Evidencialidad y modalidad epistémica en dos variedades de toba habladas en Formosa, Argentina

Abstract

This paper analyzes morphosyntactic strategies that encode evidentiality and epistemic modality in eastern and western Toba (Formosa, Argentina), from the functional typological perspective (Chafe 1986; Bybee et al. 1994; Givón 2001; De Haan 2001, 2005; Aikhenvald 2004; etc.). In eastern Toba, a reportative derived from a grammaticalyzed ‘say’-verb, and the use of two epistemic adverbs –?ego?~?eko? ‘apparently’ and yataqta ‘certainly’– are described. In western Toba, demonstrative roots plus the prefix ho-, after the modified element (noun, verb, adverb, or clause), are analyzed as a strategy of encoding epistemic modality, specifically low subjective certainty.