Folder: mail-procmail-2008-11-18/2007-02-20-160800-voynich From owner-vms-list@voynich.net Thu Jan 27 07:48:01 2005 Message-Id: <200501270940.j0R9e5s0021930@mail2.alphalink.com.au> Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:40:08 +1000 To: vms-list@voynich.net From: Jacques Guy Subject: Piraha (Re: VMs: Welsh/Cornish) 27/01/2005 12:39:35 AM, Knox Mix wrote: > I read recently, and made a note: > > Pirahã uses evidentiality to connote the speaker's assessment of the > evidence for a statement. I suppose that that means, in plain English: when you say something you must necessarily express whether you know it by having seen it yourself, or from having been told someone else (there may be some more such "degrees of evidence", but I do not remember exactly). > If I remember correctly (20 percent confidence) there are a few other > languages that do the same. Quechua does it. And Aymara. Natural: they are related. I don't know if Guarani does it too. I would not be surprised if it did. The way in which they do it is similar to the way in which, in English and in all European languages I can think of, the grammar forces you to distinguish between singular and plural, like it or not. Likewise, there is no way in which you can say in Quechua "Pedro came back today" without making it clear whether you saw him yourself or you heard the news from someone. On the other hand, nothing forces you to distinguish between singular and plural.