Factivos

Factivos, or factitive verbs, are a class of verbs in grammar whose complement clauses carry a claim that is treated as true by the speaker. In sentences with a finite embedded clause, a factive verb typically entails the truth of the proposition expressed in that embedded clause, rather than merely presenting a belief about it.

Common English factive verbs include know, realize, discover, show, prove, and certify. For example, "She knows that the store is closed" entails that the store is indeed closed. Others, such as "realize" or "discover," similarly commit the embedded proposition to be true. By contrast, non-factive attitude or cognitive verbs like think, imagine, suppose, or believe do not by themselves entail the embedded proposition; "I think the store is closed" does not guarantee that it is.

In linguistic theory, factives are treated as veridical predicates and are closely related to the study of truth-conditional semantics, presupposition, and evidentiality. They also show cross-linguistic variation: many languages have explicit verb classes that are factive, with the complement clause often marked or selected by the verb. Spanish, for instance, uses verbs like saber, darse cuenta de, or descubrir que to express factivity, though the exact inventory varies by language.

Important notes: The boundary between factivity and non-factivity can be gradient; some verbs may be factive in some contexts but not in others. The study of factives informs debates on how language encodes knowledge, belief, and evidence.