Evidence / Source Signal
How does the speaker know?
Ý nghĩa
A signal that marks whether information is seen, heard, inferred, assumed, reported, remembered, or generally known.
Cách nhận biết
Ask whether the sentence shows the source of knowledge.
Ví dụ
apparently|I heard|it seems|they say
I heard that|apparently true|it looks like
Apparently, the train is late.
Visual guide
claim: the train is late
^
evidence layer:
how does speaker know?
I heard / it seems / apparently
Apparently, the train is late.
Evidence choices: seen -> direct I heard -> heard they say -> reported it seems -> inferred apparently -> indirect
Góc nhìn theo ngôn ngữ
Trong ngôn ngữ của Bạn
Vietnamese has reportative and inferential expressions such as nghe nói, hình như, có vẻ, but no obligatory evidential grammar.
Nghe nói anh ấy đã chuyển nhà.
hear say he past move house
Trong ngôn ngữ đang học
Japanese has useful hearsay and inference markers, though not a mandatory evidential system.
電車が遅れているそうです。
I hear that the train is late.
Learners may confuse そうだ for hearsay with そうだ for appearance.
Good transfer potential
This block behaves relatively similarly, so you can transfer intuition more safely between the two languages.