Embedding evidence in Tagalog and German
Jennifer Pei-Ling Tan, Johannes Mursell · Studies in language companion series · 2018
Abstract We compare two particles with similar meaning contributions from two different languages, German wohl and Tagalog yata, both roughly translatable as ‘I infer’. Based on their context usage, we claim that both are inferential evidentials. Despite their identical meaning, we assume a non-uniform treatment of evidentials, in view of their differing behaviors. By applying well-established tests, we determine the level of meaning they operate on, the propositional level for yata and the illocutionary level for wohl. Our data show that the embeddability test needs modification, allowing for illocutionary operators to be embedded, but only in root-like clauses, as wohl does. Yata, being embeddable in both root and non-root clauses, operates on a propositional level, and is thus a modal evidential.