Chapter 16 Evidentiality, or knowing how we know
Direct experience hi
hi explicitly claims that the speaker perceived the event or state through their own senses.
mia hi nila. — I see this directly.
shia to hi wepu. — They left; I witnessed it.
peloru rulo hi nai. — The flower is red, as I directly perceive it.
The particle claims witnesshood, not merely strong confidence. A speaker who saw traces after an event uses ke for the conclusion rather than hi for the event itself.
The boundary
Direct evidence may come through sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, or another immediate bodily perception. The boundary is simple to state even when a real case is difficult: hi concerns perception of the claimed event or state, while ke concerns signs from which the claim is inferred.
The contrast:
shia to hi wepu. — I witnessed them leave.
shia to ke wepu. — I infer from evidence that they left.
The first may matter in testimony; the second may be the more accurate account when the speaker returned to an empty room. Neither particle tells the listener how good the eyesight, lighting, memory, or inference was.
Form and position
Breath passes through the open glottis for h and moves into high front i. The form has no special claim to immediacy hidden in its sound.
Evidentiality follows voice and precedes modality. Past witnesshood keeps tense first:
womu to se hi lorima. — The house was built; I witnessed it.
Witnessing can be worth stating when accounts differ. It also puts a clear responsibility on the claim: hi says the speaker perceived this event, and another person may ask what, where, and under what conditions.