Tõenduslikkus

Tõenduslikkus, meaning evidentiality in English, is a linguistic concept that refers to the grammatical marking of the source of information a speaker is conveying. This means that a speaker must indicate, through specific grammatical forms or particles, how they know what they are saying. This can include information directly observed, information inferred, or information heard from another source.

In languages that employ evidentiality, the choice of evidential marker is not arbitrary. It reflects the speaker's commitment to the truthfulness of their statement and the type of evidence they have for it. For example, a speaker might use one form for something they saw with their own eyes, another for something they deduced based on evidence, and a third for something they were told by someone else.

The presence and specific manifestations of evidentiality vary greatly across the world's languages. Some languages have highly developed and obligatory evidential systems, where every utterance must be marked for the source of information. Other languages may have optional or less explicit ways of conveying evidentiality, sometimes through adverbs or other lexical means rather than strict grammatical markers.

The study of evidentiality is important in linguistics for understanding how languages encode knowledge and belief, and how speakers manage the flow of information within a conversation. It sheds light on the cognitive processes involved in acquiring and reporting information, and offers insights into the diverse ways human languages structure meaning.