(Meadow Mari)
EvidParad
EvidParad: Evidentiality is a feature of the verbal paradigm.
| (1) | tače | erdene | kud | šagat-lan | kəńeľ-ym. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| today | morning | six | clock‑DAT | get_up‑PST1.1SG | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ‘I got up at six o’clock today in the morning.’ (Riese et al. 2022: 214) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (2) | uńiversiťet | voktene, kol-ən-am, | u | kafe-m | poč-ən-ət. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| university | beside hear‑PST2‑1SG | new | café‑ACC | open‑PST2‑3PL | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ‘I heard a new café has been opened beside the university.’ (Riese et al. 2022: 220) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (3) | kagaz | lapčək-eš | voz-en | kod-en, | məj | ške | šinča-m | dene | už-en-am. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| paper | shred‑LAT | lie‑CVB | stay‑PST2.3SG | I | own | eye‑1SG | with | see‑PST2‑1SG | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ’The paper was lying there torn to pieces, I saw it with my own eyes.’ (Korp.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In Meadow Mari, evidentiality is expressed via the tense system. Out of the six past tenses of Mari, the so-called first past, or first simple past tense is used when the speaker witnessed the event or perceived it directly in some other way (1). The second past, or the second simple past tense is more common when the speaker was not the witness of the event (2) (Riese et al. 2022: 219–222). It has to be noted that the choice between these two past tenses depends on several other factors as well such as resultativity, mirativity, or aspect, and the language does not have a morpheme associated solely with evidentiality. Moreover, the second past tense is the past tense predominantly used in journalism so it is much more widespread in the written language than the first past (Riese et al. 2022: 220). Some research indicates that the first past tense implies direct evidentiality, whereas the second past can be used both for direct (3) and indirect experiences, that is, it is not a relevant indicator of evidentiality (cf. Nelson – Vedernikova 2017). Further research is needed.
Author: Bogáta Timár