17.6: Conclusion

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We have suggested that a single type of meaning (source of information) can be contributed on two different levels or dimensions: truth-conditional vs. useconditional. In Chapter 18 we will argue that a similar pattern is observable with adverbial reason clauses. The conjunction because expresses a causal relationship, but this causal relationship may either be asserted as part of the truth-conditional propositional content of the sentence, or may function as a kind of illocutionary modifier.

There is much more to be said about evidentials, but we cannot pursue the topic further here. In addition to the semantic issues introduced (all too briefly) above, the use of grammatical evidential markers interacts in interesting ways with discourse genre, world-view, first and second language acquisition, language contact, and translation, to name just a few.