Evidentiaity, epistemic modality and temporality in the Spanish verbal sytem

Abstract

In the current literature on TAM categories in European languages, and more specifically in Spanish, the notion of evidentiality has been introduced as a potential new category, more or less linked to modality, in the study of the verbal system. In this paper we challenge the non-modal dimension of evidentiality in Spanish as it appears in the description of some verb forms such as the Future, the Conditional and the Indicative Imperfect. We argue that most of these “evidential” uses can be explained in terms of the traditional categories of tense and epistemic modality with the help of well-established notions in the description of the Spanish verb, such as inactuality, polifunctionality and semantic displacement. We also deal with the study of two compound forms of the Indicative − the Past Perfect and the Present Perfect − which in some American varieties are used in non-standard ways that may coincide with evidential functions. In any case, we recommend a critical approach to all such phenomena based on broader and contextualised data before ruling out their integration into the TAM categories, as described hitherto.