Introduction

Chapter Summary

This introductory chapter of the book Non-veridicality and Evaluation brings together a diverse group of researchers with interests in areas with connection to evaluation in discourse. The papers contained in the volume addresses issues having to do with how evaluation and subjectivity are interpreted in context, the context being sometimes determined by the presence of non-veridical markers, and sometimes by other discourse phenomena such as coherence relations. Evaluation and non-veridicality engage in an obvious interaction. Evaluation may be expressed as definitive, or it may be tempered by a non-veridical element, in which case it tends to have a weaker effect. Non-veridicality or irrealis refers to the expressions, such as modals and negation that affect the truth conditions of elements in their scope, and, in particular, of evaluative elements. Coherence relations are also of interest here because they interact with non-veridical markers to change the meaning of evaluation.

Keywords: coherence relations; evaluation; non-veridicality; subjectivity