Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-j4x9h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-05T08:38:40.090Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evidentiality and Double Tense in Matses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

David W. Fleck
David W. Fleck*
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
*
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University, Victoria, 3086, Australia [d.fleck@latrobe.edu.au]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Matses language of the Panoan family, spoken in Amazonian Peru and Brazil, has one of the most intricate evidential systems ever described, requiring speakers to precisely and explicitly code their source of information every time they report a past event. In a typologically unique inflectional configuration that I call DOUBLE TENSE the speakers specify both (i) how long ago an inferred event happened and (ii) how long ago the evidence upon which the inference was made was encountered. This article explores in detail the Matses evidential system, focusing on several novel patterns relevant to the typological study of evidentiality and providing social and historical perspectives.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 589 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., and Dixon, R. M. W.. 1998. Evidentials and areal typology: A case study from Amazonia. Language Sciences 20. 241–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139165815CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fields, Harriet L. 1974. Notes on Mayoruna grammar. Información de Campo 126. Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.Google Scholar
Fleck, David W. 2003. A grammar of Matses. Houston: Rice University dissertation.Google Scholar
Fleck, David W. 2006. Antipassive in Matses. Studies in Language 30. 541–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kneeland, Harriet. 1979. Lecciones para el aprendizaje del idioma Mayoruna. Yarinacocha, Peru: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.Google Scholar
Mithun, Marianne. 1986. Evidential diachrony in Northern Iroquoian. Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology, ed. by Chafe, Wallace and Nichols, Johanna, 89–112. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Valenzuela, Pilar M. 2003. Evidentiality in Shipibo-Konibo, with a comparative overview of the category in Panoan. Studies in evidentiality, ed. by Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and Dixon, R. M. W., 33–61. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.54.05valCrossRefGoogle Scholar