THEORY: Swedish and Danish evidential modals

> Date:         Thu, 10 Jun 1999 13:00:39 +0200
> From: BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
> Tibetan, one of my favorite languages, has evidentials with in principle
> three basic distinctions:
>=20
> 1) what is generally true/common knowledge.  Usually unmarked.
> 2) what has been self-experienced by the speaker.
> 3) what has been reported to the speaker/hearsay.
>=20
> The distinction (2) vs. (3) above is found in most evidential systems* --
> it might even be said to be *the* evidential distinction par preferance --
> yet it seems to be lacking in your scheme.
>=20
> [*The Swedish modal _laer_ used to indicate hearsay, but it has now chang=
ed
> its meaning to "it is very likely that".  A very interesting change!  As a
> main verb _laer_ means "learn" if it's reflexive and "teach" if it's
> transitive, so it seems that the change in meaning is from "I have learnt
> (=3Dhave been told) that X" to "experience/knowledge teaches (=3Dtells) m=
e that
> probably X".
Are you sure? Danish has _lader_ in much the same sense:

        _Det lader til at ..._          "It seems to/that ..."
        _Han lader som om ..._          "He pretends that ..."

This word is not related to _l=E6rer_ ("teach/learn"), but rather to
English "let", German "lassen." (And shares more basic senses with
those cognates as well).

In Danish there's still some of sense (3) three left --- for instance:

        _Han lader til at have pr=F8vet mange ting_ --- "He seems to
        have tried many things" --- the speaker is reporting an
        impression based on hearing a lot of good stories from the
        person in question.

        _Han ser ud til at have pr=F8vet mange ting_ --- "He looks like
        he has tried many things" --- the speaker is reporting a guess
        based on the lined face of the person, or something like that.

But in casual speech these expressions are almost interchangable.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marke=
d)