EPISTEMIC MODALITY, EVIDENTIALITY AND (INTER) SUBJECTIVITY: A CHANGING PARADIGM

The paper is a reflection on the debate concerning the relation between (epistemic) modality and evidentiality. It cuts across different views and approaches to epistemic modality and evidentiality, bringing in, as a differentiating agent, the criterion of (inter)subjectivity. Starting from Lyons’ (1977) and Palmer’s (1986, 2001) concept of subjectivity as “the locutionary agent’s expression of himself and his own attitudes and beliefs” that is inherent in epistemic modality, the paper looks into Traugott’s use of the term (Traugott 1989, 2001) that understands and sees subjectivity as the way in which a speaker’s psychological or emotional perspective is incorporated into the description of a situation or event, and moves on to Nuyts (2001a, 2001b) for whom (inter)subjectivity indicates that the speaker has access to the situation-relevant evidence. The difference in approaches to the notion of subjectivity is inextricably related to the changed views on the status of evidentiality within (or, rather without) epistemic modality.