Studi Slavistici XXIII (2026) 1
Articoli

Argumentative Functions of the Evidential Markers: The Case of očevidno

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  • Valentina Noseda
Valentina Noseda
Catholic University of Milan
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Studi_Slavis-18115

Published 2026-07-02

Keywords

  • Evidentiality,
  • Argumentation,
  • očevidno,
  • Russian

Copyright (c) 2026 Valentina Noseda

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper investigates the evidential and argumentative uses and functions of the Russian discourse marker očevidno, with particular attention to the degree of epistemic reliability expressed by the marker. Očevidno is examined both as an evidential strategy – indicating the source or mode of information acquisition – and as an argumentative indicator supporting the speaker’s claim. The analysis is based on a sample of 200 occurrences drawn from the Social Media subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus, annotated according to three parameters identified as crucial for the analysis: type of evidentiality, type of datum and type of premises. The findings show that the degree of epistemic reliability depends on the interaction of these factors and that, even when the asserted content is not objectively reliable, the speaker may employ the marker to present a questionable statement as self-evident.

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