IndEvid: A grammaticalized form exists to express indirect evidentials.
In Synja Khanty, evidentiality is coded by participle constructions, which in the active voice take personal suffixes, but they are not marked for person in the passive voice (Nikolaeva 1999a, 1999b, Csepregi 2014b, 2014c):
active | ||
present tense | -t- +Vx | |
past tense | -m + Vx | |
passive | ||
present tense | -ti | |
past tense | -m |
(based on Nikolaeva 1999b)
Only indirect evidentiality is marked morphologically (as part of the verbal conjugation paradigm) in Synja Khanty. The particles matti ‘it is said so’, śi ēwǝlt ‘it seems’ (Nikolaeva 1999a: 93), matti ot ‘something, so to say’ may also be used in the same function alongside the morphological markers. In the northern Khanty dialects, there is a differentiation between a) auditory, b) resultative, c) inferential and d) mirative evidential (Nikolaeva 1999a: 89‒94, Csepregi 2014c 101‒102). The evidentially marked verb form is the last element of clause (Nikolaeva 1999a), thus, it is interpreted as a finite form (in the active voice).