| Summary: | Evidentiality is a grammatical category which has source of
information as its primary meaning — whether the narrator actually
saw what is being described, or made inferences about it based on
some evidence, or was told about it, and so on. Evidentials are a
particularly salient feature of Tibeto-Burman languages. This volume
features in-depth studies of evidentiality systems in six languages:
Rgyalthang, a Kham Tibetan dialect, by Krisadawan Hongladarom;
Yongning Na (Naxi group; believed to be closely related to Lolo Burmese), by Liberty Lidz; Darma (Almora branch of Western
Himalayish), by Christina Willis; nDrapa (Qiangic), by Satoko
Shirai; Magar (Himalayish), by Karen Grunow-Hårsta, and Tabo (or
Spiti), a Tibetan dialect, by Veronika Hein. Each opens new
perspectives on the composition and the semantics of evidential
systems, on the marking of more than one information source in one
sentence, and on the grammaticalized expression of mirativity.
The new insights on evidentiality and related issues from the
Tibeto-Burman area are crucial for understanding evidentials in a
cross-linguistic perspective.
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