Evidential Modality in Kampar Malay Dialect

Abstract

Forms of evidence as a subcategory of modality have yet to receive particular attention in Indonesian linguistics studies. Researchers do not give a distinct classification to the modality subcategory of the form of the marker, which has a distinctive characteristic. It means that the public’s expression of Indonesian language modalities in lexical patterns for both oral and written is not observable. Moreover, it is different from languages like Japanese with grammatical construction. Other research has identified the equivalent of evidential forms in Japanese in Indonesian and found a unique use of the term’s appearances, taste, function, and meaning the evidential. The Malay language has contributed to the Indonesian language and must have a distinctive form of evidence. It is commonly caused by many unexpected attitudes of the speaker when conveying a proposition (state of the matter or events). However, this study investigates the form, function, and meaning of evidential modalities in Kampar Malay dialects in Riau Province, Indonesia. The Kampar Malay dialect is one of the subdialects of the Malay language in Riau. This study refers to Narrog’s concept of pure evidence, where the speakers’ attitudes do not contain elements of inference (allegations) and inferential evidence that the speaker can distance himself from consideration, at least partially, with doubts of doubt. The data was obtained from native speakers through interviews. Furthermore, the markers of modality evidence were analyzed for syntactic behavior by the distribution method. Based on the analysis results, in Kampar Malay dialect, it was revealed that the revealer of pure evidence was not marked, while inferential evidence was marked by the use of sobuik, condoe, dongow cito, dongaw-dongaw cito, keceknyo, gakde, ndak kan lai, aso den, aso-aso, nampak, nampaknyo, nampak e, nampak a, and nampak-nampak.