Evidential Auxiliaries as Non–reliability Markers in B ulgarian Parliamentary Speech (2024)

Abstract: In the evidentiality system of Bulgarian, there are three evidential auxiliaries that form complex verbal forms. The paper analyzes their potential to mark non-reliability in political discourse by using the ParlaMint-BG corpus of parliamentary debates. The method of the study includes detection, categorisation and context analysis of the evidentials formed with auxiliaries. The results prove that the evidential auxiliaries function as markers of non-reliability, especially in argumentative text type such as political discourse.

## introduction evidentiality in bulgarian is a grammaticalized category coding the source of information of an utterance and its classification according to the speaker's cognitive states @xcite . the category is based on the opposition between direct and indirect source of information: the indicative mood is marked for direct (firsthand) evidence whereas a paradigm of three indirect (non-firsthand) evidentials, i.e. reportative, inferential, and dubitative, emerged from the perfect tense. according to @xcite , balkan systems are an example of modalized evidential systems. he suggests that the evidential system in bulgarian is based on the opposition personal vs. non-personal information rather than on directly observable vs. non-observable evidence, and furthermore the speaker's mental states are no less personal (and reliable) than their visual observations. such interpretations of the bulgarian evidential system rely on the fact that observable evidence is considered more reliable and mediated information less reliable, respectively. on the other hand, the dubitative is the only indirect evidential that includes the value of reliability in its core semantics, as it expresses the personal stance of the speaker to a nonfirsthand information which is evaluated as nonreliable, while the reportative and the inferential are rather neutral to reliability @xcite . however, in certain contexts, such as media texts, all indirect evidentials can signal different levels of (non-)reliability @xcite or even disinformation @xcite . political speech can also favour the use of indirect evidentials to mark certain levels of reliability of the information. ## objectives and methodology this is a corpus-based study whose objective is to explore three evidential auxiliaries as markers of non-reliability of the information: бил 'be-evidential', щял 'will-evidential' and нямал(о) 'will not-evidential'. as a grammatical form, бил is the past active participle of the verb 'be' and can be incorporated in the (present) perfect tense as a full verb -съм бил 'have been' but in the evidential paradigm it is an auxiliary that forms different tenses. similarly, щял can be either past active participle of the colloquial verb ща 'want' or future evidential auxiliary, and нямалeither past active participle of the verb нямам 'don't have' or negative future evidential auxiliary. in fact, нямал should function as a particle and should be used only in neuter as invariable form -нямало, but in the colloquial speech it often agrees in gender and number with the subject. all three evidential auxiliaries are found both in the paradigm of the reliabilityneutral evidentials, i.e. the inferential and the reportative, and in the reliability-marked dubitative. the main hypothesis of the study is that in political discourse, which can be viewed as argumentative text type, indirect evidentials are used to suggest non-reliability of the information and the evidential auxiliaries бил, щял and нямал(о) have mostly dubitative value and to a lower extent reliability-neutral interpretation. to test this assumption, the occurrences of the evidential auxiliaries in the parlamint-bg corpus of bulgarian parliamentary debates have been automatically extracted, manually classified, and analyzed in context. ## evidentiality recognition and disambiguation in corpora of bulgarian as a rule evidentiality is not annotated, but different schemata can be applied for (automatic) recognition of evidential forms. the use of the aorist active participle and especially of the imperfect active participle (the letter occurs only in indirect evidentials, but not in the perfect tenses of the indicative) with omission of the auxiliary съм 'be' is a reliable marker although it applies for the 3 rd person only. however, the 3 rd person is the most frequent grammatical form as compared with the 1 st and the 2 nd person. the omission of the auxiliary съм 'be' in the indicative perfect is possible but rare @xcite . additionally, the evidential auxiliaries бил 'be-evidential', щял 'will-evidential' and нямал(о) 'will notevidential' are unambiguous markers of evidentiality. the main difficulty in evidentiality recognition is the disambiguation of two types of grammatical homonymy: between the inferential aorist and the indicative perfect (cf. @xcite , and in the paradigm of the indirect evidentials. the first type is not relevant for the study as neither the inferential aorist, nor the indicative perfect contain the analyzed auxiliaries, and what is more, both forms are neutral to reliability. as for the homonymies of the second type, several of them should be considered: i. the inferential and the reportative coincide in the 1 st and the 2 nd person and differ only in the 3 rd person by the presence and the omission of the auxiliary съм 'be', respectively; ii. in all the forms of the dubitative the auxiliary бил 'be-evidential' can be omitted and in that case, they coincide with the reportative; this means that formally the reportative can express doubt, i.e. non-reliability; iii. the reportative perfect/pluperfect and the dubitative aorist are homonymous (бил чел 'he reportedly has/had read' or 'he allegedly read'), i.e. the auxiliary бил can function either as a temporal marker of the reportative or as a nonreliability marker in the structure of the dubitative. ## the corpus the parlamint is a project contributing at the creation of comparable multilingual corpora of parliamentary debates with uniform annotation @xcite . the corpora contain transcriptions of the sessions of the 17 european national parliaments with half a billion words @xcite . the bulgarian part used for this study comprises 20 million words attributed to 606 speakers and the political parties and organizations they belong to, collected from october 2014 to july 2020 @xcite . the linguistic annotation of the corpus was performed automatically by the classla pipeline @xcite . the parlamint corpora are available through sketch engine, a corpus manager and text analysis software. there are several query types: by word, lemma, character, phrase, and regular expressions based on the corpus query language (cql). ## results to obtain quantitative data for the use of the evidential auxiliaries бил 'be-evidential', щял 'will-evidential' and нямал(о) 'will not-evidential' several regular expressions have been applied. as one of the purposes is to differentiate between evidentials that contain and do not contain the auxiliary съм 'be', seven regular expressions have been set to search the following strings: strings ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) present evidentials containing the auxiliary бил 'be-evidential' which are ambiguous. provided that the results are not so numerous, the disambiguation between nondubitatives and dubitatives has been manually performed. besides that, as the third element of the string can be any word ending in -л, -ла, -ло, -ли, i.e. not necessarily a past active participle, there were many irrelevant results, usually collocations of the perfect tense and a masculine noun ending in the suffix -тел, the most frequent among them being е бил свидетел 'he has been a witness'. the irrelevant results were significant in string (1) -215 out of 298, and minor in string (2) -only 20 out of 365. of course, they have been excluded from the study. the inverted structure, with the auxiliary бил in the first position and the auxiliary съм in the second one, has been checked too but only 6 occurrences have been found, 5 of which irrelevant, that is why it is not taken into account for the study. strings (3) and (4) present positive future evidentials, and strings (5) and (6) exhibit negative future evidentials marked by the respective auxiliaries -щял and нямал. adding to the string the modal subordinator да which functions as a particle linking the future evidential auxiliary and the full verb in a complex verbal form limits the output to the future evidentials. the disambiguation between dubitatives and nondubitatives has been manual, considering the context. the output of string ( 7 ) should be unambiguously a future dubitative, but it appeared to be a very rare structure. the results of the search are presented in the tables, which contain the evidentials extracted after disambiguation and elimination of the wrongly recognized outputs (column 1), further divided into reliability-neutral evidentials labeled as nondubitatives (column 2) and evidentials that express non-reliability labeled as dubitatives (column 3). ## discussion the results extracted from the parlamint-bg corpus justify the hypothesis that political speech is a text type that supports the use of the evidential auxiliaries as markers of non-reliability but depending on the cooccurrence with the auxiliary съм 'be' and its omission. for all evidential auxiliaries analyzed here, the structures containing the auxiliary съм 'be' in the 1 st and the 2 nd person are grammatically ambiguous but tend to be interpreted as dubitatives. constructions with the auxiliary съм 'be' in the 3 rd person should be interpreted as inferentials, i.e. reliability-neutral, as the inferential cannot express dubitativity. they have temporal value, as in (8). still, 8 out of 42 cooccurrences of съм 'be' and бил 'be-evidential' and 7 out of 30 of съм 'beevidential' and щял 'will-evidential' in the 3 rd person express non-reliability. as compared with the forms with omission of the auxiliary съм 'be', they are rather stylistically neutral, i.e. do not imply irony or negative stance. on the contrary, constructions with omitted auxiliary съм 'be' in the 3 rd person are most often interpreted as dubitatives, as in (10), with very few exceptions: in contexts ( 11 ) and (12), for example, the evidentials with omitted auxiliary съм 'be' designate tenses of the reportative -perfect in (11) and future in (12). there were also a few contexts, in which the evidentials, although with omitted auxiliary, have inferential reading and do not express non-reliability -( 13 ) and ( 14 ). as already noted, the cooccurrence of the future evidential auxiliary щял (or the negative нямал) and the evidential auxiliary бил is unambigously interpeted as future dubitative but the whole verbal neuter, prpresent, indindicative, evevidential, aapaorist active participle, partparticle, perfperfective, imperfimperfective, reflreflexive form becomes overmarked and somehow heavy and subsequently very rare -there is only one such case found in the corpus. a survey of the evidentials expressing nonreliability reveals that they occur in specific contexts that support the dubitative reading. in her study on the dubitative in bulgarian, krasimira aleksova argues that as a grammatical form the dubitative is the core of the dubitativity subfield of the functional and semantic field of reliability, whose periphery comprises different lexical modifiers, such as expressions of general evaluation of non-reliability, the particle уж 'allegedly', words expressing negative subjective stance of the speaker towards the reliability of a non-firsthand information (lie, bullshit, speculations, etc.), emotive expressions denoting disapproval @xcite . the analysis of the occurrences in the parlamint-bg corpus confirms aleksova's observations and adds some more contexts that are not described by her. the particle уж 'allegedly' is generally accepted as one of the most frequent lexical markers of dubitativity as its main semantics is to explicitly expresses doubt towards non-firsthand source. however, its function in dubitative contexts should not be exaggerated because the evidentials are most often sufficient to express dubitayivity, even if the dubitative marker бил 'be-evidential' is omitted. indeed, there are 27 cooccurrences of уж 'allegedly' and бил 'be-evidential', and only 3 of уж 'allegedly' and щял 'will-evidential' (in a distance of 0 to 10 tokens). another marker of dubitativity and non-reliability with similar semantics is the expression едва ли не 'scarcely, hardly' which cooccurs 37 times with бил 'beevidential', 7 times with щял 'will-evidential', and 2 times with нямал(о) 'will not-evidential'. the expressions discussed so far are lexical markers of non-reliability. the context analysis shows that there are other mechanisms to suggest or even to intensify the non-reliability of a given information that function rather on textual level. when using an evidential with dubitative value to allude that the reported information is false, the speaker very often offers their version of the situation by making the opposite statement. one of the means to give the opposite information is to use a negation, usually in the next sentence, as disclaimer of the previous statement presented as false (contrariwise, negative evidentials are followed by confirmative statements). another frequent mechanism to introduce a counterstatement is by using adversative conjunctions or discourse markers: но 'but', само че 'but, although', всъщност 'in fact', ама 'but', ами 'well', обаче 'but @xcite . (27) световната банка се била забавила [refl be-evfsg be late-aapfsg]. ами нали тя ви беше основният гуру, на който вярвахте? 'the world bank was too slow. well, it was the main guru you trusted, wasn't it?' (28) вече няколко часа от тази трибуна не знам колко човека разпространяват една полуистина -как в стара загора някой ги бил блокирал [be-evmsg block-aapmsg]. всъщност системата е следната. 'for several hours now, i don't know how many people have been spreading a half-truth from this stand -that someone blocked them in stara zagora. in fact, the system is as follows.' (29) има един общ отговор, как този ток щял да бъде изнасян [will-evmsg part be-3sgfut exported] някъде. но на конкретния въпрос къде точно ще го изнасяте, на този въпрос няма отговор. 'there is a general answer, how this current would be exported somewhere. but there is no answer to the specific question of where exactly you will export it.' (30) …защото брюксел бил казал [be-evmsg say-aapmsg] така. точно обратното, … '… because brussels said so. just the opposite, …' in the near context of evidentials with dubitative value, questions can be seen as a rhetoric device that raises objections to the reliability of the previous statement. (31) …днес чувам, че някой се бил подвел [refl be-evmsg mislead-aapmsg]. кой се е подвел? '...today i hear that someone was allegedly misled. who has been misled?' (32) как да кажа, има разказ за това как изглеждал основният и допълнителният пакет и това щяло да увреди [will-evnsg part damage-3sgpresperf], някой щял за нещо да плаща [will-evmsg part pay-3sgpresimperf]. как го разбрахте? 'how can i say, there is a story about what the basic and additional package looked like, and that would cause damage, someone would pay for something. how did you find out?' in addition to introducing a question, wh-words can be used as intensifiers. in this function, they frequently co-occur with evidentials with dubitative value in repetitive syntactic constructions to suggest non-reliability. (33) вие ми говорите тук за окабеляване, под какъв ъгъл щяла да бъде [will-evfsg part be-3sgfut] камерата, какво щяло да се заснеме [will-evnsg part refl shoot-3sgpresperf]? 'you're talking to me here about wiring, what angle would the camera be at, what would be shot?' as a sign of reaction to the false statement, the speaker may address the audience thus imitating a rhetoric dispute. in such context, vocatives or discourse markers for urging reaction of the addressee(s) are used introducing the sentence that follows the evidentials with dubitative meaning. (34) моето предложение към вас е да не връщаме нещата там, където не биваслужебното правителство какво било казало [be-evnsg say-aapnsg], какво не било казало [neg be-evnsg say-aapnsg]. хайде да видим този доклад, той действително отразява състоянието на армията. 'my proposal to you is that we should not put things back where they should not be -the caretaker government, whatever it said, whatever it did not say. come on, let's see this report, it really reflects the state of the army.' (35) да не говорим за това, че беше споменато за варна как щяла да стане [will-evfsg part become-3sgpresperf] логистичен център за износ на украинско зърно. а бе хора, в средите на българските зърнопроизводители ако кажете нещо такова, те ще умрат от смях… 'not to mention that it was said about varna that it would become a logistics center for the export of ukrainian grain. come on, people, in the circles of bulgarian grain producers, if you say something like that, they will laugh out loud...' as it can be seen in the contexts discussed so far, different markers supporting the non-reliability interpretation can occur in the same text segment. on the other hand, there are contexts in which evidentials with dubitative value are the only marker of non-reliability. ## conclusions and applications the auxiliaries бил 'be-evidential', щял 'willevidential' and нямал(о) 'will not-evidential' are used to form complex evidentials, which in political discourse are most often interpreted as dubitatives. the research based on the parlamint-bg corpus reveals that 867 out of 955 occurrences, or 91% of the complex evidentials have dubitative value. the percentage is higher if only the evidentials with omission of the auxiliary съм 'be' are considered: 803 out of 819, or 98%. the analyzed auxiliaries may be seen as a grammatical means to express non-reliability. as compared with some lexical means that suggest non-reliability, they are not less frequent in parliamentary speech: the evidential auxiliaries altogether have 955 occurrences, the lemma of the noun лъжа 'a lie'1304, the lemma of the noun манипулация 'manipulation' 688, the verb излъга 'he/she lied' 88. the study has twofold application: for recognition, disambiguation and annotation of evidential forms in corpora, on one hand, and for sentiment analysis, on the other.