What counts as an evidential unit? The case of evidential complex constructions in Italian and Modern Greek

Abstract

Abstract The evidential meaning traditionally attributed to modal auxiliaries is conveyed in Italian and Greek by complex constructions clustering both modal and aspectual features. The evidential reading of Italian and Greek modal auxiliaries, indeed, is only licenced when the modals take as complements stative, progressive, habitual or resultative subordinates. A feature of aspectual incompleteness of the subordinate is therefore necessary in order to obtain an evidential reading of the auxiliary. This leads us to propose the entire construction combining the auxiliary, the subordinate and the specification of its aspectual values be taken as an entry of the database of evidential units.