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→Conjugation: Evidentiality, with examples to come.
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=== | ===Evidentiality=== | ||
==== | ====Not who, not what, not where nor when. But how.==== | ||
{{quote | |||
|text='''Men ti, men te, men tu, men utuge. Man atta'''. | |||
|sign=Anathir t'Armavir | |||
|source=Descriptions of the language, p. 57 | |||
|about= '''Not who, not what, not where nor when. But how.''' is an Attian saying by the grammarian Anathir t'Armavir. The saying embraces scientific principles, emphasising that it is the manner and reason for an event that is key. The saying was for a long time praxis in Attian law, until the judiciary deemed it inefficient. The saying also plays with the Attian verbal grammatical system, since the language's verbs do not agree with person, tense and the like, but do use evidentials. | |||
}} | |||
A feature not previously used in examples, although almost essential to everyday communication in Attian, is '''evidentiality'''. The definition can be cited as the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. Simply put; it marks the source of information the speaker has for his or her statement. | |||
There are four evidentials in the Attian language, in addition to the use of no evidential at all. These are: | |||
*'''Visual''' - used when there is visual evidence often by the speaker himself, that something has occurred. | |||
*'''Nonvisual''' - used when there is other evidence than visual to support an occurrence. This might be sensory, olfactory or auditory evidence or the like. | |||
*'''Hearsay''' - when an occurrence only can be confirmed through hearsay and that it may not necessarily be accurate. | |||
*'''Quotative''' - the quotative has a higher degree of certainty then the hearsay evidential, used when citing a second or third hand source. Most often believed to be accurate and not open for interpretation. | |||
The process in Attian is known as '''embedding'''. The evidentials are proper biliteral roots conveying their inherent information and are circumfixed on the conjugated verb. At times, they can be circumfixed on adverbs, adjectives and nouns as well. | |||
Evidentials in Attian are typically used to convey information in the past tense, although it is not granted. Especially the visual and nonvisual evidentials have this implication. | |||
====Control and volition==== | ====Control and volition==== | ||
===Verbal patterns=== | ===Verbal patterns=== | ||
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