Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality in Lega

Abstract

Although encoding of evidential distinctions has been attested in most language areas of the world, relatively little has been written about evidentiality in sub-Saharan African languages. This paper describes the situation in Lega, a Bantu language spoken in eastern Zaire. The study considers Lega data in light of several models of evidentiality and suggests that their may be two organizational principles operating in different languages: one based on source of information, the other on mode of knowing.