Evidentiality and the semantics-pragmatics interface: An introduction

Abstract

The focus of this special issue is on the semantics and pragmatics of evidentiality, and more specifically on the interface between the two levels of linguistic analysis. We think that there are several good reasons to deal with the challenge of delimiting the borderline between the semantics and the pragmatics of evidentiality. First, a clear view of the differences between the semantic meanings and the pragmatic meanings of evidential markers is useful for the lexicographic enterprise. For the sake of systematic research, a clear description of the core semantics of evidential markers would facilitate the work of a comprehensive database of these expressions in the languages of Europe (and the world) (cf. the Madrid based EUROEVIDMOD1-project). Indeed, putting together such a database requires a high degree of comparability both within the realm of evidential values and with