Evidentiality and egophoricity are two sides of the same coin in Wadu Pumi. On the one hand, speakers report on things that they are involved in themselves (egophoric); on the other hand they report on the actions of others (evidential). There are three sets of evidential and egophoric markers in Wadu Pumi that occur in the same (post-verbal) slot and cannot be used together. The markers are given in the Table and an example of their position in a clause is given in (1).

(1)
I sit down regularly, I sat down (in the morning) as well; it's very cold in the morning.

Similar markers in related dialects have been analysed in various ways. Lu (1983:42) treats them as a single paradigm of past, present and future tense markers. Fu (1998:104) analyses them rather as perfective, progressive and prospective aspect markers. Ding (1998) does not treat them as one paradigm, but analyses the three different sets of markers as aspectual, evidential and modality markers respectively.

This paper will discuss how the temporal, aspectual and modal notions interact with the egophoric-evidential parameter in Wadu Pumi, and whether these three sets of markers can be analyzed as a single paradigm in or not.

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