The development of the concept of ʽevidentialityʼ and its exogenous application to European languages

ABSTRACT The concept of ‘evidentiality’ is the only example of an exogenous application of a category derived from the description of Amerindian languages to the description of European languages. In this contribution, first the consideration of evidentiality in ancient descriptions of American Indian languages is addressed. The missionaries followed the model of Latin grammars, but in some cases, they realised that these languages were substantially different. Without perceiving the systematic value of the evidentials, some missionaries grouped them in different classes constituted by elements that had particular meanings and that were different from the European languages. Second, the emergence of the concept of ‘evidentiality’ as an obligatory element in certain languages is studied. Third, the integration of evidentiality into functional and pragmatic linguistics is analysed.