Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected information

Discourse update at the service of mirativity effects: the case of the Discursive Dative

“…This contrasts with previous accounts of similar such effects (see inter alia DeLancey 1997DeLancey , 2001Rett 2009;Peterson 2013;Rett & Murray 2013), which rely on the analysis that the state of affairs denoted by the prejacent is not part of a contextually available set of the speaker's personal expectations, and therefore not expected to occur.…”

Focus fronting, unexpectedness, and evaluative implicatures

“…Several studies have highlighted that indirect evidentials may have a mirative function or overtone (DeLancey 1997, Lazard 1999, Aikhenvald 2004, Peterson 2010, Rett & Murray 2013; however, according to DeLancey (1997DeLancey ( , 2001) and Aikhenvald (2004Aikhenvald ( , 2012, the two grammatical categories must be viewed as distinct: while evidentials signal the source of information, mirativity marks surprise as a result of unexpected information irrespective of the source. Once again, it is quite conceivable -at least at the present stage of understanding -that mirativity overlaps with evidentiality in some languages or structures, but not in others: in the same way as there are evidential systems that do not express mirativity, there are also mirative systems that do not express evidentiality (Aikhenvald 2004: 195).…”

“…Following Cruschina (2012: 117-118), we will dub the structure exemplified in (1)-(4) mirative 3:3 DeLancey's (1997) definition of the grammatical category of mirativity, whereby the speaker expresses that the information she is asserting has been very recently acquired and is not yet integrated in her system of beliefs (see Aikhenvald 2012 for general discussion). By using the term "mirative", our aim is to contribute to the empirical call for "further in-depth studies of how languages mark new information and surprise in their grammars" (Aikhenvald 2004: 215).…”

“…20 Despite being generally associated with the speaker's surprise (DeLancey 1997(DeLancey , 2001) in her survey of the central properties of the mirative systems across languages, Aikhenvald (2012) points out that mirativity may also reflect the addressee's or the conversation participants' surprise or unexpectedness. In !Xun, for example, the mirative marker, which can occur both in statements and in questions, can also mark information that is new and surprising to the addressee or to the audience, so that an event is not necessarily marked as unexpected to the speaker alone, "but to anyone involved in the conversation" (Aikhenvald 2012: 448, citing König 2013.…”

Dos tipos de construcción admirativa: Aproximación a las formas de codificar la sorpresa desde la perspectiva de la gramaticalización

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La admiratividad ha sido definida como la categoría semántica correspondiente a la sorpresa que provoca en el hablante la información que transmite cierta proposición (DeLancey 1997(DeLancey , 2001). En otro trabajo (Soto y Hasler 2013), la admiratividad se ha caracterizado como una categoría subjetiva compuesta por dos eventualidades: la eventualidad relatada y la sorpresa que ésta provoca.

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