# Speaking of oneself in multi-term evidential systems:
## From the Himalayas to Amazonia

Éric Mélac, Nicolas Tournadre, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

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Éric Mélac, Nicolas Tournadre, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald. Speaking of oneself in multi-term evidential systems: From the Himalayas to Amazonia. Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald; Ann Storch; Viveka Velupillai. Linguistics in strange and familiar places, De Gruyter, In press. hal-04858986

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# Speaking of oneself in multi-term evidential systems: From the Himalayas to Amazonia

Eric Mélac (Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier 3), Nicolas Tournadre (Aix-Marseille Université), Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Central Queensland University)

## HIGHLIGHTS

* Unlike most multi-term evidential languages, Tibetic languages possess egophorics

* Egophorics are used for the speaker's intentional actions and personal sphere

* Tariana and Tukano typically use visual evidentials instead of egophorics

* Non-visuals encode unintentional actions and indirect perceptions in Tariana/Tukano

* High lamas and shamans may use visual evidentials for extrasensory perceptions

* Dreams are rendered with visuals in Ladakhi and non-visuals in Tariana/Tukano

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all our informants and friends from the Vaupés basin and Tibetic linguistic areas. We are also particularly grateful to the special issue's editors – Anne Storch and Viveka Velupillai – and the reviewers, who helped us improve the content of the paper, and refine our analyses.

## Corresponding author

Eric Mélac, Université Paul Valéry, Route de Mende, 34199 Montpellier Cedex 5, France
eric.melac@univ-montp3.fr
# Speaking of oneself in multi-term evidential systems: From the Himalayas to Amazonia

Eric Mélac (Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier 3), Nicolas Tournadre (Aix-Marseille Université), Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Central Queensland University)

## ABSTRACT

Languages with multi-term evidential systems vary in how people speak about themselves and their own actions. The aim of this paper is to understand the differences between evidentials used with first person (oneself) and with other persons. We focus on two groups of languages with large evidential systems — Tariana and Tukano from the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area in Amazonia, and Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi, two Tibetic languages of the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas. We analyse similarities and contrasts in the expression of information source and access to information through grammatical evidentials and egophoric systems in these two groups of languages. Our analysis reveals their intricacies and the special status of speech act participants.

## Keywords

Evidentiality, egophoricity, first person, Tariana, Tukano, Ladakhi, Tibetan

## 1. Speaking of oneself: setting the scene<fnref n="1" />

Speaking of oneself and one's intimate experiences is central to our everyday life at home or among close relatives, and yet the linguistic practices adopted in familiar places and situations are still under-investigated. The ways of speaking about oneself, one's own actions (intentional or non-intentional), feelings, and experiences, vary from language to language. Languages use "a myriad of expressions that cut across grammatical and semantic categories" (Jaszczolt, 2018: 2). Evidentiality — the grammatical expression of information source, or how one knows what one is talking about — shows special features when used in a first person context. The issue is truly intriguing for languages with multi-

<footnote n="1">¹ Glossing abbreviations: CTibetan, Common Tibetan; CLadakhi, Central Ladakhi; CTC, Choglamsar Tibetan Corpus (collected by Nicolas Tournadre in Choglamsar, Ladakh, India 2018); CLC, Central Ladakhi Corpus; SAP, speech act participants; TAM, Time-aspect-modality; TSC, Tibet Student Corpus (collected by Eric Mélac in Lhasa 2010-2011).</footnote>
term evidential systems. In line with the central questions of this special issue, we will also examine how evidentials encode liminal experiences, such as altered states of consciousness, dreams, and extrasensory perceptions. These highly subjective experiences, which are in essence hard to render in words, are presented with different grammatical means in complex evidential systems.

The focus of our paper is a comparison of the evidential systems of the languages of the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area (especially Tariana and Tukano) with those spoken on the Tibetan plateau and in the Himalayas (especially Common Tibetan and Ladakhi). We will focus on these four languages for two reasons. First, our analysis of these languages is grounded in first-hand data based on original fieldwork. Secondly, our fieldwork has revealed facts on these focal languages that offer a fertile ground for an in-depth study of a number of both area-specific and more general phenomena. Our typological micro-comparison is expected to shed some light on systemic principles at work in presenting one's own experience.

Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi belong to the Tibetic branch of the Sino-Tibetan macrofamily. The Tibetic languages and some other languages in contact with them are well known for their elaborate systems of evidentials (see Gawne & Hill, eds., 2017; DeLancey, 2023; Sun, 2023; Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023: 389–440). Tournadre & Suzuki (2023: 469–636) list 76 languages (or groups of dialects) spoken in six Asian countries. Common Tibetan is spoken in Central Tibet in the Tibet Autonomous Region (China) and among the Tibetan diaspora outside Tibet (estimated number of speakers c. 2 million). Central Ladakhi is spoken in the central region of Ladakh in the Union Territory of Ladakh (India) (c. 100,000 speakers). All Tibetic languages present multi-term evidential systems.<fnref n="2" />

Languages of Lowland Amazonia are also known for their elaborate systems of evidentials (see a summary in Aikhenvald, 2015: 248–278). These features are particularly notable in the languages of the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area in north-west Amazonia (see Aikhenvald, 2023a, b, d, 2022; Stenzel & Gomez-Imbert, 2023; Barnes, 1984, 1999). This well-established linguistic area spans adjacent regions of Brazil and Colombia. Languages traditionally spoken in the region belong to two unrelated genetic groups – East Tukanoan and Arawak. East Tukanoan languages on the Brazilian side of the area are Tukano, Wanano (or Kotiria), Desano, Piratapuya (or Waikhana), Tuyuca, and Barasano. All the languages are closely related and in constant contact with each other. The Arawak family — the largest in South America in terms of its expanse — is represented by Tariana, from the North Arawak subgroup, spoken entirely on the Brazilian

<footnote n="2">² Materials on Common Tibetan and Ladakhi are based on first-hand immersion fieldwork by the first two co-authors in Ladakh (India) and in Tibet (China) during over three decades. Corpora of spontaneous conversations, elicited sentences, and semi-guided narratives were collected, notably the TSC, the CTC, and the CLC with various methodologies to document a large spectrum of genres, such as childhood memories, dreams, historical narratives, and spontaneous reactions to different tasks and sensations.</footnote>
side of the area (see Aikhenvald, 2021a, for an up-to-date classification of Arawak languages). The major feature of the area is obligatory societal multilingualism which follows the principles of linguistic exogamy: one can only marry someone whose father belongs to and speaks a different language. The exogamous marriage network encompasses just the East Tukanoans and the Tariana. This principle has resulted in rampant areal diffusion, especially tangible when the languages spoken within the area are compared with related languages outside it. Tariana has developed a complex system of evidentials (absent from the related languages) under the influence of its East Tukanoan neighbours and marriage partners, especially, Tukano. At present, Tukano is rapidly gaining ground as a major language in the Brazilian Vaupés, at the expense of other languages, including Tariana (see Aikhenvald, 2022, 2023a, b). The focus of our discussion here is Tariana (currently spoken by about 100 people) and the neighbouring Tukano (estimated number of speakers c. 5,000).<fnref n="3" />

First person and the expression of one's own experience have a special status within evidential systems (this is reflected in additional meanings of evidentials with first person, with overtones of control or lack thereof: see Aikhenvald, 2021a: 22–23; Sun, 2023). Some evidentials are also rarely used with first person. These include the reported evidentials in most languages of the Vaupés River Basin Linguistic area, including Tariana and Tukano (see further discussion in §4.4.2). The Tibetic languages have special means for statements involving the speaker, notably egophoric markers, which appear in the same paradigms as evidential markers. Across both linguistic areas, the evidentials used when speaking about oneself reveal the privileged status of the speaker, his/her attitudes to other speech act participants, and the special status of altered states of consciousness and the supernatural. In §2 we start with a snapshot of a number of general concepts, with a focus on evidentiality and egophoricity (the latter being particularly relevant for Tibetic languages). A brief overview of some common features of multi-term evidential systems in the focal regions is in §3. In §4, we turn to the salient semantic features of evidential use in the context of first person. The last section (§5) concludes our investigation.

<footnote n="3">³ A number of languages belonging to the Makú cultural complex spoken within the area form at least two families (see Aikhenvald, 2022, 2015: 75-83, and references there). Two national languages spoken in the region – Portuguese in Brazil and Spanish in Colombia – bear the impact of the indigenous languages in the expression of information source (see, e.g., Aikhenvald, 2020). These lie beyond the scope of our study. Materials on Tariana are based on three decades of intensive immersion fieldwork by the *third-named co-author*, and consist of forty-hour recordings of stories of different genres (with the corpus growing based on on-going interactions with the speakers via computer-mediated communication) and fieldnotes. There is a comprehensive grammar of the language (Aikhenvald, 2003), a dictionary, and several collections of stories, in addition to pedagogical materials currently in use at a local school (see www.aikhenvaldlinguistics.com). Tariana examples, all from *Author's fieldwork*, are given in practical orthography adopted in the Tariana school in Iauaretê, Brazil. Examples from Tukano (obtained from *Author's own fieldwork* and published sources) are given in the orthography introduced by Ramirez (1997). No examples are based on elicitation (a technique carefully avoided). A proviso is in order. Recent years have seen a few ill-informed attempts to reinterpret some of the Tariana evidential markers (especially, *-ka* 'recent past visual evidential' as a 'topic marker'), done by scholars with little knowledge of the Tariana language (including paradigmatic relations within the Tariana evidential system, and their semantics addressed in relevant publications). These attempts do not deserve any mention here.</footnote>
## 2. General concepts: Evidentiality and egophoricity

Evidentiality is a grammatical category that has source of information as its primary meaning (Aikhenvald, 2004: 1, further fine-tuned in Aikhenvald, 2023d and Aikhenvald, 2023b). Connections and interactions of evidentiality with other grammatical means of expressing knowledge-related categories have been addressed in Aikhenvald (2021b: 19 and passim). Evidential categories may have different labels depending on the grammatical tradition of a given language, making cross-linguistic comparisons a difficult task. We have chosen to use a taxonomy that is mainly based on Aikhenvald (2023a: 12–15) for the sake of clarity, and at the same time, we have kept some of the terms that prevail in the tradition of Tibetic linguistics for the sake of precision. One should keep in mind that the definition we propose for each evidential category is inevitably simplified in order to offer a clear comparison of the four languages. Although every evidential typically belongs to a single broad category, they often have specific uses which differ from language to language. These differing uses are particularly noticeable in contexts where the speaker is directly involved, as we will see throughout the paper. For further information on evidential categories from a typological perspective, one can refer to Aikhenvald (ed., 2023c). For further details on evidentials of the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area, see Aikhenvald (2022), and references therein, and for a more comprehensive presentation of Tibetic evidentiality, see Gawne & Hill (eds, 2017) and Tournadre & Suzuki (2023: 389–440).

Evidentials are usually divided in three broad categories: I. direct, II. inferred, and III. hearsay.

### I. Direct evidentials

Direct evidentials encode that the speaker is or has been a direct witness of the state-of-affairs he/she is referring to. Some evidentials cover this whole category, such as the existential-copular verb 'dug, as well as the suffixes -gi. 'dug and -song in Common Tibetan. These morphemes will be labelled ‘direct sensory’, as they are used for all sensory channels (sight, hearing, smell, inner sensations, etc.). This category can be divided in two subcategories, namely visual and non-visual, which are rendered by distinct morphemes in Ladakhi, Tariana, and Tukano. Following are the three terms that will be used for the direct evidential category and their definitions.

* DIRECT SENSORY, used for states-of-affairs directly perceived by the speaker.

* DIRECT VISUAL, used for states-of-affairs that the speaker saw directly.

* DIRECT NON-VISUAL, used for states-of-affairs directly perceived through other senses than sight.
## II. Inferred evidentials

Inferred evidentials express that the speaker has not witnessed the state-of-affairs, but that indirect cues enabled him/her to deduce its existence. One cue may be the resultant state of the state-of-affairs. This is for example the case of the inferential perfects of Common Tibetan or Central Ladakhi. However, because the ‘inferred evidentials’ of the focal languages do not display the same nuances, and the terms for these markers are now well-established in their respective grammatical traditions, we have kept the different traditional labels despite partial semantic overlaps. We will use the following terms for the ‘inferred’ subcategories:

• SENSORY INFERENTIAL (Tibetic languages) or INFERRED (Vaupés basin linguistic area), used for states-of-affairs inferred by the speaker on the basis of sensory cues.

• VISUAL INFERENTIAL, used for states-of-affairs inferred by the speaker on the basis of visual cues.

• NON-VISUAL INFERENTIAL, used for states-of-affairs inferred by the speaker on the basis of other senses than sight.

• ASSUMED, used for states-of-affairs that have been accessed with reasonable assumption and general knowledge.

## III. Hearsay evidentials

Hearsay evidentials indicate that the speaker has learned about the state-of-affairs verbally, that is, by hearing or reading about it. Markers that cover this whole semantic category (such as Standard Tibetan -ze or -za) will simply be called ‘hearsay evidentials’. Other markers in the focal languages belong to a subcategory of hearsay evidentials, since they may only be used when the speaker does not mention explicitly the person or the text he/she has learned the information from. Central Ladakhi, Tariana, and Tukano possess such markers, which are called ‘reported’ evidentials. We will thus use the following terms:

• HEARSAY, used for states-of-affairs accessed verbally.

• REPORTED, used for states-of-affairs obtained verbally, without an explicit mention of the author or the source of the speech report.<fnref n="4" />

Another notion that is essential to understand the evidential system of Tibetic languages is ‘egophoricity’. In the typological literature, egophoricity is sometimes referred to as ‘privileged access to information’. Egophoric markers encode that the speaker can access through his/her own experiential knowledge a state-of-affairs which involves the speaker him/herself or an entity close to

<footnote n="4">⁴ Note that some languages, including Mamaindê (a Nambiquara language from Brazil: Aikhenvald, 2023d), distinguish special evidentials for secondhand and firsthand speech reports.</footnote>
him/her. The sentences in (1) and (2) are marked with egophoric markers in Central Ladakhi and Common Tibetan respectively.<fnref n="5" />

(1) *mdzar.ba zos-pin*
lunch eat₂-EGOint
‘I ate lunch.’ (CLadakhi)

(2) *nga-la’i bsam.blo gcig.pa yin*
1sg-DAT:ADD thought same COP.EGO
‘My thoughts are the same.’ (CTib; TSC)

The egophoric suffix in (1) specifies that the action was performed intentionally by the speaker, and also that the speaker knows about it through his/her own experiential memory. If the speaker was referring to an action that they performed without being aware of it or without remembering it, an egophoric form would not be appropriate, because they would know about this state-of-affairs only indirectly. In (2), the subject is not first person, but the state-of-affairs still concerns entities inside the speaker’s sphere (i.e., his thoughts). This type of context may also trigger egophorics. Because the type of access to information determines the use of egophorics, and because these morphemes appear in the same paradigm as other evidential markers, most Tibetanists consider egophorics to be evidentials that are typical of the Tibetic language family. However, other scholars argue that egophoricity is a concept which can be applied to a wide variety of languages and is distinct from evidentiality. Although most languages do not have egophoric markers *per se*, meanings that are typically associated with egophorics may be embedded within evidential systems outside the Tibetic linguistic area, like in Tariana, as we will see throughout the paper (such ‘egophorically’-oriented evidential systems are addressed in some detail in Aikhenvald 2023b). Further discussions of the status of egophoric distinctions inside, or outside, evidential systems lie outside our present purview.

**3. Evidential systems in the focal regions**

We start with a summary of the Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi systems, and then turn to Tariana and Tukano.

**3.1. *Evidentials in Tibetic, focus on Central Ladakhi***

<footnote n="5">⁵ In the examples, we follow the Wylie transliteration both for Central Ladakhi and Common Tibetan for the sake of comparison and etymological transparency. For Central Ladakhi, we generally follow Bakula Rinpoche’s spelling (as in Bakula Rinpoche, 2010, 2014) and Rebecca Norman’s *rang.skat Ladakhi-English dictionary* (Norman, 2019).</footnote>
The Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi systems differ in their morphology and functional domains, but have much in common. In both languages, evidentials are expressed with verbal inflections and enclitics. Their main evidential categories are all compatible with various TAM, as shown by Table 1. There is a set of correlations between evidentiality and tense-aspect, since there are, for example, fewer evidential distinctions in the future in the Tibetic languages (Tournadre, 2004; Tournadre, 2016; Mélac, 2014: 276; see also Aikhenvald, 2004; Skribnik & Aikhenvald, 2024, and Mélac, 2014: 484–488). In addition, no evidential distinctions have been found in the imperative for these languages. Evidentials are used in main clauses but not in subordinate clauses, except for reported speech clauses. There are as many evidential distinctions in declarative, negative, and interrogative clauses.

For Central Ladakhi, the forms of evidentials are listed in Table 1.<fnref n="6" />

<footnote n="6">⁶ There are several languages and dialects spoken in Ladakh, located in northern India, which may be divided into two large groups: the Kenhat dialects (*gyen skat*) and the Shamskat dialects (*sham skat*) (Zeisler, 2011). One could add that the dialects of Changthang (upper Indus valley in Ladakh) are more related to the dialects of Spiti and Ngari (Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023, pp. 617–625). Two dominant languages of communication have gained a dominant position: Central Ladakhi (spoken in Leh area) and Purik (spoken in Kargil area).</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 1.** Evidentials and tense-aspect in declarative clauses in Central Ladakhi<fnref n="7" /></caption><thead><tr><th>Labels</th><th>uncompleted</th><th>perfect</th><th>completed past</th><th>future</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Egophoric</td><td>-ad</td><td>-te.yod</td><td>-pin</td><td>-yin</td></tr><tr><td>Default direct sensory</td><td></td><td></td><td>-Ø</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Direct visual</td><td>-dug/-rug</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Direct non-visual</td><td>-a.rag</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Sensory inferential</td><td></td><td>-tog</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Visual inferential</td><td></td><td>-te.'dug</td><td></td><td>-ces.'dug</td></tr><tr><td>Non-visual inferential</td><td></td><td>-te.rag</td><td></td><td>-ces.rag</td></tr><tr><td>Factual(-inferential)</td><td>-a.kyag</td><td>-te.yod.kyag</td><td>-kyag</td><td>-cen</td></tr><tr><td>Definitory-gnomic</td><td>-a.nog</td><td>-te.(yin.)nog</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Mirative</td><td>-ad.tshug</td><td>-te.yod.tshug</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Reported</td><td></td><td></td><td>QUOTATION-lo</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

We have introduced the notions of egophoric, direct, visual, non-visual, inferential, and reported in §2. Following are the definitions of the other, non-evidential categories of the morphemes appearing in the same verbal paradigm. We will not elaborate on these notions further, because they are not central to our topic.

* FACTUAL(-INFERENTIAL), used for states-of-affairs presented as objective facts (typically accessed through general knowledge or logical inference) (Tournadre, 2008).

* GNOMIC-DEFINITORY, used for well-established knowledge and general truth.

* MIRATIVE, used for mis-expected states-of-affairs (DeLancey, 1997).

<footnote n="7">⁷ This chart only includes the main evidentials. It does not include some marginal evidentials as well as epistemic markers. However, we did include the future forms *ces.* 'dug and *ces.rag*, which may be considered evidential and epistemic, since they usually convey some uncertainty in addition to their evidential meanings. Also note that for the completed past, Central Ladakhi can use the bare stem (traditionally called 'past inflection', marked with 2), which encodes the direct sensory by default. In most contexts, this form indicates that the state-of-affairs was directly perceived by the speaker, but it also has some marginal 'non-direct sensory' uses, hence the label 'default direct sensory'.</footnote>
The following examples from Central Ladakhi illustrate each of these categories. In order to illustrate the full paradigm, all these examples refer to a past event but with different aspects (uncompleted, perfect, and completed).

(3) **zhing-nga chu btangs-te.yod**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.EGOint
‘The field has been watered.’ [I know it because I did it, or I know it because my brother has watered our mutual fields]

(4) **zhing-nga chu btangs**
field-DAT water give₂.CPL.DFLT.SENS
‘The field was watered.’ [I saw or heard someone do it]

(5) **zhing-nga chu btang-’dug**
field-DAT water give₁-UNCPL.DIR.VIS
‘The field was being watered.’ [I saw someone doing it]

(6) **zhing-nga chu btang-nga.rag**
field-DAT water give₁-UNCPL.DIR.NONVIS
‘The field was being watered.’ [I heard someone doing it]

(7) **zhing-nga chu btangs-tog**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.SENS.INF
‘The field has been watered.’ [I have seen or touched the wet soil]

(8) **zhing-nga chu btangs-te. ’dug**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.VIS.INF
‘The field has been watered.’ [I can see that the soil is wet]

(9) **zhing-nga chu btangs-te.rag**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.NONVIS.INF
‘The field has been watered.’ [I can feel with my hand that the soil is wet]

(10) **zhing-nga chu btangs-te.yod.kyag**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.FACT
‘The field has been watered.’ [It is a simple fact. Someone was to water it and I believe they did]

(11) **zhing-nga chu btangs-te.yin.nog**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.DEF
‘The field has been watered.’ [It is well-known that fields in Ladakh are irrigated]
(12) **zhing-nga chu btangs-te.yod.tshug**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.MIR
‘Oh! The field has been watered.’ [I did not expect it would]

(13) **zhing-nga chu btangs-te.yod.kyag-lo**
field-DAT water give₂-PFCT.FACT-REP
‘The field has been watered.’ [I’ve heard that someone did it]

One of the striking characteristics of the Tibetic languages is that hearsay markers (or reported evidentials) do not belong to the same paradigm as other evidentials, but follow them (as shown in ex. 13). The main markers used for hearsay are *za* (central Tibet), *lo* (Ladakh, Spiti, Dzongkha, etc.), and *grag* (some Kham dialects) (Tournadre & Suzuki, 2023: 422–430).<fnref n="8" /> These markers are all derived from verbs of speech (similar to numerous instances documented elsewhere in the family, e.g., Zhang, 2014 for Ersu, a Tibeto-Burman language from Sichuan Province in China, and across Eurasia: see Skribnik & Aikhenvald, 2024). They can co-occur with all the other evidentials. For example, in Central Ladakhi: V-(x.)*yod-lo* (egophoric + hearsay); V-x.yin.nog-lo (factual + hearsay); V-(x.)’*dug-lo* (direct visual + hearsay); V-(x.)*rag-lo* (direct non-visual + hearsay); V-*tog-lo* (sensory inferential + hearsay), etc. Example (14) illustrates a combination of a sensory and a hearsay marker in Common Tibetan.

(14) **dbyin.ji sbyang na yag-po 'dug-ze**
English learn if good COP. DIR.SENS-HSAY
‘(They say) It’s good to learn English.’ [I have heard from someone who can testify directly] (CTibetan, TSC)

Because hearsay markers are grammatically and semantically quite distinct from the other evidentials in Tibetic languages, Tournadre & LaPolla (2014) proposed an alternative definition of evidentiality, that is, “the representation of source and access to information according to the speaker’s perspective and strategy”. In this definition, ‘source’ refers specifically to the actual speaker’s speech or to the reported speaker’s speech (when available) whereas ‘access’ refers specifically to ways the actual speaker or a reported speaker obtain the given information (sensory perceptions, sensory inferences, logical inferences, gnomic information, etc.). The reason to introduce the above distinction between ‘source’ and ‘access’ is related to the fact that in the Tibetic languages, the two

<footnote n="8">⁸ Common Tibetan possesses two hearsay enclitics derived from the verb zer: -za and -ze (pronounced /s/). They both can have a reported function (without mentioning the author of the reported information) and a quotative function (specifying the reported speaker). They differ in their degree of backgroundedness (Mélac, 2014, pp. 131–134, p. 392). Central Ladakhi only possesses a reported enclitic -lo (derived from the verb of speaking lab). In order to specify the identity of the reported speaker, one can only use a reported speech construction involving a lexical verb of speech, such as zer or mol.</footnote>
types are grammatically encoded in two distinct paradigms (Tournadre & LaPolla, 2014; Mélac 2023). It is necessary to specify whether the word ‘source of information’ is used in the broad sense or in the more specific meaning as ‘speech source of information’ at least for some languages, since the distinction plays a significant role in their grammar. For other languages, maybe most languages, this distinction might not be relevant, and the notion of ‘source of information’ in its broad sense proposed by Aikhenvald is sufficient.

The Common Tibetan evidential system possesses fewer markers than the Central Ladakhi system, so fewer semantic distinctions exist in the former system overall. The following characteristics distinguish the Central Ladakhi’s evidential system from that of Common Tibetan:

(a) the existence of a formal distinction in Central Ladakhi between visual sensory ('dug, -'dug, -rug, -te. 'dug, -ces. 'dug) and non-visual sensory (rag, -a.rag, -te.rag, -ces.rag), whereas Common Tibetan only possesses 'general sensory' markers ('dug, -gi. 'dug, -bzhag, -'dug, -pa. 'dug, -song);<fnref n="9" />

(b) the existence of two types of ‘factual’ markers: factual(-inferential) (yod.kyag, yin.kyag, -a.kyag, -te.yod.kyag, -kyag, -cen) and gnomic-definitory (yin.nog, -a.nog, -te.(yin.)nog) in Central Ladakhi,<fnref n="10" /> whereas Common Tibetan only possesses one main factual category (red, yod.red, -yod.red -gi.yod.red, -pa.red);

(c) the existence of mirative markers (several forms containing the submorpheme *tshuk*) in Central Ladakhi, while no morpheme is dedicated to this meaning in the Common Tibetan verbal paradigm;

(d) the absence of a direct sensory suffix (visual or non-visual) in the completed past in Central Ladakhi. The bare stem of the verb (in what is traditionally called its ‘past inflection’) usually conveys a default direct sensory meaning. However, in some cases, this form indicates the speaker’s experiential knowledge about him/herself and his/her sphere (egophoric overtone), while in the completed past, common Tibetan possesses the direct sensory -song and the receptive egophoric -byung;

(e) the existence of the marker -pin optionally added to an evidential to refer to the past.<fnref n="11" />

<footnote n="9">⁹ Endopathic markers refer to the speaker’s inner sensations, emotions and cognitive processes. In both languages, the endopathic is only used with first person whereas the other sensory functions generally occur with 2nd and 3rd persons.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ There are two entirely distinct functions of *nog* when combined with the auxiliary *yin*. *Yin-nog* 1 is a gnomic-definitory ‘*i rgyal-po-’*i mkhar *yin.nog* ‘It is the King’s palace [everybody knows that]’. The function of *yin-nog* 2 is a visual sensory inferential: *wa a.rag yin.nog-pa* ‘Oh, this is alcohol!’ (looking at the liquid) and is opposed to non-visual sensory inferential *yin-grag*: *wa a.rag yin.grag-pa* ‘Oh, this is alcohol!’ (smelling or tasting the liquid).</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Central Ladakhi -pin in the first slot after the verb is comparable to Common Tibetan -pa.yin, i.e., a completed past intentional egophoric. It should not be confused with the above-mentioned -pin, which only indicates past tense.</footnote>
## 3.2. Evidentials in the Vaupés River Basin Linguistic area: focus on Tariana

Within the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area, both Tariana and Tukano have a five-term system of grammatical evidentials. In both Tariana and Tukano, and across the area, evidentials are used in main clauses only (in agreement with our cross-linguistic expectations: see, for instance, Aikhenvald, 2021b, 2023d). A larger set of evidentials occurs in declarative clauses, and a reduced set is used in questions (we return to this at the end of the current section). This is in contrast to Tibetic languages which have the same set of distinctions in declarative and interrogative clauses. The reported term is the only one used in imperative clauses (meaning ‘do something on someone else’s order’). This is again in contrast to Tibetic languages which have no evidentials in commands.<fnref n="12" /> These correlations between sentence types, clause types, and moods are consistent with many other languages of the world (see Aikhenvald, 2021a: 85–99 on dependencies between tense, aspect, and evidentiality, and Hyslop, 2023, for the dependencies in Bodic languages). No evidential distinctions are expressed in the future (in contrast to numerous languages of Northern Eurasia: see Skribnik & Aikhenvald, 2024, and to the Tibetic languages, see Tournadre, 2016). Lastly, in contrast to other Amazonian languages, Tariana and Tukano (and other languages of the Vaupés River Basin) do not allow co-occurrence of more than one evidential within a clause (unlike Matses: see Fleck, 2007; Aikhenvald, 2021b: 51, 55).

Evidential markers in Tariana are fused with tense: present (zero-marked), recent past (marked with the suffix -ka), or remote past (suffix -na) (see Table 2). Unlike Tibetic languages, evidentials in Tariana and Tukano do not have any obvious interactions with aspect. The inferred and the assumed evidentials have no present tense forms. The inferred evidential encodes information inferred from sensory (mostly visual) perception. The assumed evidential covers information obtained via reasoning, assumption based on general knowledge, and oftentimes general knowledge. The Tukano system is very similar to Tariana in meanings and in usage (see Aikhenvald, 2010: 117–128).

The semantics of tenses correlates with the time of the event and the time when the information was first acquired (Aikhenvald, 2003: 289–290, 2021b; the forms and their meanings in Tukano are discussed in Ramirez, 1997: 120ff). Consequently, the remote past visual evidential refers to something the speaker saw a long time ago and will see right now as well. Further discussion of the semantics of tenses in Tariana and in Tukano lies outside our purview here.

In Tariana, the markers are ‘floating clitics’: they tend to have the predicate as their host, but can attach to any focussed constituent (which does not make them

<footnote n="12">¹² In Tibetic languages, morphemes used for commands appear in the same slot as evidentials and do not contain evidential features. However, because a hearsay clitic can follow this slot, it is indeed possible to use ‘imperative + hearsay’ to refer to what somebody else has ordered, as in *sgo phyes-dang-ze* ‘(He said,) “open the door”’.</footnote>
into focus markers: see Aikhenvald, 2003: 293–310). In Tukano, they are suffixes to the verb (see Figure 1 in §4.2.2).<fnref n="13" />

The forms of evidentials in three tenses in Tariana declarative clauses are listed in Table 2. Evidentials are partly segmentable (more on this, and the option of analysing the recent past visual evidential -ka as -ø-ka (VISUAL.EVIDENTIAL-RECENT.PAST) and the remote past visual evidential -na as -ø-na (VISUAL.EVIDENTIAL-RECENT.PAST), in Aikhenvald, 2021b: 10–12).

<table><caption>**Table 2.** Evidentials and tense in declarative clauses in Tariana</caption><thead><tr><th>Labels</th><th>present</th><th>recent past</th><th>remote past</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Visual</td><td>-naka</td><td>-ka</td><td>-na</td></tr><tr><td>Non-visual</td><td>-mha</td><td>-mahka</td><td>-mhana</td></tr><tr><td>Inferred</td><td>-Ø</td><td>-nihka</td><td>-nhina</td></tr><tr><td>Assumed</td><td>-Ø</td><td>-sika</td><td>-sina</td></tr><tr><td>Reported</td><td>-pida</td><td>-pidaka</td><td>-pidana</td></tr></tbody></table>

The following examples from Tariana illustrate five real-life situations. Evidentials were straightforwardly used to express different information sources for the speaker (from *Author's* original fieldwork, examples obtained in 2020–23).

(15) nu-pheru du-dia-naka
1sg-older_sister 3sgf-return-PRES.VIS
‘My older sister is coming back.’ [I can see her]

(16) nu-pheru du-dia-mha
1sg-older_sister 3sgf-return-PRES.NONVIS
‘My older sister is returning.’ [I can hear the noise]

(17) nu-pheru du-dia-nihka
1sg-older_sister 3sgf-return-REC.P.INFR
‘My older sister has returned.’ [I see her bag hanging in the doorway]

(18) nu-pheru du-dia-sika
1sg-older_sister 3sgf-return-REC.P.ASSUM
‘My older sister has returned.’ [I know she always comes home at this time]

(19) nu-pheru du-dia-pidaka
1sg-older_sister 3sgf-return-REC.P.REP
‘My older sister has returned.’ [I was told recently]

<footnote n="13">¹³ Those speakers who speak on a daily basis tend to predominantly use evidentials on verbs. This innovation goes beyond the present study.</footnote>
Evidentials in Tariana and in Tukano branch out into other knowledge-related meanings. They can have overtones of privileged access to information and of epistemic meanings of uncertainty about something one cannot quite see (more on this in §4). The speaker may have access to more than one information source. Generally, visually obtained information, if available, will tend to be preferred over any other information source (Barnes, 1984: 262 reported the same principle for Tuyuca, an East Tukanoan language spoken in the Colombian Vaupés; see also Aikhenvald, 2004: 307–308). The next preferred choice is expected to be the non-visual evidential, then inferred based on visible results, then reported, and only then the assumed. However, the choice of evidentials will be further constrained by a number of factors, including the following (see Aikhenvald, 2021a: 195–208):

(a) whether the action was intentional or not;

(b) what kind of access to information the speaker has: for instance, one's own mental processes and feelings are accessible to the person themselves, and not to others;

(c) the type of information: for instance, prophetic dreams will be treated differently from other types of information;

(d) the status of the speaker: some people can ‘see’ what others cannot, and shamans may have special access not available to ordinary mortals.

These choices are particularly relevant in the context of the first-person subject. These are the topics of §4.1.2, §4.2.2, §4.3.2, §4.4.2, and §4.5.2.

In contrast to Tibetic languages, the reported term in Tariana and other languages of the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area appears in the same morphological slot within the predicate as all the evidentials (the predicate structure in Tariana is in Aikhenvald, 2003: 253–254). A reported evidential cannot combine with other evidentials. This is in contrast to a few other Amazonian languages (including Bora and Panoan: Aikhenvald, 2015: 259–262 and references there). In both Tariana and Tukano, the reported evidentials are unlike other terms in the system in that they may have their own time reference, different from that of the clause or the sentence (see Aikhenvald, 2021b: 53). In both languages, the reported evidential marks the time of the speech report (rather than that of the event itself). The timing of the event — subsequent to the timing of the report — can be marked separately. In this way, tense is expressed twice.

In (20), the speaker had just been told that the event would happen in the future. The purposive marker *-karu* refers to the timing of the person returning. The recent past reported evidential reflects the timing of the speech report.

<footnote>(20) du-nu-karu-pidaka
3sgf-come-PURP-REC.P.REP</footnote>
‘She will return, reportedly.’ [I have been told recently] (Tariana)

If the speaker had been told about a future event a long time ago, they would use
the remote past reported evidential:

(21) du-nu-karu-pidana
3sgf-come-PURP-REM.P.REP
‘She will return, reportedly.’ [I was told a long time ago] (Tariana)

The reported evidential is the only one used with imperative forms in commands (to second person only) across the Vaupés, e.g., Tariana *pi-hña-pida* (2sg-eat-REPORTED.COMMAND) ‘eat (on someone else's order)’ (see Aikhenvald, 2023d: 19–20, for a cross-linguistic appraisal of evidentials in commands, and Aikhenvald, 2008, for a survey of evidentials in imperative forms across the Vaupés area and for analysis of this and other imperatives all of which are formally different from declaratives). In interrogative clauses, inferred, assumed and reported evidential have one form (Aikhenvald, 2003: 311ff). That is, only three evidentials are distinguished in questions — visual, non-visual, and a further form covering all other distinctions.<fnref n="14" /> Historically, the reported evidential in Tariana is the most archaic of all. It is the only one shared with Baniwa of Içana, a closely related language (see Aikhenvald, 2023e: 155–157). All evidentials in Tukano appear to go back to the proto-language (Stenzel & Gomez-Imbert, 2023: 856–857). There is no evidence for any etymological connection with a verb of speech in either language. This is in contrast to Tibetic languages, where the hearsay evidentials are relatively recent innovations, grammaticalized from speech verbs (Mélac & Bialek, 2024).

Shared information source by speech act participants is a feature of the inferred evidential (more on this in Aikhenvald, 2021a, 2023a). The assumed evidential may express the information shared by everyone (see examples and discussion in Aikhenvald, 2021b: 74–75, 2023a). First person experience plays a paramount role in the choice between visual and non-visual evidentials in the expression of intentionality, feelings and inner states, and supernatural experience, as we will see in §§4.1–5.

**4. Speaking of oneself: the grammar of evidentials**

We now turn to the salient semantic properties of evidentials in the context of first person, across the languages in the focal regions. These cover the distinction between intentional and unintentional actions (§4.1), personal sphere and intimate knowledge (§4.2), one's sensations, feelings, and thoughts (§4.3), altered states of consciousness (§4.4), and dreams (§4.5).

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ The same form *-pida* is used in the expression of negative consequence ('lest something should happen') — a feature developed in Tariana as a result of diffusion from Tukano (more on this in Aikhenvald, 2010, pp. 164-5).</footnote>
## 4.1. *Intentional and unintentional actions*

### 4.1.1. *Tibetic languages*

In most Tibetic languages, intentional actions performed by the speaker are typically rendered by intentional egophorics (Tournadre, 2017). For example, the intentional egophorics -pa.yin and -gi.yin (completed past and future) of Common Tibetan are strictly associated with a first-person volitional agent in declarative sentences (Garrett, 2001: 178–205; Tournadre, 2008, 2017).<fnref n="15" /> However, the intentional egophoric -gi.yod (uncompleted past and present) can be used with a non-first person volitional agent in a declarative sentence, as long as the latter is in the speaker’s personal sphere (Mélac, 2014: 119–121, see §4.2.1 ex. 29). The behaviour of Central Ladakhi egophorics is on the whole similar to Common Tibetan. The intentional egophoric -pin (> -pa.yin), used for completed past, is only felicitous with a first-person volitional agent while the intentional egophoric -ad (> yod), used for uncompleted past and present, can be used with non-first person agents. Examples (22a) and (23a) illustrate this point in Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi. These declarative sentences would be ungrammatical with a 2nd or 3rd person agent (22b and 23b).

(22) a. nga der mchod.mjal-la phyin-pa.yin
1sg there worship.H-DAT go2-CPL.EGOint
‘I went there to do worship.’ (CTibetan; TSC)

(22) b. *kho der mchod.mjal-la phyin-pa.yin
go2-CPL.EGOint
3sg there worship.H-DAT

(23) a. ngas ga.ri mang-po sruls-pin
drive2-CPL.EGOint
1sg:ERG car a_ lot
‘I drove a lot.’ (CLadakhi)

(23) b. *khos ga.ri mang-po sruls-pin
drive2-CPL.EGOint
3sg:ERG car a lot

It is typically infelicitous to use other evidential markers in the preceding situations unless under the following specific conditions:

(a) the speaker observes him/herself in a mirror, movie, dream, etc. (see ex. 33, 35 in Oisel, 2017; see also §4.5);

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ This distinction between egophorics limited to first-person volitional agents and less restricted egophorics is referred to as ‘strong’ vs ‘weak’ evidential restrictions (Garrett, 2001, pp. 178-205), or ‘narrow-’ vs ‘wide-scope’ egophorics (Tournadre, 2017).</footnote>
(b) the speaker emphasizes the act was unintentional (see ex. 47, 49 in Oisel, 2017);

(c) the speaker wants the addressee to act as a witness of what he/she did, as in (24) and (25).

(24) ga.ri ngas sruls
    car 1sg:ERG drive₂.CPL.PAST.DFLT.DIR.SENS
    ‘I drove the car!’ (CLadakhi)<fnref n="16" />

(25) mo.Ta ngas btang-song-nga
    car 1sg:ERG drive₂-CPL.DIR.SENS-PHAT
    ‘I drove the car, didn’t I!’ (CTibetan)

In (24) and (25), the speaker refers to an action that he did willingly and in the presence of the addressee. The use of the direct sensory form aims to appeal to the addressee for confirmation since the latter can testify about what happened. These sentences can be used when two people are travelling over a long distance and the speaker wants the addressee to take his turn by insisting that he already has done his part of the job, as the addressee can confirm.

### 4.1.2. *Tariana and Tukano*

The choice of a visual versus non-visual evidential with first person in Tariana and in Tukano correlates with intentionality of action. A non-visual evidential will refer to something the speaker did accidentally and unintentionally, while in Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi, the same meaning will be rendered by avoiding egophoric marking (see also Aikhenvald, 2018: 29–30, 2021a: 197–198; similar examples from Tukano are in Ramirez, 1997: 134–135). In (26), the speaker broke a branch on purpose. The branch was in his way when he was walking through the jungle, as stated in the dependent clause.

(26) heku-kena-nuku nu-thuka-ka
    tree-CL:BRANCH.LIKE-TOP.OBJ 1sg-break-REC.P.VIS
    nu-na di-adeta-hyume
    1SG-OBJ 3masc.sg-be.in.the.way/prevent-AFTER/SINCE
    ‘I have broken the branch (intentionally), since it was in my way.’
    (Tariana)

In (27), the speaker is talking about breaking the tree branch — without meaning to, as an accident.

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ In Central Ladakhi, the use of the plain form of the verb is a factual completed past which usually implies a sensory access to information.</footnote>
(27) heku-kena-nuku nu-thuka-mahka
tree-CL:BRANCH.LIKE-TOP.OBJ 1sg-break-REC.P.NONVIS
'I have broken the branch (unintentionally).' (Tariana)

The non-visual evidential with first person subject can refer to an aimless action, if the speaker has no control over what is happening. In (28), from a hunting story, the speaker got lost in the jungle at night and was walking around without knowing what he was doing.

(28) de:pi-se nu-pipina-mhana
night-LOC 1sg-get_lost-REM.P.NONVIS
nu-emhani awakada-se
1sg-walk jungle-LOC
'I walked (aimlessly) lost in the jungle at night.' (Tariana)

The differentiation between intentional and unintentional action through evidentials reflects what Sun (2023: 56–58) calls ‘reduced information access’.

## 4.2. Personal sphere and intimate knowledge

### 4.2.1. Tibetic languages

Tibetic languages do not possess verbal inflections indexing person *per se*, but person reference interacts with evidential marking. Some languages, such as Balti and Purik, do not have any markers encoding an egophoric meaning (Zemp, 2018), whereas other languages possess several types of egophorics: intentional (§4.1.1, ex. 22–23), habitual (§4.3.1, ex. 43–44), receptive (§4.3.1, ex. 47), and experiential (Tournadre, 2017). As mentioned in §4.1.1, a speaker can use the intentional egophoric *-gi.yod* with a non-first-person agent in Common Tibetan if the latter belongs to his/her personal sphere, such as a family member or a close friend. In (29), the speaker talks about her relationship with her grandmother, and uses an egophoric with a third person agent in Common Tibetan. The same phenomenon is attested in Central Ladakhi, as in (30):

(29) byams-po zhe-po.cig gnang-gi.yod
affection a lot give.H-UNCPL.EGO
'She was giving me a lot of affection.' (CTibetan; TSC)

(30) tshe.ring nga'i pha.spun yin
Tshering 1sg:GEN phaspun COP.EGO
'Tshering is my *phaspun* (a relative from a group of families with strong social and spiritual ties).' (CLadakhi)
However, egophorics are inappropriate when the speaker does not have any personal experience of the situation in which they were involved, but can only rely on hearsay or inference to know about it. For example, if the speaker refers to his/her own birth in Common Tibetan, the factual *-pa.red* will typically be used, as in (31), while the egophoric *-byung* or sensory *-song* are unacceptable. For obvious reasons, the speaker cannot tap into his/her direct experience of his/her own birth for recounting it, but can only have heard about it.

(31) nga lha.sar skyes-pa.red
1sg Lhasa:DAT be_born2-CPL.PAST.FACT
'I was born in Lhasa.' (CTibetan)

For situations that the speaker has consciously experienced and in which he/she is directly involved, egophorics are typically used in Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi. However, egophorics also convey an idea of intimate knowledge, and are avoided when the speaker appeals to shared knowledge. For example, if a person does not want to pay and says he/she has no money, he/she may emphasize that it is common knowledge by using a factual instead of an egophoric to confront the addressee's claim:

(32) A: nga-’a pe.ne med
1sg-DAT money NEG.EXIST.EGO
B: zun ma-btang khyed.rang-nga pe.ne yod.kyag
lie NEG-LV.IMP you-DAT money EXIST.FACT
A: tshang.ma rgyus yin.nok nga-’a pe.ne
everybody knowledge COP.FACT 1sg-DAT money
med.kyag
NEG.EXIST.FACT

A: ‘I have no money.’

B: ‘Don’t lie, you do have money!’

A: ‘I don’t! Everybody knows that!’ (CLadakhi)

In the same situation, a speaker of Common Tibetan will also use a factual form (*yod.red*) instead of an egophoric to appeal to common knowledge and contradict the other person's claim.

Similarly, when referring to one's official status, it is very common to use a factual instead of an egophoric in Common Tibetan. For example, if a teacher has to remind his students of his position, as in (33), the egophoric form will be infelicitous.

(33) dge.рган nga red
teacher 1sg COP.FACT
‘I am the teacher!’ (CTibetan)<fnref n="17" />

### 4.2.2 Tariana and Tukano

While Tibetic languages do not have person indexing verb inflections, Tariana and Tukano do possess a person paradigm, although the two languages show considerable differences in the way person is marked on verbs.

Tariana has obligatory person marking prefixes on transitive and intransitive active verbs (inherited from proto-Arawak). Stative verbs take no personal prefixes (see also Aikhenvald, 2003: 234–243 on verb classes in Tariana). The presence of a non-visual evidential on a verb expressing a physical or an emotional state will indicate that the experiencer is the speaker. In contrast to Tariana, person markers on the verb in Tukano and other languages of the family have a typologically unusual system where (a) one form covers speech act participants (1st and 2nd persons), and third person singular inanimate referents, and (b) three different forms are used for animate nonfeminine singular, animate feminine singular and plural. This can be schematically represented as in Figure 1.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.** Person marking in Tukano verbs</figcaption></figure>

That is, in Tukano *apê-a-pi* (play-REC.P.VIS-NONTHIRD.PERSON) may mean ‘I played’, or ‘you (singular or plural) played’, or ‘we (exclusive or inclusive) played’, or ‘it (inanimate) played’. Overt personal pronouns — or, more frequently, the context — are crucial for determining who did what.

If we are dealing with third person singular or plural animate participants, three forms will be distinguished:

* *apê-a-mi* (play-REC.P.VIS-3sgnf) means ‘he played’;

* *apê-a-mo* (play-REC.P.VIS-3sgf) means ‘she played’;

* *apê-a-ma* (play-REC.P.VIS-3pl) means ‘they played’.

In free pronouns, Tukano and other languages of the family distinguish three persons and two numbers (singular and plural), in addition to inclusive-exclusive forms for first person plural (see a summary in Aikhenvald, 2010: 62). The context and the free pronouns are crucial for distinguishing first and second person.

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ In the same situation, a factual marker (gnomic-definitory) would also be used in Central Ladakhi: *dge.rgan nga yin.nog* ‘I am the teacher’.</footnote>
The choice of an evidential marker with verbs of state will also help specify whether we are talking about first person or someone else, creating a distinction between first and nonfirst person. Similar to Tariana, one will talk about one's own feelings using different information source markers than if one is talking about what someone else feels or thinks. This is a way in which East-Tukanoan languages with multiple evidentials make up for having ambiguous person marking with bound pronouns on the verb (see Aikhenvald, 2015: 149–150; Barnes, 1999).

Tukano is gradually becoming the major language spoken by the Tariana. As a consequence of extensive areal diffusion, Innovative Tariana is developing inclusive-exclusive distinction in its bound and free pronouns. The original impersonal pronoun and the impersonal prefix are being reinterpreted as having the meaning of ‘inclusive we’, and the original first-person plural form is used in the meaning of the 'exclusive' form (Aikhenvald, 2018: 24–25, 2010). Another feature of Innovative Tariana is extensive use of personal pronouns to mark subjects. This was absent in older people's Traditional Tariana, and must have developed under Tukanoan influence.

The choice of a visual versus a non-visual evidential in Tariana and in Tukano has a strong correlation with the person of the speaker, and can be considered a person marking strategy (see ex. 48–49 §4.3.2., and similar examples from Tukano in Ramirez, 1997: 134–135; see also Aikhenvald, 2023e: 29–30, 2021a: 197–198). Talking about oneself in Tariana and in Tukano will involve visual evidentials unless the action is accidental or one is talking about one's feelings, emotions, desires, and inner states. We turn to this in §4.3.2.

Contrary to what happens in Tibetic languages with egophorics, the same evidential tends to be used when general information is provided about oneself or about any other person outside of the community. In (34), the speaker is introducing himself with his traditional blessing name Kuda using the present visual evidential (Brito, 2021: 271). The information about the speaker's name is a fact available to everyone.

(34) **nhua-naka hĩ** Kuda
I-PRES.VIS DEM.ANIM Kuda
‘I am this Kuda.’ (Tariana)

Throughout the narrative, the speaker talks about the respect everyone in the Tariana community has for the researcher who had undertaken the documentation of the language (referring to her with her Tariana name, Kumatharo). An example is in (35).

(35) **hanipa** **wha** **whepa** **wa-de** **wa-ni-naka**
much we 1pl+respond 1pl-have 1pl-do-PRES.VIS
du-na duha Kumatharo-nuku
3fem.sg-OBJ she Kumatharo-TOP.OBJ
wa-na wa-pheru kayu-naka
1pl-OBJ 1pl-older_sister be_like-PRES.VIS
‘We respect (lit. respond-say) her, this Kumatharo, a lot. She is like an older sister to us.’ (Tariana)

Most examples throughout this paper involve first person singular — ‘I’. The same statements will generally apply to non-singular first person, with one proviso. We saw that Tibetic languages tend to favour an egophoric inflection for knowledge related to the speaker’s personal sphere, and a factual inflection for knowledge involving the larger community. Similarly, the assumed evidential of Tariana and Tukano (the nearest equivalent to the Tibetic factual) is hardly employed with first person singular. This evidential category can be used to describe common knowledge shared by the community in both languages (see Aikhenvald, 2023a: 9–12; Ramirez, 1997: 138–140, for Tukano), and is thus rarely an option to describe the speaker’s personal sphere. First person non-singular — ‘we’ (especially exclusive) — can reflect the experience of the whole community (what everyone knows), and is thus easily associated with the assumed evidential in Tariana and Tukano. We return to a special overtone of the inferred evidential with first person in Tariana in §4.4.2.

## 4.3. *One’s inner sensations, thoughts and feelings*

### 4.3.1. *Tibetic languages*

Referring to one’s inner sensations, thoughts and feelings typically corresponds to the category of endopathic (Tournadre, 1996, 2017; Tournadre & Dorje, 2003; Tournadre & LaPolla, 2014; Caplow, 2017). In most Tibetic languages, this category is marked by the same markers as the direct sensory. Some previous work has not clearly distinguished endopathic markers and egophorics (San Roque et al., 2018: 22–23; DeLancey, 2023). However, the two types of markers clearly need to be distinguished since they contrast in the same paradigm and with the same predicates.<fnref n="18" /> In Central Ladakhi, the endopathic sensory has the same form as the direct non-visual (-rag), as in (36). Common Tibetan does not distinguish between visual and non-visual, and its endopathic sensory marker has the same form as its direct sensory marker (-gi.’dug), as in (37).

(36) nga-’a mgo.tshag btang-nga.rag
1sg-DAT headache LV₁-UNCPL.DIR.NONVISendo

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ Tournadre (1996) classifies endopathics as a subcategory of egophorics. The latter term should be taken as a general concept of ‘talking about oneself’. In later works, Tournadre clarifies this view, which could indeed be misleading, by restricting the term ‘egophorics’ to a category of markers related to the speaker’s personal sphere and distinct from endopathics, which denote the speaker’s access to his/her inner sensations and feelings (Tournadre & Sangda Dorje, 1998, 2003; Tournadre, 2008, 2017; Tournadre & LaPolla, 2014).</footnote>
‘I have a headache.’ (CLadakhi)

(37) nga mgo na-gi. 'dug
1sg head be sick-UNCPL.DIR.SENSendo
'I have a headache.' (CTibetan)

It is possible to use -rag in Central Ladakhi even when one has a visual access to the state-of-affairs if one wants to insist on one's inner feelings. Compare (38) and (39):

(38) i yul-po bde.mo 'dug
DEM village-DEF beautiful COP.DIR.VIS
‘This village is beautiful.’ [unmarked statement based on visual sensations] (CLadakhi)

(39) i yul-po bde.mo rag
DEM village-DEF beautiful COP.DIR.NONVIS
‘This village is beautiful.’ [based on inner feelings; the speaker knows the village and has a personal opinion about it] (CLadakhi)

Knowing about one's inner sensations and those of others involves very distinct perceptual and cognitive processes, which is reflected in the grammar of multi-term evidential languages. In Common Tibetan (notably Lhasa variety), one cannot use an endopathic sensory marker when talking about other people's inner sensations and feelings. For example, if a speaker wants to say that someone else has a headache (as in ex. 40), he/she will typically use a sensory inferential marker (-bzhag) because he/she cannot access that person's inner perceptions directly.

(40) kho mgo na-bzhag
3sg head be sick-PFCT.SENS.INF
‘He has a headache.’ (CTibetan)

In Central Ladakhi, 'dug will be used to describe another person's inner state if one perceives cues through the visual channel, as in (41). The endopathic -rag followed by the reported enclitic -lo will typically be used if the speaker reports another person's inner sensations, as in (42).

(41) kho mgo.tshag btang-'dug
3sg headache LV1-UNCPL.DIR.VIS
‘He has a headache.’ [inferring the person’s state from his visual appearance] (CLadakhi)

(42) kho mgo.tshag btang-nga.rag-lo
3sg headache LV₁-UNCPL.DIR.NONVISendo-REP
‘He has a headache.’ [the speaker was told by the person suffering from the headache] (CLadakhi)

Egophorics with the uncompleted aspect are typically used for recurring inner sensations, as in (43) and (44):

(43) nga-’a rkyang mgo.tshag btang-ngad
1sg-DAT always headache LV₁-UNCPL.EGO
‘I always have headaches.’ (CLadakhi)

(44) nga rtag.par mgo na-gi,yod
1sg always headache be_sick-UNCPL.EGO
‘I always have headaches.’ (CTibetan)

In Central Ladakhi, the speaker can also use -rag when talking about what he/she feels like doing, since the intention is based on one's feelings, as in (45):

(45) dbang.mo-’a pug gcig btang-snying-rag
Angmo-DAT kiss a_little LV₁-feel_like-UNCPL.DIR.NONVISendo
‘I feel like kissing Angmo.’ (CLadakhi)

In the completed past, there is also a contrast between the sensory marker -song and the receptive egophoric -byung in Common Tibetan. Example (46) may be used in a context where the speaker has just met the dog and immediately expresses his/her fear, whereas (47) would be used when the speaker is telling what has happened to him/her after having integrated the experience.

(46) nga khyi-la zhed-song
1sg dog-DAT be_afraid-CPL.DIR.SENSendo
‘The dog scared me.’ [immediate reaction] (CTibetan)

(47) nga khyi-la zhed-byung
1sg dog-DAT be_afraid-CPL.EGOREC
‘The dog scared me.’ [recounting one’s experience] (CTibetan)

In Central Ladakhi, the bare stem of the verb ('past' inflection) will be used as an equivalent of both forms in (46) and (47), see (54) §4.4.1.

### 4.3.2 Tariana and Tukano

In talking about one's own feelings, thoughts, and physical or emotional states, Tariana and Tukano consistently employ the non-visual evidential, similar to Central Ladakhi, described in the previous section. The non-visual evidential will
be used for what the speaker feels or thinks but cannot see — illness, suffering, fever, and also thought, sadness, or happiness.<fnref n="19" /> In (48), the late Batista is talking about his work for a white man on rubber extraction where he caught a fever (or rather, a fever got him); he had almost died and was feeling weak. This stretch of the story is cast in remote past nonvisual evidential.

(48) **Madali-da** i-pumina nu-na adaki
three-CL:ROUND INDEF-after 1sg-OBJ fever
dhipa-mhana kai-peri
3sgnf+get-REM.P. NONVIS pain-COLL
Tuki nu-yami-maya-mhana nu-yena.
little 1sg-die-ALMOST-REM.P.NONVIS 1sg-exceed
Nhua meyakude-mhana
I lacking-strength-REM.P.NONVIS
‘Three (days) later fever got me, painful (fever), I well and truly almost died, I was lacking strength.’ (Tariana)

The internal physical and mental states of someone else have to be described using a different evidential. Like in Central Ladakhi, it can be visual (while Common Tibetan tends to use the inferential) if the speaker can see what happened. In example (49), from the same story in Tariana as (48), the speaker talks about his companions, whom he had seen being taken with fever. He uses visual evidentials, as they were visibly unwell. The Tariana speakers alerted many times to the fact that one cannot use the nonvisual evidential to talk about other people’s feelings because one cannot feel what other people feel (further discussion and examples are in Aikhenvald, 2021a, and references there).

(49) Na-na-pita adaki dhipa-na-pita
3pl-OBJ-RPD fever 3sgnf+get-REM.P.VIS-RPD
Paita di-yami-maya-na di-yena
one+CL:ANIM 3sgnf-die-ALMOST-REM.P.VIS 3sgnf-exceed
‘Fever got them again. One well and truly almost died.’ (Tariana)

In Tariana and Tukano, evidentials help distinguish person for the verbs denoting states and feelings. In Tariana active intransitive verbs — which take personal prefixes — this differentiation can be considered redundant. In Tukano, first and second person are expressed in the same way on the verb (Figure 1, §4.2.3). The use of evidentials helps understand who the experiencer is, somewhat similar to Tibetic languages in §4.3.1.

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ This is similar to endophoric meanings in Tibetic languages: see Sun (2023); also described as first-person effect in Aikhenvald (2004, pp. 224–225), the term erroneously attributed to Timothy Curnow (Aikhenvald, 2021b, p. 22).</footnote>
Depending on the information source available, one can use the inferred evidential, if all one is privy to are the visual traces of the event. A further option would be to use the assumed evidential, if the statement is based on reasoning and assumption (more on this in Aikhenvald, 2021a: 197, 2003: 294ff). Similar examples from Tukano are in Ramirez (1997: 134–135).

The evidentials used to talk about one's own feelings and physical and emotional states, and also thought and internal speech, occur in statements about other people only if the speaker has a close kinship relationship with the addressee or a third person. In (50), a speaker comments on her own state of being nauseous (after a day of heavy drinking), using the non-visual evidential.

(50) khenolena-mha-niki nu-na
be_dizzy-PRES.NONVIS-COMPL 1sg-OBJ
'I am nauseous.' (lit. nauseous to me) (Tariana)

The subject of the stative verb ‘be dizzy’ and of numerous other verbs denoting physical and mental states takes the object case form (see Aikhenvald, 2003: 239–240, on their properties). In (51), she comments on what her younger brother felt, on that same day. She uses the nonvisual evidential to refer to his internal state of being dizzy, as if she could feel for him.

(51) khenolena-mha di-na kherunikanite
be_nauseous-PRES.NONVIS 3sgnf-OBJ poor+NCL:ANIM
‘He is nauseous, poor thing (lit. nauseous to him)’ (Tariana)

In some cases, the use of a visual or a non-visual evidential may lead to a different interpretation of the lexical verb in Tariana or Tukano (as is also the case in Ladakhi; see ex. 38–39 §4.3.1). A non-visual evidential with the verb kherunikana ‘be poor, miserable’ will imply that the speaker is feeling miserable, as in (52).

(52) kherunikana-mha nhua
poor-PRES.NONVIS I
ma:tsi-pu-mha nu-rena
bad-AUG-PRES.NONVIS 1sg-feel
'I feel poor (miserable), I feel very bad.' (Tariana)

By using the visual evidential with the same verb, the speaker will describe him/herself as poor and destitute, as in (53).

(53) kherunikana-naka nhua
poor-PRES.VIS I
dineiru sede-naka
money NEG.EXIST-PRES.VIS
'I am poor (destitute), there is no money.' (Tariana)

Speakers are aware of the difference between (52) and (53). Example (52) was accompanied by a metalinguistic explanation, 'I cannot see myself'. Example (53) was commented on by saying 'This is how I live'.

### 4.4. *Oneself in altered states of consciousness*

#### 4.4.1. *Tibetic languages*

The degree of speaker's control and awareness often correlates with the use of evidentials (see Aikhenvald & Dixon, 2014, and Aikhenvald, 2021b, on how altered states such as being drunk can be expressed with non-visual or reported evidential in various systems). Examples (54–57) show different ways of saying 'I was drunk' in Central Ladakhi depending on one's degree of awareness:

(54) nga ra.ros
1sg be_drunk.CPL.PAST.DFLT.DIR.SENSendo
'I was drunk.' [I experienced it] (CLadakhi)

(55) nga ra.ros-te.rag-pin
1SG be_drunk-DIR.NONVISendo-PAST
'I was drunk.' [I remember and insist on the sensation I had] (CLadakhi)

(56) nga ra.ros-tog
1sg be_drunk-PFCT.SENS.INF
'I was drunk.' [I infer from some cues, such as the mess I have made]
(CLadakhi)

(57) nga ra.ros-kyag
1sg be_drunk-CPL.PAST.FACT
'I was drunk.' [I do not remember and have learned about it indirectly]
(CLadakhi)

Common Tibetan makes fewer distinctions, but different forms are still available: *ra.bzi-song* (CPL.PAST.DIR.SENSendo), when the speaker accesses and reports the moment he/she got drunk, and *ra.bzi-bzhag* (PFCT.INFsens), when he/she realizes his/her state once he/she is already drunk. The sequence *ra.bzi-pa.red* (CPL.PAST.FACT) is also possible if the speaker presents the information as an objective fact.

For hallucinations, egophorics are also typically avoided when talking about oneself in Central Ladakhi, as in (58).
(58) yog.ga gcig ltas-pa rkang.pa mi.ruk
down a_little look-CO foot NEG:EXIST.DIR.VIS
rta-’i ra.go ’dug
horse-GEN hoof EXIST.DIR.VIS
‘When I looked down, I didn’t have feet but horses’ hooves.’
(CLadakhi)

In the same situation, speakers of Common Tibetan will use the direct sensory existential 'dug' and its negative form mi. 'dug' instead of egophoric forms.

Ladakhi people believe there are beings that only some people with extrasensory powers can see, such as lha.klu 'spirits', sba.lu 'leprechaun', etc. Average speakers will not use sensory markers to refer to them, but can report their presence. In (59), the factual yod.kyag is used by a speaker that simply knows about the existence of such a supernatural being but is unable to see it. In (60), the direct visual 'dug' is used because the great lama (Rinpoche), who is the reported speaker here, is capable of seeing it.

(59) nga'i tshas-si nang-nga sba.lu yod.kyag
1sg:GEN garden-GEN in-DAT leprechaun EXIST.FACT
‘There is a leprechaun (sbalu) in my garden.’ (CLadakhi)

(60) rin-po.ches nga'i tshas-si nang-nga sba.lu
Rinpoche:ERG 1sg:GEN garden-GEN in-DAT leprechaun
'dug mol-la.rag
EXIST.DIR.VIS say1.H-UNCPL.DIR.NONVIS
‘The great lama (Rinpoche) said there is a leprechaun (sbalu) in my garden.’ (CLadakhi)

### 4.4.2. Tariana and Tukano

In Tariana, a typical description of an altered state may involve an inferred evidential with first person. In (61), the speaker wakes up, realizes how late it is (the basis of the inference), and describes what has happened.

(61) nu-kama-huyme numa nu-yena
1sg-be_drunk-AFTER/SINCE 1sg+sleep 1sg-exceed
nu-a-nihka
1sg-go-REC.P.INFR
‘Having got drunk, I have overslept (lit. I exceeded I slept).’ (Tariana)

Example (61) involves deferred realization of what happened to the speaker. The speaker remembers that he had drunk, and talks about oversleeping as 'inference'
from the fact that he had got drunk (see de Reuse, 2003, and Aikhenvald, 2021b: 33–34, 109 on the notion of ‘deferred realization’ and its expression in evidential systems). A speaker can use the non-visual evidential, if they have no memory of what had occurred, as in (62). Here, the verb ‘remember, think of’ takes the non-visual evidential, as ‘the person cannot see themselves thinking or remembering’ (using the actual words of Tariana speakers).

(62) nu-kama-mahka
lsg-be_drunk-REC.P.NONVIS
ma-awakade-mahka
NEG-remember/think-REC.P.NONVIS
‘I got drunk yesterday, I don’t remember.’ (Tariana)

nhua
heku-se
I
yesterday-LOC
nhua
I

In contrast, a Tukano speaker may use the reported evidential to talk about altered states (Ramirez, 1997: 142, own work).

(63) yi’i utiá-a-pa’do
I cry-REC.P.REP-NORTHIRD.P
‘I have been said to have cried.’ [the speaker doesn’t recall because he was drunk] (Tukano)

The non-visual evidential in Tariana and in Tukano refers to what cannot be seen with the human eye. This involves spirit attacks and their consequences (see also Aikhenvald, 2003: 299, 2021a: 199–202, and numerous examples in Aikhenvald, 2019). In (64), Jovino Brito tells a story about how he and his elder brother went hunting and were attacked by a spirit *ñamu*. The hunters managed to thwart the attack by lighting a fire and throwing hot tar on the ground. The visual evidential is used when the speaker recounts what they did, in agreement with what we saw in §4.1.2. Their feelings are described using the non-visual evidential, as described in §4.3.2. The actions of the spirit are cast in non-visual evidential.

(64) hī nu-weri-nuku nu-kalite-na
DEM.ANIM lsg-younger_brother-TOP.OBJ lsg-tell-REM.P.VIS
paita yaphini-mha diha wa-na
one+CL:ANIM thing-PRES.NONVIS he lpl-OBJ
‘I told my younger brother [visual], “Something different (contrary) it is for us [non-visual]”.’ (Tariana)

To reiterate: the remote past visual evidential is used in the story itself, as shown by the first line of (64), because the story is autobiographical. As discussed in Aikhenvald (2003, 2004, and other publications based on firsthand analysis of the language), all autobiographical stories are told using visual evidentials. The
content of the speech report is cast in non-visual evidential, because it refers to the actions of an evil spirit. In order to describe typical actions and attitudes of an evil spirit, the present non-visual is generally used. Example (65) comes from a narrative about the evil spirit *ñamu*.

(65) *hape-peri* *depiha* *pa-hña-ka* *ina*
cold-COLL early IMPERS-eat-SEQ women
*tapulisa-ka* *diha* *ñamu* *ke:ru-mha*
dream-SEQ he evil.spirit angry-PRES.NONVIS
*iya-mha* *di-sueta*
rain-PRES.NONVIS 3sgnf-put

‘If one eats cold (things) early, if one dreams of women, the evil spirit *ñamu* is angry, he sends (lit. puts) the rain.’ (Tariana)

In talking about the actions and the practices of shamans and healers, a non-visual evidential is also the preferred choice. In (66), Jorge Muniz describes a shamanic practice of inflicting illness with the help of a centipede and its poison (further examples are in Aikhenvald, 2019).

(66) *diha amarusapare* *di-de-mha*
he centipede 3sgnf-have-PRES.NONVIS
‘He (the shaman) has a centipede.’ (Tariana)

When he was asked why the non-visual evidential was used here, Jovino Brito (who was helping with the translation) explained this with (67):

(67) *dihmeta-nipe-ne* *di-ni-mha* *mēda*
3sgnf+think-NOM-INST 3sgnf-do-PRES.NONVIS CEXP
‘He does (it) with his thinking, don’t you know?’ (Tariana)

This explanation reflects the metalinguistic awareness of the speakers who are prepared to discuss and explain why an evidential has been used (further examples from Tariana and other languages, including Jarawara from southern Amazonia, are in Aikhenvald, 2021b, pp. 58–59).

The non-visual evidential reflects access to information by those whose powers and thus actions lie beyond the realm of the human eye.<fnref n="20" /> In contrast, shamans and powerful spirits ‘see’ everything, and thus are entitled to use visual

<footnote n="20">²⁰ We find many analogies across the world. In traditional Wintu, the non-visual evidential was used to talk about the supernatural (Lee, 1938). The Trio and the Wayana, speakers of Carib languages with just two evidentials, witnessed and unwitnessed, describe shamanic attacks using the unwitnessed form (Carlin, 2023). The non-visual evidential marker *Na-* in Dyirbal was used when talking about spirits (Dixon, 2014: 186-7). The ‘auditive’ evidential in Nenets (a Samoyedic language) and in Yukaghir (a Palosiberian isolate) typically refers to something one had heard or felt (but not seen), and to shamanic activities (Skribnik & Kehayov, 2023: 548-50; Ilyina, 2017: 167-9).</footnote>
evidentials (see further examples in Aikhenvald, 2021a: 203–204), just like high lamas or mediums in Tibet or Ladakh (see ex. 60 §4.4.1).<fnref n="21" />

## 4.5. *Oneself in dream narratives*

### 4.5.1. *Tibetic languages*

In most Tibetic languages, speakers use different evidentials when describing what happened to them in dreams than in their ‘awake life’. Egophorics and endopathics are typically absent from dream narratives. The main reason seems to be that the speaker is in a position of a witness of what his/her alter ego is doing in the dream and does not perceive his/her intentions or feelings from the inside. Example (68) and (69) illustrate this difference:

(68) nga'i gnyid.lam nang-la nga dang nga'i
1sg:GEN dream in-DAT 1sg and 1sg:GEN
a.zhang 'dug
uncle EXIST.DIR.SENS

‘In my dream, there were my uncle and me.’ (CTibetan, CTC)

(69) nga.tsho da tshar-song bsam-byas mgyogs-po
1pl now finish-CPL.PAST.DIR.SENS think-CO fast
'gro-ga byed-kyi.'dug-ga
go-NMZ do₁-UNCPL.DIR.SENS-PHAT

‘Once we thought it was finished, we pretended to go away fast.’ (CTibetan, TSC)

In (69), if the speaker had been describing his/her experience in ‘real life’, they would have used the egophoric instead.

Interestingly, Central Ladakhi speakers avoid the direct non-visual -rag when reporting what they heard, felt, smelt, or tasted in their dreams. They use the direct visual 'dug' instead, as in (70).

(70) nga ri-'a 'dzegs-''dug de.nas ri-nas
1sg mountain-DAT climb₁-UNCPL.DIR.VIS then mountain-ABL
yog.ga bud-''dug-pin rkang.pa chag-''dug de.nas
down fall-UNCPL.DIR.VIS-PAST leg break-UNCPL.DIR.VIS then
'grul nyan-na.mi.rug de.nas zhag pha.lan gcig-po

<footnote n="21">²¹ In a few Amazonian languages, a shaman will use a visual or a witnessed evidential when talking about his/her own shamanic revelations — as Carlin (2023) put it, they represent an ‘alternative reality’. Among the Shipibo-Konibo, a shaman recounts his/her experiences obtained under the influence of the powerful hallucinogenic ayahuasca using a visual evidential. Those who use a visual evidential to talk about something others think they had not seen may be accused of being unreliable ‘braggarts’, or simply crazy (such an instance in Huallaga Quechua was described by Weber, 1986: 142).</footnote>
<table><tr><td>move</td><td>can-NEG.UNCPL.VIS</td><td>then</td><td>days</td><td>many</td><td>alone</td></tr><tr><td><b>lus-'dug</b></td><td>nga</td><td><b>skoms-'dug</b></td><td></td><td></td><td><b>khyi</b> mug-ga</td></tr><tr><td>stay-UNCPL.DIR.VIS</td><td>1sg</td><td>be_thirsty-UNCPL.DIR.VIS</td><td></td><td></td><td>dog bark-NMZ</td></tr><tr><td><b>tshor-'dug</b></td><td>nga'i</td><td><b>rma.kha</b></td><td><b>rul-te</b></td><td><b>dri.ma</b></td><td><b>rtsog-po</b></td></tr><tr><td>hear-UNCPL.DIR.VIS</td><td>1sg:GEN</td><td>wound</td><td>rot-CO</td><td>smell</td><td>bad</td></tr><tr><td><b>yong-'dug</b></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>come<sub>1</sub>-UNCPL.DIR.VIS</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></table>

‘I was climbing a mountain, and then I fell. I broke my leg. I couldn’t move and I stayed alone for many days. I was thirsty, and I could hear the dogs barking. My wound got rotten and there was a bad smell.’

(CLadakhi)

Just as in Common Tibetan, egophorics are replaced by sensory markers in Central Ladakhi, as in ‘dzegs-‘dug ‘I was climbing’. Contrary to any narrative of one’s ‘awake life’, the direct non-visual marker is avoided and the direct visual marker is used instead for other senses such as sounds tshor-‘dug ‘I heard’, smells dri.ma rtsog-po yong-‘dug ‘there was a bad smell’, and inner sensations skoms-‘dug ‘I was thirsty’.

The reluctance to use egophorics is linked to the fact that speakers do not have a direct access to their own intentions, but are simple witnesses. The situation is comparable to watching oneself in a film. The avoidance of the non-visual sensory in Central Ladakhi may be explained by the fact that speakers do not feel sensations in their dreams as acutely as in real life. Moreover, the visual sensory ‘dug encodes an experience that is primarily visual, but does not exclude the other senses, following the sense hierarchy presented in Viberg (1983, p. 136) (see also Faller, 2002; Tournadre, 2023). It seems that dreams are considered a predominantly visual experience in these languages.

### 4.5.2. Tariana and Tukano

In stark contrast to Tibetan languages, dreams by common mortals are treated as non-visual experience in the languages of the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area (see also Aikhenvald, 2023d, pp. 29–30 on non-visual evidentials in dreams across the world’s languages). Treating dreams and mental processes as non-visual rather than ‘seen’ is reminiscent of the predominance of auditory perception (hearing) in the expression of mental processes in Australian languages and numerous languages of Amazonia and New Guinea (see the discussion in Aikhenvald & Storch, 2013, and references there).

The Tariana and the Tukano rely on dreams for predicting the reality of the day. And yet the dreams by a common mortal without any special supernatural powers are treated as if they are not quite what one sees in reality. In (71), Olívia Brito describes the dream she had the night before her father, the late Cândido Brito, had passed away. She uses the remote past non-visual evidential throughout the
narrative, as the dream had taken place three or four years before) (see also
example 14.37 in Aikhenvald, 2003, p. 298, 2018, pp. 32–33).

(71) *nu-haniri* *di-ñami-karu* *i-peya* *nuhua-misini*
1sg-father 3sgnf-die-PURP INDEF-before I-TOO
hi-nuku tapulisa-*mhana*
DEM.ANIM-TOP.OBJ dream-REM.P.NONVIS
‘Before my father died, I too dreamt of this [non-visual].’ (Tariana)

When another speaker, Jovino, was asked why he used the non-visual evidential
in talking about a bad dream he had just had, his answer was:

(72) *ma-ka-kade-*mha* *nhua tapuli-se mēda*
NEG-see-NEG-PRES.NONVIS I dream-LOC CEXP
‘I didn’t really see it, (it was) in the dream, don’t you know?’ (Tariana)

Conversely, a prophetic dream by a shaman will be cast in visual evidential
(see Aikhenvald, 2018, p. 33). The explanation for this was given in (73).

(73) *thuya di-ka-naka* *mēda*
all 3sgnf-see-PRES.VIS CEXP
*maliēri-pu-naka* *diha*
shaman-AUG-PRES.VIS he
‘He sees everything, he is a (real) shaman, don’t you know?’ (Tariana)

The ways in which the non-visual evidential is used to describe a dream — as an
alternative reality — is similar to what we find in a number of other Amazonian
languages (see Aikhenvald, 2015, p. 269) and is contrary to what is found in the
Tibetic languages. Within the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area, vision plays a
special role as a powerful — and dangerous — resource. Heeding and listening
are at the heart of human socialization, along the lines of Aikhenvald & Storch
(2013, pp. 32–33). This offers an exception to Viberg's (1983) mostly European-
oriented discussion.

**5. To conclude**

Tariana and Tukano, the two neighbouring languages of the Vaupés River Basin
linguistic area in Amazonia, and two Tibetic languages — Central Ladakhi and
Common Tibetan — share some significant typological similarities. Each of these
languages has a large evidential system, with relatively similar categories. Tariana
and Tukano distinguish between visual and non-visual, and so does Central
Ladakhi. These two categories are, however, conflated in Common Tibetan. Each
of the four focal languages has the same number of evidential categories in
positive and negative declarative sentences. There are few, if any, evidential distinctions in the future. In both linguistic areas, evidentials in questions essentially reflect the addressee's source of information and thus correspond to an anticipation strategy. Because of regular correlations between evidentiality and person, evidential markers often suggest who the participants of the sentence are. This is particularly so in the specialized uses of evidentials when associated with the first person.

There are, however, differences in the evidential systems of the two linguistic areas, notably regarding the hearsay or reported evidentials. In Tariana and in Tukano, reported evidentials allow to distinguish between the time of the state-of-affairs and the time of acquisition of the information. In the Tibetic languages, hearsay evidentials belong to another syntactic slot, and can combine with other evidentials, indicating several information sources or accesses.

In the four languages under study, evidentials show distinct behaviours when the speaker refers to him/herself or his/her close circle, as well as when the speaker's access to information is filtered by an altered state of consciousness. The fieldwork data we have collected show the following major contrasts:

* The first-person intentional agent is marked by egophoric markers in Common Tibetan and Central Ladakhi, whereas in Tariana and Tukano overtones of intentionality are conveyed by visual evidentials (as we saw in examples in §4.1.2 and also Aikhenvald, 2021a). Conversely, the speaker's lack of intention will be marked with non-egophorics in the Tibetic languages (typically direct sensory or direct visual evidentials), while the languages of the Vaupés Basin resort to non-visual evidentials to convey that meaning;

* In the Tibetic languages, the speaker's personal sphere (people and other entities close to the speaker) also tends to be marked by egophorics (§§4.1–3). In Tariana and Tukano, visual evidentials are typically used in these contexts, and one can talk about a close relative as if one could feel the same as they feel (§4.3.2) (and more on that in Aikhenvald, 2021a) — a phenomenon only marginally reported in the Tibetic languages;

* In both linguistic areas, supernatural phenomena (spirits, or similar entities) which are not directly perceptible by common people cannot logically be marked with direct sensory or visual evidentials unless the speaker possesses extrasensory powers (high lamas, shamans, etc.). Factual, hearsay, or inferential markers are commonly used in Tibetic languages in these contexts, because the speaker can only know about these types of supernatural phenomena indirectly. Conversely, this type of access is typically rendered by non-visual evidentials in Tariana or Tukano, because
the non-visual markers of these languages may refer to the speaker's intuitions, and thus the perception of generally invisible phenomena.

* The expression of one's altered states and dreams differs in the two regions. In Tibetic languages, one's own dreams are consistently expressed using sensory evidentials (only visual in Central Ladakhi). Even with a first-person agent, the egophoric is infelicitous in dreams, as if the speaker was simply watching him/herself in a film. Conversely, in the languages of the Vaupés Basin, dreams by common mortals are cast in non-visual evidentials, as part of an alternative, 'out-of-this-world' reality. However, prophetic dreams by shamans are cast in visual evidentials, thus reflecting the correlation between the use of evidentials, the power of vision, and the privileged status of the speaker, typical for the magical ethos across Amazonia.

The special status of evidentials is corroborated by speakers' metalinguistic awareness. Speakers are prepared to discuss, explain, and even query evidentials. At first sight, the languages under study seem to possess quite similar evidential categories, but they happen to have very distinct uses of these categories in specific situations, particularly when talking about one's own inner and outer life. The grammar of evidentials when referring to oneself allows speakers to make very fine distinctions, in accordance with their access to information. Depending on what one is talking about, the visual evidential may not be the preferred option. Evidential conventions at work for first person — e.g., using the non-visual evidential for one's internal states — override the tendency for vision as a preferred information source. This casts doubt on the universal validity of an evidential hierarchy based on the dominant status of visual information.

This study has thus offered a detailed analysis of the intricacies of multi-term evidential systems in a variety of contexts, revealing the pervasiveness of cognitive processes in the choice of evidentials. It has shown the necessity to take into account the speech act participants, as well as the speaker's perspective on the situation in order to spell out the distribution of evidentials in the two focal regions. We hope that future in-depth studies on the behaviour of evidentials in these special contexts will provide detailed descriptions of the interaction of evidentiality with person in other linguistic areas. Acquiring more cross-linguistic data on the influence of the speaker's involvement, perspective, and altered cognition on the linguistic expression of information sources is still needed. It will allow us to enlighten some challenging aspects that remain to be unravelled to provide a comprehensive analysis of the most complex evidential systems.
## Acknowledgement

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all our informants and friends from the Vaupés basin and Tibetic linguistic areas. We are also particularly grateful to the special issue’s editors – Anne Storch and Viveka Velupillai – and the reviewers, who helped us improve the content of the paper, and refine our analyses.

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