Evidentiality inUzbek & KazakhChristopher A. StraughnNortheastern Illinois University

Outline

What is evidentiality?

Why Uzbek and Kazakh?

Verbs in Uzbek and Kazakh

Ekan/eken: evidential markers?

Admirativity

Evidential Questions

Rhetorical Questions

Analysis

What is Evidentiality?

(Grammatical) expression of information source

Verbal category, like tense, aspect, mood, modality, etc.

Vis

ual

No

n-V

isu

al

Sen

sory

Infe

rred

Ass

um

ed

Rep

ort

ed

Firsthand Non-Firsthand

Categories of Evidential Information Source

Shipibo-Konibo (Valenzuela 2003; Panoan - Peru and Brazil)

Jawen jema-ra ani iki. (Direct evidence - I have been there)

Jawen jema-ronki ani iki. (Hearsay)

Ani-ra i-bira-[a]i jawen jema. (Inference - It has a secondary school)

Ani-mein(-ra) iki jawen jema. (Supposition, no other evidence.)

Ani-ronki i-bira-[a]i jawen jema. (Hearsay)

Ani-mein(-ronki) iki jawen jema. (Hearsay, with doubt)

“Her town is big.”

What does it mean to be grammatical?

What about evidential meaning?

Grammatical Category

am-ā-bō (Latin)love-V-FUT.1SGI will love

Strategy

ʨənɔ thəmĩ̀ sà mɛ (Burmese)1SG rice eat IRREALISI will eat rice

Lexical Expression of Meaning

I’m going to school tomorrow.

MUST

“John must have been playing in the snow.”

Inference

ALLEGEDLY

APPARENTLY

REPORTEDLY

ACCORDING TO...

Evid

en

tial

s in

E

ng

lish

Strategy

Lexical

Why Uzbek and Kazakh?

Unstudied

Part of a “Eurasian Evidentiality Belt”

Central Asian Sprachbund

Turkic

● SOV word order

○ Adj+Noun

○ Postpositions

○ Strong preference for suffixes

● No wh-movement

● Nominative-Accusative alignment

● No present-tense copula

○ Žïlan uzïn (Kaz)

Snake long

● Agglutinating

○ Kel-moq-chi-siz-mi? (Uz)

come-INF-AGT-2PL-Q

● Vowel Harmony (except in Uzbek…)

Turki/Chagatay branch, massive influence from Persian

Kipchak branch, more typically Turkic

Location Map of Turkic

Tibetan Zone

??

?

Baltic Zone

Eurasian Evidentiality Belt

The Eurasian Evidentiality Belt

Characteristics:

● Based on past tense with a 3-way

distinction○ Simple past is “confirmative” or

“first-hand”○ Perfect/participial past is unmarked○ Double perfect is marked as

“non-confirmative” or “non-firsthand”

● Evidentials also express admirativity

● Two competing theories: evidentiality

vs. confirmativity

Attested in:

● Turkish

● Bulgarian, Macedonian

● Tajik

● Albanian

● Georgian

Previous claims about languages in this belt allow us to predict how Uzbek and Kazakh will behave.

Competing Analyses

Evidentiality

● Exists as an independent

category

● Double marking of the

participial past expresses

non-firsthand

evidentiality

(Aikhenvald and Dixon 2003;

Aikhenvald 2004)

Non-confirmativity

● Evidentiality is not an

independent category;

rather

(non-)confirmativity (a

type of epistemic

modality) is being

confused for evidentiality

● Past tense morphemes

express can express

confirmativity or

non-confirmativity

(Darden 1977; Friedman 1977;

1978; 1988)

Research Questions● Do Uzbek and Kazakh exhibit a three-way past

tense distinction?● Does double marking of the perfect express

marked non-confirmativity/evidentiality?● Can these constructions also express

admirativity?● What else can we do with these constructions?

What about questions?● Is evidentiality or confirmativity a better

analysis?

Methodology

● Interviews with

consultants (Chicago,

Almaty, online)

● Native literature

(newspapers, books, etc.)

● Translated literature

● Web-based corpora

(message boards)

Do Uzbek and Kazakh exhibit a three-way past tense distinction?

Answer: Sort of. Let’s look at verbs first.

● Verbal morphology can be either finite or non-finite.

● Finite: simple past, imperatives, conditional

● Non-finite: gerunds, participles, infinitives, all of which can be used predicatively

○ E.g. ye-gan odam “the man who ate” / Odam ye-gan “The man ate” (Uz)

○ žaz-ar äyel “the writing woman” / Äyel žaz-ar “the woman writes” (Kaz)

● Most non-finite verb forms can be followed by a variety of copular verb forms

○ E.g. Odam ye-gan e-di “the man had eaten” (Uz)

○ Äyel žaz-ar e-se “if the woman writes” (Kaz)

● “Double-marked” past is just a non-finite perfect followed by a copular form of the perfect

(e-kan/e-ken)

Do Uzbek and Kazakh exhibit a three-way past tense distinction?

Verb(+Voice)(+Negation)

Finite Verbal Morphology

Person/Number Marker

Non-Finite Verbal Morphology Optional

CopulaOther Predicates(Nouns, Adjectives, PPs, etc.)

Three ‘Past’ Tenses

Uzbek

Simple past: -di kel-di, ko’r-di-m

Participial past: -gan kel-gan, ko’r-gan-man

“Double” past: ekan kel-gan ekan, k’or-gan ekan-man

But: Xursand ekan-san

Kazakh

Simple past: -DI kel-di, kör-di-m

Participial past: -GAn kel-gen, kör-gen-min

“Double” past: eken kel-gen eken, kör-geneken-min

But: Baqïttï eken-siŋ

Based on previous analyses we expect:

● A simple past tense that may be “confirmative” or may express first-hand information

● A perfect/participial/non-finite past tense that may or may not be confirmative/evidential

● A copular (“double”) form that is either non-confirmative or expresses non-firsthand information

Confirmativity vs. Evidentiality

Under an evidential analysis, we would expect the simple past (-di in the previous slides) to express firsthand information. This is not the case.

Huddi shu serial o'tgan oy-lar-da Turkiya kanal-i-da ham ber-il-di, lekin ko'r-ma-di-m. (Uz)‘That same program was also shown on the Turkish station in past months, but I didn’t see it.’

Nazarbayev Qaraɣandï metallurgiya zawït-ï-nda žumïsiste-di. (Kaz)‘Nazarbayev worked at a Qaragandy metallurgy factory.’

We likewise might expect the participial past to express firsthand information.

Bundagi odamlarning hammasini o'z ko'zim bilan ko'r-gan-man. (Uz)I saw all of the people here with my own eyes.

Osïdan bir-eki žïl burïn Astanada äwesqoy ligada futbol oyna-ɣan-mïn (Kaz)A couple of years before that I played in an amateur league in Astana.

Preliminary Analysis

-di/-DI -gan/-GAn

[+CONFIRMATIVE] [∅ CONFIRMATIVE]

[+DEFINITE] [-DEFINITE]

[-DISTANT] [+DISTANT]

Neither of these forms express evidentiality, but the simple past tense is confirmative.

What aboutekan/eken?

CEO

Berry Books

CFO

Vinny Viewer

Sales Director

Wendy Writer

Copular form of -gan/-GAn.

Compare:

e-sa/e-se (conditional)

e-di (past)

e-mas/e-mes (negative)

Bears no temporal reference.

Xursand ekan (Uz)Adj: Present

Qal-ɣan eken (Kaz)Ptcp: Past

Ye-moq-chi ekan (Uz)Inf+Agt: Future

Can be used as a nominalizer:

Yaxshi ekan-i-ni ko’r-di.‘She saw that it was good’

Does “double marking of the past” express evidentiality?

That is, what does ekan/eken do?

Ona-otam-ning aytishlaricha bu park juda chiroyli bo’l-gan ekan. (Uz)

‘According to my parents this used to

be a very beautiful park.’

Olar soɣïs-tï kör-gen eken, biz soɣïs-tï kör-me-di-k. (Kaz)‘(Apparently) they saw the war; we

didn’t see the war.’

Ekan/eken generally expresses evidential meaning. Should we consider these in isolation as markers of evidentiality, or should we consider them paradigmatically along with related forms?

What else can we do with ekan/eken?

Admirativity

A.k.a. Mirativity;

The linguistic expression of unexpected information

Much like exclamatives in other languages

Exemplify the emotive function of languages (c.f.

Jakobson 1960)

U juda zakiy ekan. (Uz)

He’s very clever!

Qïtay-lar-dïŋ žaŋa žïl-ï eken ɣoy (Kaz.)

It’s Chinese New Year!

Qanday yaxshi odam ekan! (Uz.)

What a good man he is!

What about questions?

Suggested possible interpretations:

● Asking about something the speaker perceived (e.g. Who sneezed?)

● Shift to addressee perspective (Who [did you see] drove the car?)

● Inference that the addressee does not have direct experience.

● Asking on behalf of someone else.

(Faller 2002; San Roque et al. 2015)

In Uzbek and Kazakh:

● General shift toward addressee perspective/experience; i.e. questions about speaker knowledge or experience

● Rhetorical questions

Questioning addressee’s knowledge:

Saɣat neše eken? (Kaz)What time is it? (Do you know what time it is?)

Pivo ich-mas-lik-ning 6 sabab-i nima ekan? Siz bil-a-siz mi? (Uz)What are the 6 reasons for not drinking beer? Do you know?

Questioning within a context of indirect experience:

Nima qil-ayot-gan ekan ular? (Uz - within the context of a story that was using non-confirmative forms)What were they doing?

Rhetorical Questions

No response expected.

Often translate as “I wonder”

Can be interpreted as statements: “Who would do

such a thing!” ~ No one would do such a thing.

O’sha inson o’z-i insof nima-lig-i-ni bil-ar-mi-kan? (Uz)

Does that man know what fairness is?

Sonda siz-diŋ buygïɣ-ïŋïz-a kim qarsï kel-di eken? (Kaz)

If that is so, who would go against your command?

Išinde ne bar eken? (Kaz)

What is inside? (I wonder)

Hozir uy-lar-i-da bu haq-da munozara qil-ish-ayotgan-mi-kan. (Uz)

I wondered if they were arguing at home about that.

Recap: What do ekan and eken do?

Evidential Emotive

Declarative Evidential(non-firsthand)

Admirative

Interrogative Evidential Question Rhetorical Question

Can a single analysis account for all of this?

-di/-DI -gan/-GAn ekan/eken

[+CONFIRMATIVE] [∅ CONFIRMATIVE] [- CONFIRMATIVE]

[+PAST] [+PAST] [∅ PAST]

[+DEFINITE] [-DEFINITE] [∅ DEFINITE]

[-DISTANT] [+DISTANT] [∅ DISTANT]

● Evidentiality plays no role in the simple past -di/-DI or the participial past -gan/-GAn. Confirmativity

allows for a consistent analysis throughout the verbal system, allowing us to unite -di/-DI, -gan/-GAn, ekan/eken.

● Marked non-confirmativity has the pragmatic effect of indicating either non-firsthand information

(i.e. evidential meaning) or surprise/strong emotional response (admirativity)

● This effect carries over to interrogatives:○ Non-confirmativity distances the speaker from the question: “Do you know? Because I don’t.” or “According to

the story you heard (that I will not verify), what happened?”○ Non-confirmativity extends to the speech act level in rhetorical questions: I have a question, but I will not use

it as such. Hence expressions of surprise/emotivity; speculation/wondering○ Subjective modality is largely incompatible with questions, especially polar questions (Lyons 1977). This

explains why non-confirmativity has such odd outcomes when combined with questions.

The Unified Confirmativity Analysis

An evidential analysis is incomplete. A confirmative analysis accounts for the full range of meanings we have seen.

Conclusions Evidential meaning exists in Uzbek and Kazakh. However, it does not exist as an independent grammatical category.

(Non-)confirmativity can account for evidential meaning, as well as the other ranges of meaning expressed by so-called evidential morphemes.

This analysis can account for Uzbek and Kazakh; more research needs to be done to see why other languages in the Eurasian evidentiality belt are slightly different (e.g. rhetorical questions).

Thank you!Рақмет!Rahmat!

References

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and R.M.W. Dixon, eds. 2003. Studies in Evidentiality. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Darden, Bill J. 1977. “On the Admirative in Bulgarian.” Folia Slavica 1: 59-63.Faller, Martina T. 2002. “Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cusco Quechua.” PhD Diss., Stanford

University.Friedman, Victor A. 1977. The Grammatical Categories of the Macedonian Indicative. Columbus: Slavica.Friedman, Victor A. 1978. On the Semantic and Morphological Influence of Turkish on Balkan Slavic. In Papers from

the Fourteenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, edited by Donka Farkas et al., 108-118. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Friedman, Victor A. 1988. “The Category of Evidentiality in the Balkans and the Caucasus.” In American Contributions to the Tenth International Congress of Slavists: Linguistics, edited by A. M. Schenker, 121-139. Columbus: Slavica.

Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Jakobson, Roman. 1960. “Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics.” In Style in Language, edited by Thomas

Sebeok, 350-377. New York: Wiley.San Roque, Lila, Simeon Floyd, and Elisabeth Norcliffe. 2017. “Evidentiality and interrogativity.” Lingua 186-187:

120-143Straughn, Christopher A. 2011. “Evidentiality in Uzbek and Kazakh.” PhD Diss., University of Chicago.Valenzuela, Pilar. 2003. “Evidentiality in Shipibo-Konibo” in Studies in Evidentiality, edited by Alexandra Y.

Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon, 33-61. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Further Information

Contact:

castraughn@neiu.edu

Dissertation:

https://neiudc.neiu.edu/lib-pub/3/

Defense Handout:

http://elegantlexicon.com/DefenseHandout.pdf