Evidentiality Puns

Sort of. Unless it already had it, which it kind of did... but now it's more convenient and grammaticalized!

Anyway, I was recently discussing the similar semantic basis for modality and evidentiality, which suggests that, while these two categories are functionally and syntactically distinct and thus quite justified in being considered separately in natural languages, they could be blurred together in a conlang. And WSL's syntactic constructions for explicit quantification over probability distributions  / possible worlds actually already fill that purpose--both modal and evidential structures can be translated into WSL with that common mechanism. However, the notions that were encoded as single words of the relevant syntactic category (rather than requiring expression as multi-word descriptive phrases) were all strongly mood-ish--so, in order to demonstrate the fuzzy boundary between modality and evidentiality more strongly, I have now expanded WSL's set of "modals" from 4 to 7.

The original modals:

es - indicates that the clause describes exactly one real world, or else all worlds consistent with the known discourse context. This is the default, and is usually phonologically unrealized. It’s presence typically triggers an emphatic reading.

miy - indicates existential quantification (at least one, more allowed) over a superset of "es", including extra worlds made possible by acknowledging imperfect information (roughly meaning  " it could be true, especially if I’m wrong about some things").

bi - irrealis, indicating existential quantification over the set of all possible worlds. Universal quantification over all possible worlds is used for, e.g., logical tautologies.

pek - indicates universal quantification over the set of worlds consistent with a contextually-provided set of ideals. This is roughly equivalent to "should", in the deontic sense.

The new modals:

ac - indicates universal quantification over possible worlds consistent with the subset of the speaker's knowledge gained by direct experience.

akc - indicates universal quantification over possible worlds consistent with the subset of the speaker's knowledge learned from other people. (This is not exactly equivalent to a hearsay evidential, because on its own it still assumes the accuracy of that knowledge.)

het - indicates universal quantification over possible worlds consistent with the subset of the speaker's knowledge derived from logical inference on other data sources.

Like

In my new conlang, evidentiality of a verb is indicated by the triconsonantal root of the word, with the meaning of the verb in the set of vowels between the consonants.

e.g: The verb (u, i, a) means "climb"

"I saw the chicken climbing the stairs" = kunita waђto iskal

"My friend saw the chicken climbing the stairs" = puliђa waђto iskal

"My friend's friend saw the chicken climbing the stairs" = nupima waђto iskal

"I heard a chicken climbing the stairs" = wutsina waђto iskal

"My friend smelled a chicken climbing the stairs" = lutitsa waђto iskal

"I saw some chicken footprints on the stairs" = mumima waђto iskal

"I heard some chicken footsteps coming from the stairs' direction" = ђukita waђto iskal

"The chicken climbed the stairs [it didn't]" = ђuђiђa waђto iskal

Are there any that have evidentiality fixed into the grammar? I know Estonian, Turkish and Abkhaz have an evidentiality system that is part of their grammars.

For example, in my native language of Bulgarian verbs can be inflected for evidentiality although that's more of a colloquial thing and depends on the context.

Той изяде храната. Toy izyade hranata. - lit. He ate the food.

The verb is in the aorist past tense and it's in the basic indicative mood. This sentence can also mean something like He ate the food. AND the speaker has seen the action and has made an observation.

Той изял храната. Toy izyal hranata. - lit. He ate the food.

The verb here is in the aorist perfect tense. The sentence can mean He ate the food. AND the speakers know this because someone has told them that the action has ocurred.

Той бил изял храната. Toy bil izyal hranata. - lit. He had eaten the food.

бил is aorist past tense, singular of to be while изял is the aorist past tense, singular of to eat. The whole sentence can also mean something along the lines of He has apparently eaten the food but I do not believe it.

***Not sure if I've used the correct terminology here as Bulgarian verbs tend to be quite difficult (and I've studied this 7 years ago in secondary school).***

Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Evidentiality in Boran and Witotoan languages (Wojtylak)

This week's paper is on evidentiality in two South American language families, namely, the Boran and Witotoan languages. Evidentiality encodes how a speaker obtains information: you can have markers for when an event has been observed, for assumptions based on evidence, for non-visual sensory input, and much more. Now onto today's prompts:

• Does your language have evidential markers?
  • If so, which categories are distinguished? (E.g. visual/non-visual/inferred, sensory/non-sensory etc.)
  • How do these morphemes work on a semantic levels? How do they interact with each other or with other morphological features?
  • Are there any exceptions regarding the expected behaviour of these markers in your language?
• If your language does not feature evidentiality as a grammatical category, how are contexts like 'I saw him shoot the man' and other meanings that are commonly encoded by evidentiality expressed?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

I'm interested in coming up with alien languages.

I'm playing with the principle that language shapes (and is shaped by) the institutions, norms, and worldviews of those who speak it. I'm really trying to push against my own habits of thought.

1. I'm interested in things like pronouns. In many languages, pronouns traditionally nudge the speaker to impart implicit gender information, even when gender is unrelated to what they're talking about. I'm interested in imagining languages where pronouns don't carry gender information, but other kinds of information.

For example, in one society, pronouns might disambiguate whether the person you're referring to has undergone the adulthood rite of killing one of the poor peaceable shepherds who live on the next hill. In another society, you might have a pronoun for Android users and a pronoun for Apple users.

So my question is: What could imaginary pronouns in an imaginary society do? What are the most promising ideas for worldbuilding? What are the weirdest ideas you can think of? What are the most trivial / silly ideas you can think of?

2. I'm also interested in tense and other inflections (aspect, mood, evidentiality, etc.), as well as singular and plural forms. Again I'm trying to imagine languages that convey completely different kinds of information from what we're used to. In English, you say run / ran / runs / running / had ran / will run / should run / would run, conveying claims about time and other things: when the act happens, whether it's finished or ongoing, whether it's real, obligatory in some sense, a possibility, etc. What might verbs tell us that are not to do with time?

What might a fantasy or alien language constantly be telling us about with its verbs? The aesthetic beauty or imperfection of the action? The levels of peril involved? The social status of those involved? The social velocity of those involved (the verb form doesn't make claims about their social class, but it does make claims about their distance from their parents' social class)? The kind of sexual chemistry in the scene? The kinds of anxiety or depression in the scene? The color palette involved in the scene? An estimate of how long since the actor had weed or pooed? Or what? What are the weirdest ideas you can think of? What are the most trivial / silly ideas you can think of?

And are there worlds you already know of in games, fiction or wherever, that do interesting things in this space?

**tl;dr

As I've expanded my horizons from Japanese to include other Japonic languages, I've come to realize that many of them have verbal markers for evidentiality, sometimes in sophisticated systems like in Shuri Okinawan (direct past, neutral past, direct evidence, indirect evidence, neutral evidence, etc.) or in simpler systems like Old Japanese (direct past, indirect past).

However, based on comparisons, I can only find one evidentiality-marking form (namely, the realis "izenkei" form) with cognates visible broadly across the Japonic family. How likely is it that the several other evidentiality markers developed independently? Is it so unusual as it seems for a language to evolve grammatical evidentiality relatively quickly?

For example, Cerelan has evidentiality deep into it's yes/no system, which is shown below.

Absolute answers are only used for absolute facts and things that you are completely sure of, while relative answers are used for personal opinions and things of which your not quite sure of but have a good hunch on the answer. Zi is pretty self-explanatory.

For the curious ones, Affirming/Negating simply refers to using positive/negative answers for positive/negative questions. For example "Do you like water?" vs "Do you not like water?"

How about you all? Have anything similar? Thanks in advance!

Dear all,

I have been prompted to make this post after becoming aware that there are many misconceptions on this sub about the classical theistic response to the evidential PoE; I hope to rectify this. Those of you well-versed in the relevant literature might not find anything new here, but I hope to clarify some matters for those unfamiliar; eitherways, I welcome well-intentioned comments from anyone. Here's how this will go: I'll start off by presenting the generic evidential problem of evil before outlining the generic theistic response. Then, I hope to clarify where exactly the disagreement lies, and argue that the dialectic favours the theist. En route, I shall dispose of some common (but misguided) objections. I will close with a challenge to the atheist.

1) The generic evidential problem of evil

Firstly, let's settle some definitions: gratuitous evil =df." evil that God would have no adequate justifying reason for permitting". This is a bog-standard definition, and I hope that we can agree it is reasonable. Let 'God' mean the traditional God of monotheism, the greatest possible being, that has the greatest amount of omnipotence, benevolence, and omniscience that are logically compatible. I am assuming here that God need not be able to do anything logically impossible.

Now let's see the argument:

P1: If there exists gratuitous evil, then God does not exist.

P2: There exists gratuitous evil.

C: God does not exist.

P1 seems obviously true: if there is evil that God has no justifying reasons to permit, and yet allows to permit, he fails either to be maximally omnipotent or maximally benevolent. Theists and atheists alike should grant this.

P2 is slightly trickier: here, atheists will usually reference an evil that seems to be ultimately pointless and irredeemable: in the locus classicus of the evidential PoE, William Rowe envisages a stag needlessly suffering for longer than seems necessary (animal suffering); for now, maybe we can agree on a more commonly-known example of utter evil: the Holocaust. What, atheists will argue, might possibly justify this atrocity? Our inability to come up with a justifying reason is then taken as evidence that P2 is true.

2) The generic theistic response

In response, most theists are happy to grant P1. However, they will usually be a-gratuitous-evil-ists, i.e. lack a belief in the truth of P2. In their view, atheists do not meet the burden of proof here. Analogously to how a-theists simply lack a be

I understand Hypergamy is one of the foundational concepts of the Red Pill. Is there any scientific or evidence-based proof for the theory? What data led to the theory in the first place?

Thanks for your time.

Hello guys, I'm trying to start a new series on grammar of languages, maybe so that newcomers can use these to help themselves to use this to understand and incorporate them into their conlangs to make them more unique, avoiding the relex death trap. You can also think of this as Wikipedia condensed. If you would like to expand on what I have wrote here, please feel free to comment below to add on! I will make references to English where possible, to help visualize the concept.

Evidentiality
What is evidentiality? It is simply a way of telling the addressee how in you managed to obtain information for whatever verb/action you are telling the addressee about. Simply put: What type of evidence? (Hence evidentiality). There are many many types of evidentiality, but I'll just explore the more commonly used ones, and other users can expand in the comment section.

Examples in English
Unfortunately, English's verbs do not conjugate to evidentiality. Instead we use words like: I heard/I saw/It is known/Someone told me... etc.

Sensory/Firsthand
This is exactly what is sounds like. It tells the addressee that you have witnessed that action, either by sight, smell, touch or other senses.

Assumed
This is also exactly what is sounds like. You are assuming that that particular action has taken place, but have no concrete evidence for its actual occurrence.

Hearsay
This is the gossip queen's favourite. This simply tells someone that you heard that something happened - from someone else. You yourself have not actually witnessed it.

Inferential
This is a slightly more powerful form than assumed, yet weaker than sensory. You are deducing that that action happened as a logical consequence of several previous actions. However, you also admit that you do not actually know that it happened.

Common Sense
Ah, something I lack at times. This may border on ridicule at times, like "The Earth orbits(EVI) around the Sun". I mean its common sense! Come one! Do I need to explain this to you??!!

Evidentiality gives a whole new dimension when debating with someone, debating during court cases, and actually encourages the one giving information to check whether the information he/she obtained is actually substantial. Maybe some popular TV shows and FB post might have to go because of this.

Hi all, I'm hunting for languages which have rich grammaticalized evidentiality systems, and that also have a fairly strong presence on the web. One or more languages from this list would be awesome. I see some overlap between the wikipedia page on evidentiality and this list, but the more the better for my hopeful project.

Hey /r/unitican! After testing out several features with speakers, I have decided to add and change certain conjugations, to make it more naturally and smoother to say.

Volition Under Volition, the affix for voliton, which was formerly -kyop (/cop/) will be changed to -kyo (/co/).
There is another affix to show that the action was forced - i.e not out of free will. This will be an infix, -ciul-. For words with 1 syllable, it will be placed at the end. For words with 2 syllables, logically it will be placed in between. For words with 3 or more syllables, it will be placed at the penultimate position. Other morphemes attached to mark tense, mood etc do NOT count. Here are the examples.
Ya feanciul dhé solos. --> I am forced to eat the chicken.
Ya anciuljien't miynd diant. --> I was forced to forget the incident.
Hé býhociulséso dhé en'raho. --> He is forced to be exploring the ocean.

Evidentiality
Under Evidentiality, and new case will be added, the personal case. Therefore evidence obtained by the speaker, either through sight, smell etc will fall under this. The affix for this is -yal (/jal/). Here is an example.
Ye chokyal'thé --> I saw/heard that you punched him.

Moods
This mood doesn't really exist in natural languages, so I don't really have a term for it. Maybe you guys can suggest a name for it. (It shall be dubbed the "noiative" mood. Thanks /u/El_Predsjednik) It also falls partially under Volition. This mood describes doing an action out of boredom or serendipity. E.g, when you visit the supermarket to hopefully find something new or something on sale; surfing Reddit because you are bored - i.e A weak form of volition. It is marked by a prefix fý-.
Ya fýlen te dhé en'jlexst - I go to the supermarket out of boredom.

Existential Phrases
When you want to say 'there is something' in Unitican, you use the verb "unl". Here are examples.
Unl n ból - There is a ball
Unlyal zen rens ký - I saw/heard/smelled? that there are three men over there.
Six sug lexurjue unl njutrinos - We have proven with evidence that there exists neutrinos.

I will be updating the respective lessons in the coming days. Thank you and as usual if you have any questions, cadikax zol~

So, igogu is my first language in which I added evidentiality markers. Currently, there are seven of them: Common knowledge, Fact, Hearsay, Deduction, Olfactory, Visual, & Tactile.

One of the seven must be used on all verbs, and is what indicates the word is a verb. Which leads me to a problem. What happens when neither of the seven above fit the verb right? Right now, Common Knowledge is used in the case of a verb that doesn't fit the other evidentialities.

I'm not sure if my question is clear enough, so please ask if you're confused. But basically, what do I do when none of the evidentialities apply to the verb being used? Currently, like I said above, Common Knowledge is used for that situation and in the citation form of a verb.

If placed as a modifier, "vyuk" and its variants "il'vyuk", "da'vyuk", "an'vyuk", "kyug'vyuk", etc. It can be used for evidentiality.

For example, instead of saying "gur ae kyop, ut ae an'kras...", one can shorten it to something like "ae kyug'vyuk gur kyop. In English, instead of saying "I like it, but I don't really know", you can say "I half-like it". Or if something is mostly true, "ae da'vyuk gur kyop", etc.

wouldn't this be redundant as we can simply merge kyug, da, and other words with the verb?

Let's compare!

"ae kyug'gur kyop" would mean that you only "half-like" it, while saying "ae kyug'vyuk gur kyop" would mean that the verb like is only half true, meaning that you could actually really like it or sort of dislike bits of it, etc. In other words, the word word vyuk helps reduce ambiguity and adds a whole new evidentiality system.

Here's a paragraph shortened with the system:

Old:

kyop vyum an'nov, ut ae an'kras fi vyum an'nov. ae byel'dyuk tyeg'an'yak, dai gur kyop, ut ae gur dai spyeg yak ae fi dai gur.

new:

ae byel'dyuk tyeg'an'yak, dai kyug'vyuk gur kyop.

kyop vyum da'vyuk an'nov.

thoughts?

Codeyoun te dhé "Becoming Semi-Fluent!
In the first post of the 3rd section of Unitican, we shall learn Evidentiality. What is that? Of course, you can go to Wikipedia's page on evidentiality. I shall give you a brief summary. It is the indication of the truth of a statement, or simply HOW the person obtained the evidence for that statement. In English, you say "He eats the chicken". If you heard that from a friend, you just put the context behind. If you very well know it that is an undeniable fact, you say the same. You also can say, "Obviously, he eats the chicken" or "I know he eats the chicken".

However, in Unitican, the verb declines to evidentiality. There are four forms.

1. Unmarked form This is the normal verb form, with no inflection whatsoever. Hey féan dhé solos - He eats the chicken. I'm mostly sure he ate it, but I'm not going to make any claims on the validity of the evidence.
2. Non-concrete/Hearsay evidence
   The verb adopts a -gu affix. Hey féangu dhé solos - He eats the chicken, I know this because I heard someone say this, or I GUESS he does that.
3. Concrete evidence
   The verb adopts a -jue affix. Hey féanjue dhé solos - He eats the chicken, and he definitely did, not only did I see it, but 5 others did. Or perhaps: It is not possible at all that he didn't do that activity. Make sure when you use this affix you are ready not to be faulted. For example "The Earth goes-jue around the Sun". Yeap, definitely. This is also a very rare case where a word can end with a -e and that "e" would not be pronounced-jue with a /ə/ sound.
4. Observational/Personal evidence
   The verb adopts a -yal affix. Hey féanyal dhé solos - He eats the chicken, and I hear/see/smell/feel/sense him do it.

In Unitican, the prefixes can also be used to signify strength of resolve, for example:
Ya kiséjue dhé solos! = I really do want that chicken!
Similarly
Ya kiségu dhé solos... = I'm not sure if I want that chicken...

Lastly, remember that the evidentiality suffixes can also be attached to the copula.
Hésýjue dodosif = He is indeed stupid.
Shýsýgu hilea = I've heard that she is smart.

Hope this was understandable! I know-jue you can understand this!

I am working on the origin myth of the Ktletaccete, and their version of the creation of the world. And I have come to my favorite line:

fefa ccaruubinojeda nenena fefufo cciruu'enolito neneni

"We know this because we saw it."

While this example showcases how logic works in a Fenekere sentence, I know that some of us are working on languages that show evidentiality, and I suspect that might change the structure of the sentence in some cool little ways.

Here's the breakdown for mine:

[fɛfa    ʧaɹu:binoʤɛda  nɛnɛna    fɛfufo   ʧiɹu:ʔɛnolito         nɛnɛni]
 we.SBJ  effect-know.V  this.OBJ  we.ADV.  cause-saw.V.of.ADV   it.OBJ.of.ADV

It's a little redundant (the adverb clause can usually be used to imply the cause of the main verb, so the prefixes aren't strictly required), but usually that's a good idea in order to be clear.

If a philosopher were to propose an argument in support of evidential nihilism and that argument were to be at all persuasive, then it could be held that the argument was evidence for evidential nihilism and thus that evidential nihilism is either unsupportable or self-defeating. But suppose that evidential nihilism is both true and self-defeating, given that it's true, what evidence could there be against its truth? In fact, being self-defeating would not constitute evidence against the truth of evidential nihilism.

In this article Mario Valente argues that all reasoning is ultimately informal and in this article Liam Kofi Bright argues that logical nihilism commits us to evidential nihilism. Bright thinks that logical nihilism is self-defeating, but asks us to consider the consequences anyway.

Previous, Next

There are currently two types of evidentiality markers in Mneumonese: one says what type of evidence supports the statement, and the other specifies the confidence level of the statement. There are currently 3 types of evidence markers and 5 types of confidence markers. One of each type of these markers is required in a formal Mneumonese debate.

As for tenses, there are currenlty 13, one for commands, and 12 that are factored into a 3x4 table.

Challenge: Guess glosses for the evidence and confidence markers, as well as for the two types of markers which the 12 basic tenses factor into.

©Copyright 2015 Mneumonese

• Ethan has never laughed harder and more consistently through an interview
• Their energy together is S-tier
• Their humor aligns
• He can promote his new Netflix Special that I’m sure would make great discussion content for the show, as it’s fucking hysterical.

Learn to develop a symbolic language spirits can use to assist you more clearly perceive their intention, their message. Follow us as we be part of religions, undergo various remedies, search out the paranormal, and at all times discover the humor in life’s greatest mysteries. Every week we share a new investigation, interview, or replace.

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At the age of 10 she had her first memorable expertise with a spirit. During this "awakening" Cindy started searching for solutions for her experiences and have become aware of her multi-faceted abilities as a psychic medium. As an adult, she started training not only in the us, but additionally on the famend Arthur Findlay School of Intuitive Sciences in Stansted, England. Cindy is sharing her present with the world by way of the power of tv, film and reside performance.

At the theocon Liberty University female college students who file a sexual assault complaint with college authorities are prone to discover themselves charged with violating strict school guidelines banning sexual and associated exercise. It is the intent of many forced birthers to revive the legal concept that rape that can and does lead to impregnation is always a false declare. It follows that it is never justified to permit an abortion that resulted from a “rape” – incest included – that never truly occurred as a outcome of she really wished it.

I also welcome and encourage those who may be a bit skeptical as lengthy as they are somewhat open-minded and have family members in spirit. So if you realize somebody who possibly is not on reddit but who might like this opportunity, please move alongside the hyperlink. “Suzanne is among the most gifted-and among the most credible-of any real medium I have had the privilege to satisfy and work with over the previous 15 years. Moreover, if anyone has the potential to bring the fact of mediumship and life after dying to the plenty, it's Suzanne.”Dr.

Once we now have assembled the data, we

There are many that visit this sub looking for a better understanding of mediums and how to find a quality reader. There are many people with gifts. There are many types of gifts. Not all gifts mean a person is a medium. Evidential mediumship is when the medium provides many details/validations, or evidence of the departed. An evidential medium does not require any tools to do a reading. In fact, many organizations that provide mediumship verification processes do not allow a medium to use any tools during a reading. Using tarot or oracle cards as an effort to gain details of the deceased does not make you an evidential medium. Using pendulums or ouija does not make you an evidential medium. If you are asking for full names, birthdates, if you are giving a reading but asking a lot of questions to gain information…this is not evidential mediumship. If you start off by telling someone they have a curse…my God, shame on you to the infinite power. If you don’t have a website or reviews, you’re not a pro so don’t try to sell yourself as such. Reddit reviews are not credible as we have seen with several “pros” and “experts” on here that have no problem making ghost accounts to pump up their reviews. As a medium all the tools we need reside in us and around us. The evidence we receive is gathered through our senses and experiences. Spirit rifles through our brain using our memories, our emotions, our relationships, all the knowledge we have gained through our senses to connect to the sitter and prove the connection with the deceased. If you are seeking a reading please ask questions. Ask the medium about their process. Ask the medium how they receive information. Pay attention to how the ask questions, are they eliciting? A reading should have an intention to bring you to a better place. It should not instill doom and gloom. It should not make you scared. It should lift a little heaviness of grief and bring some comfort. Connecting with a passed loved one should make you feel the warmth and love of those that have passed.

I apologize if this comes off harsh or like a rant but I cannot believe some of the comments in this sub and r/mediumreadings. I have received several readings from some of the more vocal persons offering readings to others claiming to be mediums. It’s quite disappointing and frankly it’s unethical. Taking advantage of anyone’s grief is sickening. So please, please take care if you are looking for a reading, and consider some of these po