The Interaction of Indirect Evidentiality, Temporality and Epistemic Modality in Jordanian Arabic: The Case of Deverbal Agentives

Abstract

Abstract Evidentiality is commonly concerned with two basic notions: evidence type and the speaker's commitment towards the truth of the proposition expressed (Chafe and Nichols 1986). Throughout a detailed study of the morphosyntax and semantics of deverbal agentives (DAs), this dissertation investigates indirect evidentiality and its interaction with two other semantic categories, particularly epistemic modality and temporality in Jordanian Arabic (JA). The study shows that the semantics and morphosyntax of DAs is far more complex than what has been described in the previous literature which mainly focused on the temporal and non-verbal features of DAs. I propose an indirect evidential account to capture the semantics of DAs. The evidential proposal is grounded on a diverse body of evidence which shows that DAs are the hallmark of indirect evidentiality in JA. The evidential meaning of DAs is explored with regard to their interaction with temporality and epistemic modality. The proposed analysis provides a unified account of DAs where the evidential, modal and temporal components are incorporated. I argue that the indirect evidence is specified by anterior and posterior temporal relations. I also show that evidential DAs trigger a modal reading in their semantics. The modal reading is captured by a compositional analysis where DAs are analyzed as quantifiers over possible worlds, adopting Kratzer's possible world theory (1981, 1991). Morphosyntactically, the study calls for a reconsideration of the previous categorization of DAs found in the literature (Kremers 2003, Mughazy 2004 among others). I defend an alternative evidential categorization of DAs in JA. The morphosyntactic analysis also challenges the `verbal vs non-verbal' view of predication in Arabic in general and in JA in particular. Based on this fact, I propose an alternative view of predication in JA based on a modal vs non-modal rather than a verbal vs non-verbal distinction. The empirical findings of the current study have significant implications for the linguistic analysis of JA, Arabic dialects, Semitology and evidentiality cross-linguistically. The study provides an alternative evidential perspective of the temporal behavior of DAs and specifically the temporal problem of DAs which has long dominated the literature on DAs in all Arabic dialects. Typologically, the current evidential account suggests that any theory of evidentiality should not restrict the requirement of the evidence type to a lexical or morphological specification, but include a temporal specification as well. Also, the evidential-modal analysis suggests that the type of inferential reading not only includes consequent-state inferential readings as assumed in the literature but also result-state inferential readings as well. Additionally, the current study is the first attempt to account for evidentiality in Semitology. Contrary to the widely held belief in the Semitic literature, this study provides evidence that evidentiality does exist as a separate category in at least one Semitic language - JA.