Category of evidentiality in Azerbaijanian

Evidentiality is a grammatical category which is informs source of knowledge in a sentence expressed by speaker. The source of knowledge can be obtained directly or indirectly. The direct knowledge refers to knowledges that obtained by perception of the speaker directly without any intermediaries or as a result of experience. The indirect knowledge could be achieved by inference, quotation from second or a third hand information source. Speaker in evidentiality comes into play after the event, not at the time of the event (Doğan 2018: 1). The knowledge that the speaker notices subsequently, gained by establishing a cause and effect relationship is indirect. In addition, rumor, quotation and also referenced to expressions on narratives from another which heard by speaker are expressing as indirect knowledge markers. Showing the source of knowledge in world languages are different language by language. Some languages could mark source of knowledge with directly or indirectly, either morphological way or lexical-syntactic way. In Turkic languages directly and indirectly knowledge sources is stated with morphological way. Suffixes named with past tense suffixes not only function to declare tense, mark also directly and indirectly knowledge sources. The direct knowledges are marked with -dX, the indirect knowledges are marked with -mXş, -Xb(dXr) suffix and -(y)mXş complementary verb in Azerbaijani, while the direct knowledges are marked with -DX, the indirect knowledges are marked with -mXş suffix and –(y)mXş complementary verb in Turkish. Lexical units like elə bil, yəqin, deməli named with modal sözlər in Azerbaijani grammar, consolidate knowledge source and also take a considerable role to ascertainment the pragmatic meanings that markers add to sentence. In this study, Azerbaijani will be reviewed again on –mXş, -Xb(dXr) suffixes and -(y)mXş complementary verb in the context of evidential category. When marking the indirect knowledge, it will be tried to determine in which state –mXş or –Xb(dXr) marker is preferred. These suffixes will also be discussed in the context of language relations. Especially focus will be on to the Persian-Azerbaijani language relations in the context of the evidential category. The pragmatic meanings of the evidential suffixes in Azerbaijani will be explained with examples. Modal words in Azerbaijani and their effect on the evidential category will be emphasized.