Evidential Marking and its Argumentative Function. Insights from the Analysis of Italian Conversation
Additional information
Authors
Battaglia E.,
Miecznikowski-Fuenfschilling J.
Type
Book chapter
Year
2025
Language
English
Abstract
We investigated evidential marking (EvM) in a collection of conversational sequences in Italian opened by disagreement or other-initiation of repair. EvM indicates the speaker’s source of information for a proposition, can function as an argument, and is expressed grammatically, lexically (e.g., ‘I was told he’s at home’, ‘he must be at home’) or by a full utterance (e.g., ‘He’s at home. I’ve seen that’). In line with recent functional theories of grammaticalization, we hypothesized that grammatical and lexical EvM is little prominent in discourse and therefore, as an argument, less apt to support standpoints at issue than EvM conveyed by full utterances. A statistical analysis confirmed that hypothesis. In our collection, lexical and grammatical EvM occurs in statements that have not yet been challenged or qualifies arguments in support of a standpoint, whereas full utterance EvM occurs more often in standpoints that have been challenged (= standpoints at issue). The analysis is completed by a discussion of the sequential progression and argumentation structure of exemplary cases.
Keywords
Evidentiality, arguments from reliable procedures, discourse prominence, grammaticalisation, argumentation structure, repair, conversation, Italian
Book
De l’argumentativité à l’argumentation / From Argumentativity to Argumentation
Publisher
Thierry Herman
Pages (or article number)
201-234
ISBN
9782875749741
ISSN
0933-6079
DOI
