1887
Volume 38, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0731-3500
  • E-ISSN: 2214-5907
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Abstract

This paper discusses evidentiality and epistemic modality in Zhuang, a Tai language spoken in South China’s Guangxi Province and surrounding regions. A set of verbs of SPEAKING are found in Zhuang that describe the sources of information. These typically involve the grammaticalised marker nau⁴ which derives from a lexical verb meaning ‘say’, forming a rich array of expressions to mark direct and indirect speech, hearsay and other types of reported information, which carry a wide variety of evidential and epistemic overtones such as surprise, self-correction, mirativity, uncertainty, among others. A number of sentence-final particles, along with hedges and sensory verbs, are also found with these functions. Each of these conveys different degrees of reliability of the source of information.

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/content/journals/10.1075/ltba.38.1.01luo
2015-01-01
2025-04-24
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/content/journals/10.1075/ltba.38.1.01luo
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): epistemic modality; evidentiality; grammaticalisation; reported speech; Tai-Kadai; Zhuang
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