Confirmative

Confirmative is an adjective meaning tending to confirm or providing confirmation. It can describe evidence, statements, or actions that serve to verify a claim or hypothesis. The word derives from confirm, with the -ative suffix, and is found in English, though it is less common today than the related term confirmatory. In general use, confirmative may appear in scientific, legal, or academic prose to emphasize the act of confirming.

In scientific and medical contexts, confirmative evidence or confirmative tests are those that strengthen or verify a suspected diagnosis or theory. For example, a confirmative assay may verify the presence of a pathogen, or a confirmative result may support a particular hypothesis.

In linguistics and discourse analysis, confirmatives can refer to markers or expressions that convey the speaker’s assurance that the reported information is true, or that invite the listener to acknowledge verification. They are related to evidentials and discourse markers, but are described with a focus on the speaker’s confidence.

Distinction from confirmatory: confirmative and confirmatory are often used interchangeably in everyday language, but some technical writings reserve confirmatory for results that explicitly verify a hypothesis, while confirmative can emphasize the act of confirming or the reinforcing evidence.

See also: confirmation, corroboration, evidentiality, discourse marker.