Invention", makes me want to dust off an idea for a evidential conlang I had! On another note, I really like your Harry Potter-based explanation - one thing I've wondered about that series, though, is why does wizarding Britain speak British English? You'd think with such an insular society isolated from the rest of the English-speaking world, they'd have a much more distinct dialect, right?
Lingthusiasm
Sounds like you and your husband are expert evidential users! In English we have to resort to qualifiers, which are optional (unless it's a conversation at your house!), Whereas in other languages it's baked right into the verb. in Syuba it's marked with the coils copula ('be') verb, so while in English 'is' = present and 'was' = past we have Syuba 'yinge' for knowing something from experiencing it personally, and 'du' for seeing or hearing. That means 'I am dancing' would use 'yinge' and 'you are dancing' would use 'du', and everyone marks this source of evidence which would keep your household happy!
Just listened to this - really reminded me of a conversation my husband and I had about how we like to put in qualifiers to almost everything we say, and how it upsets us when they are absent. Such as "I heard this on this podcast" or "I think I read an article from ___" or "I saw an article headline that suggested this" etc. We try to always qualify and I wonder if that is our college training showing through or if it is somehow inherent in our general culture of the moment. Either way, I would love to hear an episode about how qualifiers are different from evidentials!
