Interpersonal alignments and epistemic marking in Kalapalo (Southern Cariban, Brazil)

Kalapalo epistemic features are central to the pragmatic functions of interpersonal
alignments. There is a set of seven hearsay evidentials mainly used in narrative
and in quoted discourse, eight initial position epistemic expressives (EXP), five
evidential suffixes (EV) and hearsay quotative evidential strategies (qUOT), together
with a large set of (28) second position epistemic clitics/particles (EM). The latter
confirm that epistemic judgment is essentially a triadic stance procedure involving
the social actors engaged in conversational interaction (an initial speaker, an
interlocutor or listener-responder) and the epistemic object/proposition. I sort EM into
six sets, two of which (A, B) mark the speaker’s “internal” and “external” degrees
of epistemic judgement. (C) mark the speaker’s contraspective wishing or hoping,
(D )mark the speaker’s re-evaluation, correctives or denial of a proposition with
a focus on new or reconsidered information. The final two sets (E, F) concern the
speaker’s attempts at (or conflicts with) epistemic alignment with a listener or 3rd
person, based on understanding of the epistemic object. While epistemic modality
in the sense of a “scale” or “grade” occurs, in Kalapalo there are other non-modal
meanings including participation (or not) of the speaker and listener and a third
person in an epistemic context, mirativity, incredulity (an extreme skepticism or
unwillingness to believe), and conflict or denial, affinal civility and affection.