Topic summary
Evidentials
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Evidentiality.
Introduction
Evidentials can also be used to "deflect culpability" in a statement. In his dissertation on Nanti, a Peruvian Amazonian language, Lev Michael refers to an example in which a young girl is accidentally burned, and a community member questions her mother about how it happened. Her mother uses the evidential marker ka which translates to "presumably," to deflect responsibility for the girl's mistake.