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Abstract
Two kinds of meanings are usually associated to the Basque particle bide.1 On the one
hand, it has been taken to point to the indirect nature of the speaker’s evidence for the
truth of the proposition put forward. According to this view, it would be a sort of
inferential particle. On the other hand, bide has been associated to the expression of a
certain degree of belief or certainty on the truth of the proposition. This double
dimension of bide resembles various aspects of the meaning and use of another
practically identical, and their semantics and pragmatics invite a close comparison.
Thus, starting from our conclusions regarding omen, we explore the similarities and
differences between both particles. We find two main differences. First, bide encodes
a doxastic dimension that is absent from the semantic meaning of omen. And, second,
bide can be taken to be an illocutionary force indicator that does not contribute to the
utterance.
1
Keywords: Basque, particle, evidential, conversational implicature,
(un)certainty/probability
1. Introduction
Two kinds of aspects are usually associated to the meaning of bide in the literature.
Some authors relate it to the indirect nature of the evidence the speaker has for the
truth of the proposition expressed. Others point out its doxastic (high
certainty/probability) aspect, claiming that bide is used when the speaker has high
(but incomplete) certainty on the truth of the proposition. In fact, the very same
aspects are also frequently related to the reportative particle omen. In Korta and
Zubeldia (2014), we have argued that in the case of omen these two aspects have a
different status: the evidential is semantic, while the doxastic is pragmatic. In the
present paper, we examine whether the same division can be drawn in the case of
bide. For that purpose we compare these two particles that are usually classified
To start with, we outline the study carried out on omen, briefly presenting our
main conclusions: (i) Uncertainty often related to omen is not part of its semantics,
omen-utterance; omen has just the evidential (reportative) meaning (subsection 2.1).
(ii) Omen contributes to the propositional content of the utterance, and it is not an
2
We then proceed to present our analysis of bide. First, we give some of its
we consider its evidential (inferential) meaning —which would suggest that bide
(subsection 3.3). Omen and bide share various features. A closer inspection, however,
points to two main differences between omen and bide. On the one hand, the doxastic
case of bide. We also propose that the doxastic dimension each particle covers is
different: omen takes the whole spectrum, while bide’s dimension is restricted
(subsection 4.1). On the other hand, they differ in their possible contribution to the
utterance; bide does not. It is rather an illocutionary force indicator (subsection 4.2).
2. Omen
We begin by summarizing our main conclusions on the meaning and content of omen.
3
In Basque linguistics, it is widely assumed that the speaker using an omen-utterance
indicating the source of information (that she got it from another person).3 We argue
that the uncertainty often attached to omen, if present, belongs to the pragmatic
content of the utterance; and, more specifically, that it is a GCI (see Korta and
Zubeldia 2014). We reach these conclusions based on the results of various arguments
concerning (a) data from various corpora; (b) Grice’s cancellability test; (c) Grice’s
non-detachability test; and (d) the similarity with other phenomena typically taken to
be GCIs.
Sometimes, using omen, the speaker implicates uncertainty, but often she
conveys absolute certainty about the proposition being reported. Hence, uncertainty
cannot be part of the meaning of the omen-sentence. It cannot be part of what is said
test shows that uncertainty is cancellable. Then, it must be either part of the enriched
sentence, in general, without having a particular context in mind, since when using an
omen-sentence the speaker expresses that she is reporting information she got from
someone else. It is inferred assuming that the speaker is observing the Cooperative
Principle and the second maxim of quality: “Do not say that for which you lack
can be present or not, and certainty can also be implied without any contradiction.
would remain when saying the same thing by other means (like the use of an utterance
4
with the verb esan ‘to say’). Finally, the parallelism with the Gricean account of the
claim that the meaning of omen is just the evidential (reportative) element; namely,
that the proposition reported was said by someone other than the speaker. Omen
is not an illocutionary force indicator. On the one hand, the results of our experiment
based on the assent/dissent test show that, when an omen-utterance is being directly
addition to the reported proposition). On the other hand, the scope test says that the
evidential content of the omen-utterance can take narrow scope within certain
predicates (such as esan ‘to say’ or erantzun ‘to answer’), and knowledge predicates
content of the omen-utterance. This is a further argument for its contribution to the
Those are our conclusions regarding omen (see Korta & Zubeldia 2014 for
further details). The main aim of this paper is to compare these conclusions with the
case of the particle bide, and to see whether its semantic and pragmatic behaviour is
similar to omen’s.
5
3. Bide
The syntax of bide perfectly mirrors the syntax of omen.6 It is attached to conjugated
verbs as part of the verbal complex. In affirmative sentences with synthetic verbs it
goes just before the verb (2), and with periphrastic verbs it appears between the main
In negative sentences with synthetic verbs it goes before the verb (4) as well. In
contrast, with periphrastic verbs it is located before the auxiliary verb, with the
6
(5) Ez bide d-u ezagut-zen Euskal Herria.
In addition, it appears only in declarative sentences, like omen does, both in main and
subordinate sentences.
The semantics of bide and the semantics of omen seem to share various elements.
na-go-ela.
1SG.PRS.ABS-be-COMP
na-go-ela.
1SG.ABS.PRS-be-COMP
Since, for obvious reasons, the speaker cannot directly observe her behaviour while
sleeping, she points to the indirect evidence she has for the proposition that she moves
7
a lot while sleeping. Intuitively, by uttering (6) the speaker asserts that she has been
told that she moves a lot, while when uttering (7) she would just point to the indirect
nature of her evidence; e.g. she might have inferred the proposition from the state of
her bed every morning or, perhaps, she might have been told about it, as in (6). There
are more examples like this, where bide is used when the speaker has verbal evidence
narrate-PTCP-PROSP 3SG.ABS.PRS-have-COMP as
‘At night, on the other hand yes, it seems that the submarines appear in
The interchangeability of bide and omen in these examples suggests that both
particles can be taken as evidentials that point to the indirect nature of the evidence
supporting the speaker’s assertion. More specifically, just as the particle omen in an
utterance (where the sentence uttered consists in sentence S plus the particle omen)
points to the linguistic nature of the speaker’s evidence for the reported proposition p
(which corresponds to the proposition expressed by the utterance of S), the particle
bide indicates the indirect nature of the evidence for that proposition. Or, in other
words, if what the speaker of an omen-utterance asserts is (9), what the speaker of a
8
(9) It is said that p.
This fits with the idea that bide is an inferential (evidential) particle. The
lexicographer Novia de Salcedo (1887, 307), for instance, points towards this.
haber venido; uste bidé du, debe de pensar; bai bidé, parece que sí. ‘Bidé. This
and placed after a response to, it seems [sic]: etorri bide da, (s)he must have come,
uste bidé du, (s)he must think; bai bidé, it seems so.’ (Novia de Salcedo 1887, 307)9
So does de Rijk (2008, 162) when he says that bide “signals that certain facts known
to the speaker lead him to infer the truth of his statement” or Boye (2012, 82) when he
justification” (see also Alcázar 2009 and Jendraschek 2003).Following this thread, if,
in line with the classification of Willett 1988, we distinguish between direct and
indirect evidentiality (or using Boye’s (2012) term, justification), within the latter
other kinds of indirect evidentiality. The issue would then be to decide whether bide is
a sort of hyperonym of omen, that can be used for all sorts of indirect evidentiality —
including speech reports (fig. 1)—, or whether there is some other relation between
Evidentiality
9
Direct Indirect
bide
Reportative Others
We turn now to discuss a second meaning attributed to bide: its epistemic or, perhaps
Other authors associate the meaning of bide to another aspect also related to the
gloss of bide, for instance, parallels the gloss given for omen:
Esaten dugunari ziurtasun oso-osoa ematen ez badiogu ere, egiantz handia bederen
eskaintzen diogula adierazteko bide partikula dugu. ‘We have the particle bide to
express that, even if we are not totally certain about what we say, we consider it at
least highly plausible’ (Euskaltzaindia 1987, 502. See also van Eys 1873; Orpustan
10
These authors point to a quite specific aspect of the doxastic dimension of bide.
sentence (i.e. S plus bide) means that she attributes a high degree of plausibility to p;
If we consider example (7) again (repeated here as (11)), it looks like it can be
(13) It is highly likely but not absolutely certain that I move a lot while
sleeping.
at.least
11
(16) Jon, ipurdi-a hara eta hona astin-tzen,
‘Jon, shaking his bottom here and there, was bide dancing.’
In all these examples, bide seems perfectly rendered either as an indirect evidential —
to the effect that the speaker has indirect evidence for the truth of p— or as a doxastic
degree particle —indicating that the speaker attributes to p a high likelihood but not
absolute certainty.
Reasons of theoretical economy would favour taking one meaning as primary, and the
other as somehow derived. Regarding omen we argued similarly for the reportative
and the uncertainty aspects of its meaning: the semantic meaning of omen is purely
element, a GCI. As for bide, there are two options in this direction: its indirect
evidential aspect is the semantic meaning of bide and the expression of high but not
Following the first path, for instance, we may contend that the supposed GCI
of high but not absolute probability would be inferred from an utterance of a bide-
sentence, in general (with no particular context in mind). The speaker, when using a
bide-sentence, can be taken to express that she has indirect evidence and, therefore,
she cannot be taken to be able to confidently assert the truth of the inferred utterance.
Then, in particular circumstances, the degree of certainty will be present or not. The
test of cancellability, however, does not tell one way or the other, in this case. Neither
12
the indirect evidential aspect nor the doxastic aspect seems explicitly cancellable.
Adding anything like “and/but I saw it” or “and/but it is highly improbable” after a
straightforward contradiction.
Likewise, we have not found any clear case of contextual cancellability: bide-
Perhaps the (in)directness of the evidence for the truth of a proposition p and
the degree of strength of our belief that p are just two sides of the same coin.10
have for a belief and our degree of certainty (see, for instance, Chafe 1986 and
13
certainty about the statement of that fact. As they say, “seeing is believing”. Believing
If this is so, it does not make much sense to attempt to tell the indirect
evidentiality attached to bide and the high but incomplete degree of certainty apart,
can see that 1 (complete certainty about p) and 0 (complete certainty about the
negation of p) coincide in what is taken to be direct evidence for the truth (or falsity)
of p, and that it is precisely in these cases where the use of bide is infelicitous, as
d-u egin.
3SG.ABS.PRS-have do-PFV
Our initial contention is that the use of bide seems appropriate only when the speaker
assigns to the proposition p a probability n such that 0.5 < n < 1, which fits squarely
with the cases in which the speaker has indirect evidence for the truth of p, as
opposed to indirect evidence for the falsity of p. Bide would encode, then, both an
14
evidential and a doxastic meaning. 11 A closer comparison with omen suggests,
however, that the doxastic element of bide has some priority over the evidential
meaning.
We said above that, as an evidential, omen can be a hyponym of bide, and, thus,
where omen is used bide could also be used (but not always the other way around). At
a closer look, however, we find that there are various important differences.
Most importantly, we notice that the doxastic element is completely absent from the
meaning of omen. Stating pomen is absolutely compatible with any doxastic attitude
towards p, from absolute belief (1) to absolute disbelief (0), passing through any
degree of belief in between; omen takes the whole spectrum regarding the speaker’s
utterances is a GCI, as is shown, among other things, by the fact that it is contextually
and explicitly cancellable (see Korta and Zubeldia 2014, 407-412 for further details).
Things are quite different with bide. For one thing, bide looks incompatible
with the speaker’s complete certainty about the truth (or falsity) of p. That is why
utterances (19) and (20) above and (21) below are infelicitous.
15
rain-DET.SG do.PFV PART 3SG.ABS.PRS-have eta/but
The same kind of infelicity arises with the adverb nonbait12 ((22)-(23)) and the “past
future” ((24)-(25)).
d-u egin.
3SG.ABS.PRS-have do.PFV
16
rain-DET.SG do-PROSP 3SG.ERG.PST-have-PST but not
d-u egin.13
3SG.ABS.PRS-have do.PFV
So the lack of absolute certainty associated with bide is not a GCI of bide-utterances,
but rather an invariant aspect of bide-sentences across contexts; i.e. part of their
meaning. Bide —unlike omen— requires, first, lack of complete certainty (less than 1)
and, second —also unlike omen—, high degree of certainty (over 0.5). Thus, it seems
that, when the speaker neither believes nor disbelieves a certain proposition p —the
case of 0.5 probability assignment—, she would not use a bide-sentence regarding p.
In the case of, say, 0.3 probability, she would not use it either (example (26)); she
ez d-u-t uste.
Again, the same seems to happen with the adverb nonbait and the past future.
17
To sum up, it seems that the relation between omen and bide is not the relation
between hyponym and hyperonym. With the use of omen there is a gain of
information about the sort of evidence about p —speech versus other sorts of indirect
evidence— but a loss of information about the speaker’s doxastic stance on p. With
the use of bide there is a gain of information on the speaker’s incomplete but high
evidence —speech. In other words, bide can be used in place of omen in cases where
there is a high but incomplete degree of probability, although at the cost of losing the
explicitness of the reportative nature. Figure 2 shows the contrast between bide and
|____________________________________|
0 0.5 1
≥_______________(omen)______________≤
>_____(bide)_______<
We have so far assumed that indirect (or inferential) evidence goes hand in hand with
uncertainty. But perhaps this is wrong. We think that, as far as indirectness (or
inferentiality) and incomplete certainty do not come together, the latter has priority
with bide. At least, the role of the doxastic dimension is central for bide in a way that
it is not for omen. We turn now to another point of the comparison between bide and
omen —their contribution (or not) to the proposition expressed by the utterance.
18
4.2. Bide as an illocutionary force indicator
One important issue regarding the meaning and use of evidential and epistemic (or
assent/dissent test or the scope principle have been proposed to settle this issue (see,
among others, Faller 2006, Matthewson et al. 2007, Murray 2010, and Matthewson
2012 for the former and Faller 2002, Matthewson et al. 2007, McCready & Ogata
2007, Sauerland & Schenner 2007, Schenner 2008, and Waldie et al. 2009 for the
latter).
speaker uttering a sentence S versus Somen would assert different propositions. If John
utters “Euria ari du” [It is raining] in Donostia today, he asserts that it is raining in
Donostia today; a proposition that is true if and only if it is raining in Donostia today.
But, if he utters “Euria ari omen du” [It is omen raining], he asserts that someone
other than himself stated that it is raining in Donostia today, a proposition that is true
if and only if someone other than himself stated that it is raining in Donostia today.14
sentence does not affect the illocutionary force of an utterance; the assertion remains
regarding their direction of fit, their sincerity conditions, and their conditions of
19
S (Euria ari du) Somen (Euria ari omen du)
sincerity conditions the speaker believes that p the speaker believes that p
conditions of satisfaction the speech act is satisfied the speech act is satisfied
herself
The difference is not in the illocutionary force, as both utterances are assertions
utterance —what the world has to be like for the utterance to be true— and its
sincerity conditions —what the speaker’s mental state has to be like for her utterance
to be sincere.15
utterance of Sbide. If John, in the same circumstances as above, utters “Euria ari bide
du”, there is no evident change in direction of fit, sincerity conditions and conditions
20
direction of fit words to world words to world
sincerity conditions the speaker believes that p the speaker believes that p
today) today)
conditions of satisfaction the speech act is satisfied the speech act is satisfied
is true is true
and Sbide.
The bide-utterance seems to be an assertion —just like the utterance without it—,
with words to world direction of fit, belief in the same propositional content as
sincerity condition, and the truth of the very same propositional content as its
condition of satisfaction. They assert the same thing. The only difference seems to
reside in the degree of strength of the belief that constitutes the sincerity condition.
The degree of strength is listed by Searle and Vanderveken (1985, 15) and
act, and bide seems just to constrain that degree of strength to be in the interval
between 0.5 and 1 (strictly higher than 0.5 and strictly lower than 1). Hence, we
of the utterance would amount to the assumption that, when John utters Sbide, what he
21
(28) I believe that it is highly probable that it is raining in Donostia today, but
Namely, a proposition that would be true if and only if John had that kind of belief, no
matter what really is happening with the weather in Donostia today. We think this is
plainly wrong. What makes John’s utterance true (or false) is a raining event in
Donostia on a particular day (or its absence). Bide points just to the speaker’s degree
of belief in the propositional content of the utterance. If John believes that it is raining
in Donostia today, he speaks sincerely; but he may be wrong in his belief and assert
This work is a preliminary analysis of the semantics and pragmatics of the Basque
particle bide, based on our previous findings about omen. Even though they have
—it is a GCI. The doxastic element (high but incomplete certainty) associated
22
Our conclusions are based on our intuitions as native speakers and the comparison of
omen, bide and related phrases such as the adverb nonbait and the past future as they
The precise relation between the doxastic and the evidential dimensions of
bide remains as an open issue. The problem, however, might not be in deciding how
we should categorize bide —we are ready to agree that most often, if not always, the
two dimensions come together in this case. The problem might be that what exactly
counts as evidentiality is not theoretically clear enough. For instance, does indirect
‘evidence’ that gives the speaker a degree of certainty of 0.2 about a certain
proposition p count as evidence for p? Strictly speaking, the answer is clearly no. It
rather counts as evidence for not-p. If this is so, the reportative omen does not count
*
An earlier version of this article was presented at the International Conference on Evidentiality and
Modality in European Languages 2014 in Madrid (Spain). We would like to thank the audience at the
conference, and especially Marta Carretero, Karlos Cid-Abasolo, Ilse Depraetere and Björn Wiemer.
Thanks are also due to Eros Corazza, Joana Garmendia and María Ponte, for their comments. We are
also very grateful to the editors of this volume, Bert Cornillie and Juana Marín-Arrese. This work was
partially supported by grants from the Basque Government (IT780-13) and the Spanish Ministry of
Economy and Competitivity (FFI2012-37726).
23
1
Standard bilingual dictionaries (see, for example, Morris 1998) translate bide as ‘apparently’,
‘seemingly’, but these translations beg the question discussed in the paper and can be misleading.
That’s why we didn’t use those translations.
2
Abbreviations used: 1 = first person, 3 = third person, ABS = absolutive, ADL = adlative, ADV = adverb,
COMP = complementizer, DET = determiner, ERG = ergative, GEN = genitive, INDF = indefinite, INS =
instrumental, IPFV = imperfective, LOC = locative, NR = nominalizer, PART = particle, PFV = perfective,
PL = plural, PROG = progressive, PROSP = prospective, PRS = present, PRTV = partitive, PST = past, PTCP
= participle, REP = reportative, SG = singular.
3
See most importantly Euskaltzaindia [The Royal Academy of Basque Language] 1987.
4
See for similar proposals Wiemer and Socka 2010 for Polish and German reportative adverbs, Faller
2012 for reportative evidentials in Cuzco Quechua and German, and Wiemer and Kampf 2012 for
Bulgarian evidential markers.
5
See Grice 1967b/1989 and Levinson 1983 for the case of ‘believe’; for other cases of GCIs such as
disjunction, conjunction, etc., see Grice 1961 and Levinson 2000.
6
It has to be noted that while omen is quite common both in spoken and written Basque, bide is not.
7
Example adapted from a translation of Sartre’s La Nausée into Basque (1938 [2003], 111). We used
the corpora Ereduzko Prosa Gaur (EPG) [Comtemporary Reference Prose] from the University of the
Basque Country.
8
It seems that sometimes the report by some other person is the base of the inference (compare it to
‘report-based inference’ proposed by Marín-Arrese 2015), not just a perception or reasoning.
9
We keep the quote in its original version, with its original orthography.
10
Compare this to van der Auwera & Plungian’s (1998, 86-87) view, namely the overlapping between
the categories of inferential evidentiality and epistemic necessity. See Cornillie (2009) and Boye
(2010) for a challenge of this view. Boye (2012) proposes the category epistemicity which
encompasses the subcategory of evidentiality (epistemic justification) and the subcategory of epistemic
modality (epistemic support).
11
Faller 2002 reaches a similar conclusion about the Cuzco Quechua enclitic -chá. She takes both the
evidential aspect and the modal aspect to be part of the meaning of -chá: “The meaning of -chá is not
purely evidential, indicating that the speaker arrived at his or her statement by reasoning, but also
encodes that the speaker is less than 100% certain that the proposition expressed is true.” (Faller 2002,
177)
12
We do not provide a translation for this particular use of the adverb nonbait, which in its normal use
as an adverb of place means ‘somewhere’. Here it behaves exactly as bide and the past future, as far as
we can tell. See also note 1.
13
Interestingly, things look different with the verb badirudi ‘it seems/it looks like’, as the following
utterances seem perfectly correct:
24
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