Reportive evidentiality: a perception-based complement approach to digital discourse in Spanish and English

Abstract

The present study builds on the evidential overtones of the main verbs of physical perception (visual) VER and SEE taking DECIR and SAY-reportive complements retrieved from a self-compiled Google corpus in Spanish and English. This opens up for research the possibility of a "verdecir" and "seesay" evidentiality in Spanish and English digital discourse. The analysis of the results confirms that the main verbs of direct vision VER and SEE take evidential values and provide justificatory support to the reported and quoted information provided by the DECIR and SAY post-complements based on the characteristics of the visual sources of knowledge, the meanings taken by the main perception verbs and the verbs of saying, and their complementation patterns of evidential perception.