Englisches Seminar, room 13
Certainty Markers across Early Modern English Genres
This talk will present some findings from an ongoing research project on epistemic and evidential stance in Early Modern English. The focus lies on the function of certainty markers, which are studied in the context of different Early Modern English genres.
Certainty markers like certainly, truly and I am sure have been said to present an (apparent) paradox by signalling “an element of doubt” (Halliday 2014[1985]: 698), instead of expressing certainty. Halliday (2014[1985]: 698) argues that unmodified assertions express a higher degree of certainty than assertions marked as certain and he concludes that “we only say we are certain when we are not”.
In the first part of my talk, I will present a new approach to modelling the function of certainty markers, resolving this apparent paradox. In the second part, I will present results on the distribution and use of certainty markers across three different Early Modern English genres. I will conclude with a case study on the function of certainty markers in the restoration play The Country Wife.
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