THE ROLE OF FACTIVE PREDICATES IN THE INDEXICALIZATION OF STANCE - A DISCOURSE PERSPECTIVE

Based on a corpus of 112,000 words of spoken discourse, this paper exa mines the use in natural conversation of 'factive' predicates (Kiparsk y and Kiparsky, 1968). It is suggested that factive predicates operate as indexical symbols (Jakobson. 1971) to encode both a semantic, refe rential meaning or proposition, as well as to index pragmatically an e pistemic stance on the part of the speaker. The role of factive predic ates in the constitution of the indexical ground of discourse (Bauman and Briggs, 1990) is also considered. Following Chafe (1994) another, more dynamic model of speaker is presented here, which takes into cons ideration the multiple footings (Goffman, 1981), or perspectives, whic h speakers adopt in discourse, regardless of speaker's logical knowled ge state. This model not only offers an explanation for the use of fac tive constructions in irrealis discourse contexts (where previous disc ussions suggested that factive predicates 'lose their factivity'), but also explains why factive constructions index an inherent duality of stance.