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Re: What is "validationality"?

From:David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...>
Date:Thursday, October 6, 2005, 19:14
Tom wrote:
<<
In the table of contents of Thomas E. Payne's 1997 "Describing
Morphosyntax:  a Guide for Field Linguists" under " 9  Other verb and
verb-phrase operations" we see "9.6  Evidentiality, validationality,
and mirativity".
 >>

I'm guessing you only have access to the table of contents, and
not the book itself...?  Because Payne says exactly what validational
(or veridical) force is.  Specifically, he cites Weber 1986 (Information
perspective, profile and patterns in Quechua.  In Evidentiality: the
Linguistic Encoding of Epistemology, ed. by Wallace Chafe and
Johanna Nichols, 137-55 New York: Ablex).  He summarizes saying
that evidentiality is purely a marker indicating from whence the
information came (i.e., the speaker saw it, the speaker heard it, the
speaker didn't hear it, etc.).  Validationality, though, indicates how
truthful or accurate the speaker believes the information to be--
the degree of commitment the speaker is making to the assertion
they make.  Payne identifies these as concepts, but doesn't assert
they, for example, have distinct manifestations in languages.  So
in Quechua even if a speaker knows what his mother's grandfather's
name is (i.e., he's been told, everyone in the family verifies it, he's
seen records, etc.), he can't use the direct evidential marker.

At this point, he continues talking about evidentiality, and the
discussion of validationality ends.  So, I say check out Weber;
looks like it's his idea.

-David
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tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...>