Evidence / Source Signal
How does the speaker know?
含义
A signal that marks whether information is seen, heard, inferred, assumed, reported, remembered, or generally known.
如何识别
Ask whether the sentence shows the source of knowledge.
示例
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
语言视角
在母语中
Mandarin can mark information source with lexical phrases such as 听说, 据说, 看来, but evidentiality is not generally obligatory.
听说他搬家了。
tīngshuō tā bānjiā le = heard-say he moved LE
在目标语言中
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.