evid

Evid, short for evidentiality, is a term used in linguistics to denote a grammatical category that encodes how the speaker came to know the information in a clause. The label evid or evid. appears in descriptive grammars and glossing conventions to indicate evidential meaning.

In languages with evidential systems, markers can take the form of verb affixes, particles, or auxiliary verbs. They may signal direct evidence (direct observation), indirect evidence (hearsay or inference), or other sources such as memory or report. The systems vary widely: some languages have a single evidential meaning, while others distinguish multiple subtypes and interact with other grammatical layers such as tense, aspect, or mood.

Evidential marking often interacts with discourse and epistemic stance, shaping how speakers attribute knowledge to themselves or others. In typological work, evidentiality is studied to understand how different languages encode source of information, how these markings influence conversation and information structure, and how evidential systems evolve over time.

In linguistic practice, evid is commonly used as a glossary or gloss label in example sentences. While not all languages encode evidential distinctions, the concept of evidentiality is widely documented and serves as a key area of study in descriptive linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and language documentation.

See also: evidentiality, evidential mood, epistemic modality, evidential marker.