Evidentiality in Russian

1. Evidentiality in Russian Elena PADUCHEVA(Moscow) http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/ The Nature of Evidentiality, Leiden, 14.06.2012

2. 1. Evidentiality as a grammatical category and as a concept • Evidentiality as a grammatical category is to be distinguished from evidentiality as a notion. It is a notional category that should be the basis for typological comparison, see Haspelmath 2010. I shall deal with evidentiality in Russian, which lacks grammatical evidentiality, i.e. with the concept of evidentiality. But grammatical evidentiality is to be the starting point in any case (see Wiemer, Plungjan 2008 on evidentiality in Slavic languages).

3. I regret the necessity to speak about Russian in the auditorium where the majority doesn’t speak Russian. Ungrammaticality examples from your native language tend to produce an emotional effect, while discussing ungrammaticalities in a foreign language resembles explaining a joke that hadn’t made you laugh. Still I hope my Russian examples to be at least persuasive on the mental level.

4. In languages with grammatical evidentiality the speaker should, any time (s)he uses a verbal form in a statement, mention the source of information, or, rather, the type of access to the information (see, e.g., Aikhenvald 2004, Plungian 2011). In other words, what gives the speaker grounds for saying what (s)he says?

5. Generalized conceptual scheme • direct evidentiality – the speaker witnessed the situation or took part in it: Ivan vernulsja ‘Ivan returned’, • indirect evidentiality, i.e. indirect access:  imprecise perception – imperceptive: Kazhetsja, paxnet gazom ‘it seems that it smells like gas’,  an inference based on indirect evidence – inferentive: Vidimo, Ivan vernulsja [his suitcase is here] ‘evidently, Ivan returned’,  reported speech – reportative: Pered smert’ju on, kak budto, prinjal islam ‘before death he seemed to have converted to Islam’ (example of A.Letuchiy).

6. 2. Indirect evidentiality and non-reliability • Grammatical indirect evidentiality is not to be identified with non-reliability of the information. Unquestionable truths avoid markers of indirect access in some languages with grammatical evidentiality, but in some other languages they are compatible, so that indirect evidentiality does not contradict reliability, Plungian 2011: 467. However, in languages where evidentiality markers are not grammatically obligatory an evidentiality marker often reduces the degree of responsibility of the speaker for the reliability of the information. And it concerns markers of direct evidentiality as well.

7. (2.1) Shevardnadze proezzhal po ulicam stremitel’no, ego avtomobil’ sčetyrex storon oblepljali (sam videl) mašiny oxrany. [Russian National Corpus, RNC] ‘Shevardnadze rode through the streets dashingly, his car was surrounded on four sides (I saw it myself) by the cars of the guard.’

8. In fact, for Russian, as well as for other languages lacking grammatical evidentiality, the postulate is valid saying that in any statement the speaker is the subject of an epistemic obligation: my utterance P implies ‘I know that P’ or ‘I believe that P’, depending on the type of the proposition P. If predication P is basically evaluative then the second variant is realized. Hence the famous Moore’s paradox (see Wittgenstein 1953): the utterance She is pretty but I don't believe it is deviant, because She is pretty basically means ‘I believe that she is pretty’.

9. In Plungian 2011: 467 a situation in central upic (an Eskimo language) is described (with reference to Mithan 1999) where the marker of indirect evidentiality attaches a greater degree of reliability to the utterance – because collective experience is more reliable than personal testimony. So the Russian semantic pattern is no typological outsider.

10. 3. Unclear boundary between direct and inferentive evidentiality • The direct evidentiality corresponds to the case when the speaker saw with his own eyes what he speaks about. But, as is known, the verb meaning ‘see’, in Russian and not only in Russian, is essentially ambiguous: productive semantic derivation transfers this verb from the class of perception verbs to the class of mental ones, see, e.g., Paducheva 2004: 199. Hence the absence of a strict boundary between direct and inferentive evidentiality.

11. The famous example by Anna Wierzbicka. Which evidentiality is here expressed by ja vizhu ‘I see’? (3.1) Ja vizhu, Dzhona zdes’ net [approximate translation – ‘I see, John is absent here’].

12. Parenthetical ja vizhu marks inferentive evidentiality more often than not: (3.2) Ja vas za gorduju sčitala, a vy, ja vizhu, prostaja ‘I considered you to be proud, while you are, I see it, plain’ [RNC] (3.3) Он еще до знакомства со мной несколько раз находился в психиатрической лечебнице, но я тогда, дура, не придала этому значения. ― Я вижу, ты не очень довольна своим замужеством.[RNC] ‘before we met he had been in a psychiatric hospital several times, but I, being a fool, didn’t pay attention to it. – I see, you aren’t very much content with your marriage.’.

13. More than that, the word javno, meaning ‘obviously, visibly, apparently’, cannot be used in the context of a verb denoting observable action or process. In (3.4), for example, javno is at place because the verb udarit’ ‘hit’ is used in a figurative meaning: (3.4) Наивный офицер явно ударил главу кабинета по больному, по наболевшему месту.[RNC] ‘the naïve officer apparently hit the head of the cabinet where it hurts’.

14. It is important that parenthetical ja vizhu can be used not only in assertions but also in questions, which are incompatible with direct evidentiality: (3.5) Nu-s, vy, ja vizhu, uzhe pristupili? ‘so, as I see, you’ve already begun?’ [RNC] • The notion of direct evidentiality as it is usually defined is applicable only to assertions. So what about questions? I leave this issue as a problem for the future.

15. 4. An example of a grammatically marked evidentiality opposition in Russian • In Russian there is a morphological opposition, which can be identified, as to its semantics, as marking evidentiality; example from Paducheva 2004: 467-8. (4.1) a. Butylki [Gen] ne bylo [neutral gender] v xolodil’nike – direct evidentiality b. Butylka [Nom] ne byla [feminine gender] v xolodil’nike – inferentive evidentiality ‘the bottle was not /hasn’t been in the fridge’ .

16. The Genitive subject and Neutral gender of the non-personal predicate in (4.1a) express direct evidentiality, while common Nominative subject and feminine gender of the predicate (agreeing with the subject) are interpreted as expressing inferentive evidentiality.

17. According to the interpretation of the Genitive subject suggested in Paducheva 1992, sentence (4.1a) conceptualizes the situation in which the speaker fulfills the role of the observer. The widely influential book Babby 1980, called “Existential Sentences and Negation in Russian”, connected the Russian Genitive Negative subject with existential sentences. Now sentence (4.1a) expresses localization, not existence. It contradicts semantic motivation of the Genitive subject proposed by Babby (and some others) and was considered to be an exception. But the exception it was not. Genitive subject in (4.1a), as in many other sentences, is licensed by the semantic component ‘perception’: it is not the case that sentence (4.1a) negates localization – it expresses the observed absence, i.e. the presence of the speaker-observer at the location in question.

18. Example (4.1) doesn’t mean to purport that Russian has grammatical evidentiality. Inferentive is just one of possible interpretations of implied evidentiality in sentence (4.1b): reportative interpretation is also possible. But direct evidentiality is excluded in (4.1b) and is expressed by grammatical means in (4.1a).

19. Example (4.2) supports the analysis suggested. The utterance (4.2a) sounds awfully ridiculous. (It was made by a woman, perhaps, some travel agent, who was buying something in a shop and at some moment got a mobile call.) She should have said (4.2b). (4.2) a. *Menja net v ofise ‘me [Genitive] not-be in the office’ b. Ja ne v ofise “I [Nom] am not in my office <where I have my computer and other things that would help me answer questions of a client>”

20. In fact, (4.2a) is contradictory: it presupposes the speaker in the role of the observer in the office and asserts that she is not there. The Genitive in (4.3) is perfectly OK. In fact, the utterance relies upon the addressee – who will be present at the location mentioned and will fulfill the role of the observer of the speaker’s absence: (4.3) Menja zavtra ne budet v institute ‘me [Genitive] won’t be at the institute to-morrow’. • This is the case of deictical projection that we’ll return to a bit later.

21. 5. Implied observer as a marker of direct evidentiality • Theoretical semantics is now unthinkable without the notion of the observer introduced in Apresjan 1986 (see also Paducheva 1996, 2011). For instance, while saying (5.1), the speaker not only asserts that some event took place but also implies that (s)he is the witness of it: (5.1) Na doroge pokazalsja vsadnik ‘On the road appeared a rider’ (example from Apresjan 1986).

22. The presence of the observer is proved by the following syntactic test – sentence (5.2), with the 1st person subject, is deviant – in fact, a person cannot appear in the field of vision of him/herself: (5.2) *Na doroge pokazalsja ja ‘*On the road appeared I’. • This test was mentioned already in Fillmore 1968, in connection with the verb to lurk: (5.3) a. The snake was lurking in the grass b.*I was lurking in the grass.

23. Thus, in sentences (4.1a), (5.1), with the implied observer, the genitive subject can be treated as a marker of direct evidentiality. • The notion of observer was the object of attention in lexical semantics for several decades, but until recently the observer was not related to direct evidentiality. The interpretation of sentences with the observer as containing evidentiality marker was proposed by Y.G.Testelec.

24. 6. Evidentiality marker as a primary egocentrical: projection effects Evidentiality markers have the speaker as their implied subject. Thus, they are included in the category of egocentrical elements – egocentricals (or, in other terminology, indexical elements, indexicals). Thus, we get the opportunity to pay attention to some aspects of their semantics that were neglected earlier. In the literature devoted to evidentials their only implied subject is always the speaker, cf., e.g. Plungjan 2011: 449: “using an evidentiality marker the speaker tells us in which way (s)he learned what (s)he says”. But it is a well known fact about egocentricals that they can undergo projection – in the sense that in some specific context their implied subject is not the speaker but some other person.

25. In Lyons 1979 the notion of projection was introduced for deictic elements, such as here and now, in connection with non-canonical communicative situations. This idea was developed also in Fillmore 1975: John is now coming means ‘John is coming to me’, i.e. to the speaker, but a question Is John is now coming? may mean ‘is John is coming to you?’, i.e. to the addressee. We can also speak about narrative projection (when the speaker is absent and the role of the speaker is fulfilled either by the narrator or the character) and hypotactic projection when the subject of the matrix sentence is the rival of the speaker.

26. There is an extensive literature on secondary egocentricals (see a survey of the literature in Paducheva 1996, 2011), which easily undergo projection. English lurk and Russian pokazat’sja ‘appear’ are well known examples of secondary egocentricals. Sentence (5.2) is deviant; but in a hypotactic context it’s OK: (5.2) *Na doroge pokazalsja ja ‘*On the road appeared I’; (5.2’) Mne skazali, chto imenno v etot moment na doroge pokazalsja ja ‘It was said that I appeared on the road exactly at this moment’

27. A similar test is applicable in the construction with the genitive subject: (5.4) *Menja net doma ‘me [Genitive] not at home’ [controversial]; (5.4’) Emu skazali, chto menja net doma ‘he was said that me [Genitive] not at home’ [OK]. • It stands to reason to explore whether evidentiality markers can undergo any kind of projection.

28. Let us look at the Russian parenthetical okazyvaetsja. It was treated as an evidentiality marker, namely, as a marker of admirativity, and as a separate grammatical category (Khrakovskij 2007). It is, rather, just a parenthetical word, semantically similar to an evidentiality marker. The peculiarities of its use are demonstrated by the opposition okazyvaetsja [present imperfective] – okazalos’ [past perfective]. The word okazalos’ is relatively simple and can be translated into English as ‘it turned out’, while the present of okazyvaetsja makes it difficult to translate. Even in its primary meaning its translations are often wrong. But it can be used in such a way that it looses its connection with the speaker as the implied subject, and in this use it has no English equivalent at all.

29. The meaning of okazyvaetsja ‘it turnes out’, in its primary use, includes the following two components: okazyvaetsja (X, P) = 1) X has just learned <from Y>, that P; 2) X is astonished that P.

30. In the prototypical case the subject of both knowledge and astonishment is the speaker: (6.1) Я так рада! Нашлись, нашлись! Они, оказывается, болели и не подавали весточек! (L.Petrushevskaja. Three young girls in blue) ‘I’m so happy! They are found! It turns out that they were ill and didn’t let anybody know about themselves’

31. The source Y of the new knowledge is in (6.1) off-stage. This participant may not exist at all – when the speaker receives his knowledge from the direct perception: (6.2) Вернулся домой, на крылечко взошел, хотел было дверь открыть, а она, okazyvaetsja, изнутри на засов заперта.[RNC] ‘I returned home, went up the porch, wanted to open the door and it is, it turns out, closed on the bolt from the inside’.

32. It may also be the case that the participant Y exists but the information received by X from Y had not become the knowledge of X. In example (6.3) the person Y (mother) has an opinion (for Y herself, it is knowledge!) which is not shared by the speaker – thus, the speaker is the subject of astonishment but he is not the subject of knowledge. (6.3) Мама все время пытается воспитывать его на моем положительном примере. Okazyvaetsja, я стал человеком благодаря трудолюбию и настойчивости, которые проявлялись у меня в раннем детстве (V.Aksenov. Star ticket). ‘My mother always tries to bring him up on my positive example. It turns out, I became a worthy person through diligence and persistency that were characteristic of me from my early childhood’.

33. This use of okazyvaetsja in (6.3) can be regarded as the case of narrative projection (= free indirect discourse). The speaker could have said according to her [mother], leaving his astonishment unexpressed. But he rather pretends to share the knowledge, for otherwise he cannot express his astonishment, or, rather, removal from the consciousness of the counteragent.

34. Another evidentiality marker that can undergo projection is the parenthetical kazhetsja ‘it seems’. In example (6.4) the use of kazhetsja causes perplexing: kazhetsja expresses uncertainty, and the speaker cannot possibly have any uncertainty about the language (s)he speaks: (6.4) Перестань! Ведья, кажется, русскимязыкомговорю. ‘Stop! In fact, I seem to speak Russian (= your native language) to you’

35. A possible explanation is that utterance (6.4) occurs in a modal context (where kazhetsja = kazalos’ by = ‘might seem’), which cancels the connection between the implied subject and the speaker: a new meaning arises: ‘everyone should believe that I speak Russian’. As a result of this generalization the addressee is included in the list of the alleged bearers of the opinion. Thus, (6.4) expresses surprise turning into anger: ‘as the addressee knows that I speak Russian with him why doesn’t he understand what is said’.

36. Exploration of projection possibilities for the subject of indicative modality yielded results crucial for the theory of narrative and semiotics of error (Paducheva 2008). The problem of projection possibilities for the subject of evidentiality seems now to be of primary importance for linguistic theory and for practical language description.

37. References • Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2004. Evidentiality, Oxford etc.: Oxford UP. • Babby 1980 – Babby L. H. Existential Sentences and Negation in Russian. Ann Arbor: Caroma Publishers, 1980. • Fillmore 1968 – Fillmore Ch. J. Lexical entries for verbs // Foundations of Language. Vol. 4. No. 4. 1968. • Fillmore 1975 – Fillmore Ch.J. Santa Cruz lectures on deixis. Reproduced by the Indiana university linguistic club. Bloomington (Indiana), 1975. • Haspelmath 2010 – Haspelmath M. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in cross-linguistic studies, Language 86, 2010. • Lyons 1977–Lyons J.Semantics. Vol. 1–2. L. etc.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977.

38. Paducheva 1992 – ПадучеваЕ.В. О семантическом подходе к синтаксису и генитивном субъекте глагола БЫТЬ.Russian linguistics, v. 16, 53-63. • Mithun 1999 – Mithun M. The languages of native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge U.Press, 1999. • Paducheva 1996 – ПадучеваЕ. В.Семантическиеисследования. М.: Языкирус. культуры, 1996. 2-d editionhttp://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf1/PaduSemantIssl1996.pdf • Paducheva 2004 – Падучева Е. В. Динамические модели в семантике лексики. М.: Языки славянской культуры, 2004.http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf1/PaduDinamMod2004.pdf

39. Paducheva 2008 – Падучева Е.В. Режим интерпретации как контекст, снимающий неоднозначность. //Компьютерная лингвистика и интеллектуальные технологии. Вып. 7 (14). Диалог 2008, 412-419. http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf2/dialog_2008_Paducheva.pdf • Paducheva 2011 – Падучева Е.В. Эгоцентрические валентности и деконструкция говорящего. Вопр.яз., 2011, № 3, 3-18 http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf1/egocentricals.pdf • Plungjan 2011 – Плунгян В.А. Введение в грамматическую семантику: грамматические значения и грамматические системы языков мира. М., РГГУ, 2011. • Wiemer, Plungjan 2008 – Wiemer B. & Plungjan V. (eds.) Lexicalische Evidenzialitats-Marker in slavischen Sprachen. Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Sbd 72, Kubon & Sagner. • Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell Publishers, p. 190.

40. Thank you for your attention