Lexical vs. grammatical evidentiality in French and Italian

This article discusses Romance data corroborating a multifarious account of evidentiality in which different dimensions connected to the source of information are distinguished. It will be demonstrated that the diverse distributional patterns of lexical items as opposed to grammatical forms in the domains of inferential and reportive evidentiality can hardly be accounted for unless a distinction is made between the source of evidence, intended as the locus where the information is acquired (internal or external source with respect to the speaker), and the mode of knowing, i.e. the process leading to the acquisition of the information (directly visual, indirectly through inferences, reports).