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Evidentiality in Russian
Elena PADUCHEVA (Moscow)
http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/
The Nature of Evidentiality, Leiden, 14.06.2012
1. Evidentiality as a grammatical
category and as a concept

Evidentiality as a grammatical category is to be
distinguished from evidentiality as a notion. It is a
notional category that should be the basis for
typological comparison, see Haspelmath 2010. I shall
deal with evidentiality in Russian, which lacks
grammatical evidentiality, i.e. with the concept of
evidentiality. But grammatical evidentiality is to be
the starting point in any case (see Wiemer, Plungjan
2008 on evidentiality in Slavic languages).

I regret the necessity to speak about Russian in
the auditorium where the majority doesn’t
speak Russian. Ungrammaticality examples
from your native language tend to produce an
emotional effect, while discussing
ungrammaticalities in a foreign language
resembles explaining a joke that hadn’t made
you laugh. Still I hope my Russian examples to
be at least persuasive on the mental level.

In languages with grammatical evidentiality
the speaker should, any time (s)he uses a
verbal form in a statement, mention the source
of information, or, rather, the type of access to
the information (see, e.g., Aikhenvald 2004,
Plungian 2011). In other words, what gives the
speaker grounds for saying what (s)he says?
Generalized conceptual scheme

direct evidentiality – the speaker witnessed the
situation or took part in it:
Ivan vernulsja ‘Ivan returned’,

indirect evidentiality, i.e. indirect access:
 imprecise perception – imperceptive:
Kazhetsja, paxnet gazom ‘it seems that it smells like gas’,
 an inference based on indirect evidence – inferentive:
Vidimo, Ivan vernulsja [his suitcase is here] ‘evidently, Ivan
returned’,
 reported speech – reportative:
Pered smert’ju on, kak budto, prinjal islam ‘before death he
seemed to have converted to Islam’ (example of A.Letuchiy).
2. Indirect evidentiality and nonreliability

Grammatical indirect evidentiality is not to be
identified with non-reliability of the information.
Unquestionable truths avoid markers of indirect
access in some languages with grammatical
evidentiality, but in some other languages they are
compatible, so that indirect evidentiality does not
contradict reliability, Plungian 2011: 467. However,
in languages where evidentiality markers are not
grammatically obligatory an evidentiality marker
often reduces the degree of responsibility of the
speaker for the reliability of the information. And it
concerns markers of direct evidentiality as well.
(2.1) Shevardnadze proezzhal po ulicam
stremitel’no, ego avtomobil’ s četyrex storon
oblepljali (sam videl) mašiny oxrany. [Russian
National Corpus, RNC] ‘Shevardnadze rode
through the streets dashingly, his car was
surrounded on four sides (I saw it myself) by
the cars of the guard.’
In fact, for Russian, as well as for other languages
lacking grammatical evidentiality, the postulate is
valid saying that in any statement the speaker is
the subject of an epistemic obligation: my
utterance P implies ‘I know that P’ or ‘I believe
that P’, depending on the type of the proposition
P. If predication P is basically evaluative then the
second variant is realized. Hence the famous
Moore’s paradox (see Wittgenstein 1953): the
utterance She is pretty but I don't believe it is
deviant, because She is pretty basically means ‘I
believe that she is pretty’.
In Plungian 2011: 467 a situation in central upic
(an Eskimo language) is described (with
reference to Mithan 1999) where the marker of
indirect evidentiality attaches a greater degree
of reliability to the utterance – because
collective experience is more reliable than
personal testimony. So the Russian semantic
pattern is no typological outsider.
3. Unclear boundary between direct
and inferentive evidentiality

The direct evidentiality corresponds to the case
when the speaker saw with his own eyes what
he speaks about. But, as is known, the verb
meaning ‘see’, in Russian and not only in
Russian, is essentially ambiguous: productive
semantic derivation transfers this verb from the
class of perception verbs to the class of mental
ones, see, e.g., Paducheva 2004: 199. Hence
the absence of a strict boundary between direct
and inferentive evidentiality.
The famous example by Anna Wierzbicka.
Which evidentiality is here expressed by ja
vizhu ‘I see’?
(3.1) Ja vizhu, Dzhona zdes’ net [approximate
translation – ‘I see, John is absent here’].

Parenthetical ja vizhu marks inferentive evidentiality
more often than not:
(3.2) Ja vas za gorduju sčitala, a vy, ja vizhu, prostaja ‘I
considered you to be proud, while you are, I see it,
plain’ [RNC]
(3.3) Он еще до знакомства со мной несколько раз находился в

психиатрической лечебнице, но я тогда, дура, не придала
этому значения. ― Я вижу, ты не очень довольна своим
замужеством. [RNC] ‘before we met he had been in a
psychiatric hospital several times, but I, being a fool,
didn’t pay attention to it. – I see, you aren’t very much
content with your marriage.’.

More than that, the word javno, meaning
‘obviously, visibly, apparently’, cannot be used
in the context of a verb denoting observable
action or process. In (3.4), for example, javno is
at place because the verb udarit’ ‘hit’ is used in
a figurative meaning:
(3.4) Наивный офицер явно ударил главу кабинета по
больному, по наболевшему месту. [RNC] ‘the naïve
officer apparently hit the head of the cabinet where it
hurts’.
It is important that parenthetical ja vizhu can be
used not only in assertions but also in questions,
which are incompatible with direct evidentiality:
(3.5) Nu-s, vy, ja vizhu, uzhe pristupili? ‘so, as I
see, you’ve already begun?’ [RNC]
 The notion of direct evidentiality as it is usually
defined is applicable only to assertions. So what
about questions? I leave this issue as a problem
for the future.

4. An example of a grammatically marked
evidentiality opposition in Russian

In Russian there is a morphological opposition,
which can be identified, as to its semantics, as
marking evidentiality; example from
Paducheva 2004: 467-8.
(4.1) a. Butylki [Gen] ne bylo [neutral gender] v
xolodil’nike – direct evidentiality
b. Butylka [Nom] ne byla [feminine gender] v
xolodil’nike – inferentive evidentiality
‘the bottle was not /hasn’t been in the fridge’ .
The Genitive subject and Neutral gender of the
non-personal predicate in (4.1a) express direct
evidentiality, while common Nominative
subject and feminine gender of the predicate
(agreeing with the subject) are interpreted as
expressing inferentive evidentiality.
According to the interpretation of the Genitive subject
suggested in Paducheva 1992, sentence (4.1a)
conceptualizes the situation in which the speaker
fulfills the role of the observer. The widely
influential book Babby 1980, called “Existential
Sentences and Negation in Russian”, connected the
Russian Genitive Negative subject with existential
sentences. Now sentence (4.1a) expresses
localization, not existence. It contradicts semantic
motivation of the Genitive subject proposed by
Babby (and some others) and was considered to be an
exception. But the exception it was not. Genitive
subject in (4.1a), as in many other sentences, is
licensed by the semantic component ‘perception’: it is
not the case that sentence (4.1a) negates localization –
it expresses the observed absence, i.e. the presence
of the speaker-observer at the location in question.
Example (4.1) doesn’t mean to purport that
Russian has grammatical evidentiality.
Inferentive is just one of possible
interpretations of implied evidentiality in
sentence (4.1b): reportative interpretation is
also possible. But direct evidentiality is
excluded in (4.1b) and is expressed by
grammatical means in (4.1a).
Example (4.2) supports the analysis suggested.
The utterance (4.2a) sounds awfully
ridiculous. (It was made by a woman,
perhaps, some travel agent, who was buying
something in a shop and at some moment got
a mobile call.) She should have said (4.2b).
(4.2) a. *Menja net v ofise ‘me [Genitive] not-be in the
office’
b. Ja ne v ofise “I [Nom] am not in my office
<where I have my computer and other things that
would help me answer questions of a client>”

In fact, (4.2a) is contradictory: it presupposes
the speaker in the role of the observer in the
office and asserts that she is not there. The
Genitive in (4.3) is perfectly OK. In fact, the
utterance relies upon the addressee – who will
be present at the location mentioned and will
fulfill the role of the observer of the speaker’s
absence:
(4.3) Menja zavtra ne budet v institute ‘me [Genitive]
won’t be at the institute to-morrow’.

This is the case of deictical projection that
we’ll return to a bit later.
5. Implied observer as a marker
of direct evidentiality

Theoretical semantics is now unthinkable without
the notion of the observer introduced in
Apresjan 1986 (see also Paducheva 1996, 2011).
For instance, while saying (5.1), the speaker not
only asserts that some event took place but also
implies that (s)he is the witness of it:
(5.1) Na doroge pokazalsja vsadnik ‘On the road appeared
a rider’ (example from Apresjan 1986).

The presence of the observer is proved by the
following syntactic test – sentence (5.2), with the
1st person subject, is deviant – in fact, a person
cannot appear in the field of vision of
him/herself:
(5.2) *Na doroge pokazalsja ja ‘*On the road
appeared I’.

This test was mentioned already in Fillmore
1968, in connection with the verb to lurk:
(5.3) a. The snake was lurking in the grass
b.*I was lurking in the grass.


Thus, in sentences (4.1a), (5.1), with the implied
observer, the genitive subject can be treated as a
marker of direct evidentiality.
The notion of observer was the object of attention
in lexical semantics for several decades, but until
recently the observer was not related to direct
evidentiality. The interpretation of sentences with
the observer as containing evidentiality marker
was proposed by Y.G.Testelec.
6. Evidentiality marker as a primary
egocentrical: projection effects
Evidentiality markers have the speaker as their implied
subject. Thus, they are included in the category of
egocentrical elements – egocentricals (or, in other
terminology, indexical elements, indexicals). Thus, we
get the opportunity to pay attention to some aspects of
their semantics that were neglected earlier.
In the literature devoted to evidentials their only implied
subject is always the speaker, cf., e.g. Plungjan 2011:
449: “using an evidentiality marker the speaker tells us
in which way (s)he learned what (s)he says”. But it is a
well known fact about egocentricals that they can
undergo projection – in the sense that in some specific
context their implied subject is not the speaker but
some other person.

In Lyons 1979 the notion of projection was introduced
for deictic elements, such as here and now, in
connection with non-canonical communicative
situations. This idea was developed also in Fillmore
1975: John is now coming means ‘John is coming to
me’, i.e. to the speaker, but a question Is John is now
coming? may mean ‘is John is coming to you?’, i.e. to
the addressee. We can also speak about narrative
projection (when the speaker is absent and the role of
the speaker is fulfilled either by the narrator or the
character) and hypotactic projection when the subject
of the matrix sentence is the rival of the speaker.

There is an extensive literature on secondary
egocentricals (see a survey of the literature in
Paducheva 1996, 2011), which easily undergo
projection. English lurk and Russian
pokazat’sja ‘appear’ are well known examples
of secondary egocentricals. Sentence (5.2) is
deviant; but in a hypotactic context it’s OK:
(5.2) *Na doroge pokazalsja ja ‘*On the road
appeared I’;
(5.2’) Mne skazali, chto imenno v etot moment
na doroge pokazalsja ja ‘It was said that I
appeared on the road exactly at this moment’

A similar test is applicable in the construction
with the genitive subject:
(5.4) *Menja net doma ‘me [Genitive] not at home’
[controversial];
(5.4’) Emu skazali, chto menja net doma ‘he was said
that me [Genitive] not at home’ [OK].

It stands to reason to explore whether
evidentiality markers can undergo any kind of
projection.

Let us look at the Russian parenthetical okazyvaetsja.
It was treated as an evidentiality marker, namely, as a
marker of admirativity, and as a separate grammatical
category (Khrakovskij 2007). It is, rather, just a
parenthetical word, semantically similar to an
evidentiality marker. The peculiarities of its use are
demonstrated by the opposition okazyvaetsja [present
imperfective] – okazalos’ [past perfective]. The word
okazalos’ is relatively simple and can be translated
into English as ‘it turned out’, while the present of
okazyvaetsja makes it difficult to translate. Even in its
primary meaning its translations are often wrong. But
it can be used in such a way that it looses its
connection with the speaker as the implied subject,
and in this use it has no English equivalent at all.

The meaning of okazyvaetsja ‘it turnes out’, in
its primary use, includes the following two
components:
okazyvaetsja (X, P) =
1) X has just learned <from Y>, that P;
2) X is astonished that P.
In the prototypical case the subject of both
knowledge and astonishment is the speaker:
(6.1) Я так рада! Нашлись, нашлись! Они, оказывается,

болели и не подавали весточек!
(L.Petrushevskaja. Three young girls in blue) ‘I’m so
happy! They are found! It turns out that they were ill
and didn’t let anybody know about themselves’
The source Y of the new knowledge is in (6.1)
off-stage. This participant may not exist at all
– when the speaker receives his knowledge
from the direct perception:
(6.2) Вернулся домой, на крылечко взошел, хотел

было дверь открыть, а она, okazyvaetsja, изнутри
на засов заперта. [RNC] ‘I returned home, went
up the porch, wanted to open the door and it is,
it turns out, closed on the bolt from the inside’.

It may also be the case that the participant Y exists
but the information received by X from Y had not
become the knowledge of X. In example (6.3) the
person Y (mother) has an opinion (for Y herself, it is
knowledge!) which is not shared by the speaker –
thus, the speaker is the subject of astonishment but he
is not the subject of knowledge.
(6.3) Мама все время пытается воспитывать его на моем
положительном примере. Okazyvaetsja, я стал человеком
благодаря трудолюбию и настойчивости, которые
проявлялись у меня в раннем детстве (V.Aksenov. Star
ticket). ‘My mother always tries to bring him up on my
positive example. It turns out, I became a worthy person
through diligence and persistency that were characteristic of
me from my early childhood’.

This use of okazyvaetsja in (6.3) can be
regarded as the case of narrative projection (=
free indirect discourse). The speaker could
have said according to her [mother], leaving
his astonishment unexpressed. But he rather
pretends to share the knowledge, for otherwise
he cannot express his astonishment, or, rather,
removal from the consciousness of the
counteragent.
Another evidentiality marker that can undergo
projection is the parenthetical kazhetsja ‘it
seems’. In example (6.4) the use of kazhetsja
causes perplexing: kazhetsja expresses
uncertainty, and the speaker cannot possibly
have any uncertainty about the language (s)he
speaks:
(6.4) Перестань! Ведь я, кажется, русским языком
говорю. ‘Stop! In fact, I seem to speak Russian
(= your native language) to you’


A possible explanation is that utterance (6.4)
occurs in a modal context (where kazhetsja =
kazalos’ by = ‘might seem’), which cancels the
connection between the implied subject and the
speaker: a new meaning arises: ‘everyone
should believe that I speak Russian’. As a result
of this generalization the addressee is included
in the list of the alleged bearers of the opinion.
Thus, (6.4) expresses surprise turning into
anger: ‘as the addressee knows that I speak
Russian with him why doesn’t he understand
what is said’.

Exploration of projection possibilities for the
subject of indicative modality yielded results
crucial for the theory of narrative and
semiotics of error (Paducheva 2008). The
problem of projection possibilities for the
subject of evidentiality seems now to be of
primary importance for linguistic theory and
for practical language description.
References
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Aikhenvald, A.Y. 2004. Evidentiality, Oxford etc.: Oxford UP.
Babby 1980 – Babby L. H. Existential Sentences and Negation
in Russian. Ann Arbor: Caroma Publishers, 1980.
Fillmore 1968 – Fillmore Ch. J. Lexical entries for verbs //
Foundations of Language. Vol. 4. No. 4. 1968.
Fillmore 1975 – Fillmore Ch.J. Santa Cruz lectures on deixis.
Reproduced by the Indiana university linguistic club.
Bloomington (Indiana), 1975.
Haspelmath 2010 – Haspelmath M. Comparative concepts and
descriptive categories in cross-linguistic studies, Language 86,
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Lyons 1977 – Lyons J. Semantics. Vol. 1–2. L. etc.: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1977.
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Paducheva 1992 – Падучева Е. В. О семантическом подходе к
синтаксису и генитивном субъекте глагола БЫТЬ. Russian
linguistics, v. 16, 53-63.
Mithun 1999 – Mithun M. The languages of native North America.
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Языки рус. культуры, 1996. 2-d edition
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http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf1/PaduSemantIssl1996.pdf
Paducheva 2004 – Падучева Е. В. Динамические модели в
семантике лексики. М.: Языки славянской культуры, 2004.
http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf1/PaduDinamMod2004.pdf
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Paducheva 2008 – Падучева Е.В. Режим интерпретации как
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http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf2/dialog_2008_Paducheva.pdf
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и деконструкция говорящего. Вопр.яз., 2011, № 3, 3-18
http://lexicograph.ruslang.ru/TextPdf1/egocentricals.pdf
Plungjan 2011 – Плунгян В.А. Введение в грамматическую
семантику: грамматические значения и грамматические
системы языков мира. М., РГГУ, 2011.
Wiemer, Plungjan 2008 – Wiemer B. & Plungjan V. (eds.)
Lexicalische Evidenzialitats-Marker in slavischen Sprachen.
Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, Sbd 72, Kubon & Sagner.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investigations.
Blackwell Publishers, p. 190.
Thank you for your attention