Evidentials in Interrogatives: A Case Study of Korean

Abstract

This paper concerns a puzzle about the interpretation of Korean directevidential -te- in interrogatives which I call evidential perspective shift in questions (‘origo shift of evidentials’ in quesitons in Garrett 2001). This puzzle consists in the evidential being interpreted as regarding a source of information of the answerer rather than the questioner. Here I introduce a novel semantic approach to this phenomenon which derives it as a consequence of the interaction of the meaning of questions and of evidentials. I will also illustrate the conceptual and empirical advantages of this view over previous accounts.