1 Symposium on evidentiality, egophoricity, and engagement: descriptive and typological perspectives 17-18 March 2016, Stockholm University Michael Daniel (HSE/MSU, Moscow) Timur Maisak (Institute of Linguistics, Moscow) Evidential constructions with the auxiliary ‘find’: an areal feature across East Caucasian 1. East Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) language family Spoken in: Daghestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia (Russia), adjacent areas of Azerbaijan and Georgia. Includes ca. 40 languages; the main branches are: • NAKH o 3 languages, incl. Chechen • AVAR-ANDIC o Avar and 8 Andic languages (Bagwalal, Godoberi, Akhwakh etc. ) • TSEZIC o 5-6 languages (Tsez, Bezhta, Hinuq, Khwarshi etc.) • Lak • DARGWA o ~15 languages, incl. Standard Dargwa, Kubachi, Mehweb, Itsari • LEZGIC o 9 languages, incl. Lezgian, Tabassaran, Archi, Udi • Khinalug Typical features: elaborate consonant inventories (ejectives, post-velars), ergative case alignment, rich declension systems (including dozens of locative forms), gender, rich tense and aspect systems (including aspectual and evidential contrasts), dominant SOV order, etc. ANDIC and TSEZIC languages are minority (and mostly unwritten) languages belonging to the vast Avar-speaking and Avar-dominated area, with a long history of bilingualism in Avar. Archi and Mehweb do not belong to these branches genetically, but are part of the same area: cf. the AAT (= Avar-Andic-Tsezic) area on the map. The present paper is based on textual and elicited data from Archi and Mehweb, as well as on the available description of Bagwalal (by Tatevosov & Maisak, cf. Kibrik et al. 2001) and other Andic and Tsezic languages. 2. Evidentiality distinctions in East Caucasian languages Most East Caucasian languages display evidential distinctions in their verbal systems (cf. Forker 2016 for an overview), the two most common strategies being: • the use of a perfect tense as an ‘unwitnessed’, indirect evidential past (expressing hearsay and inference) – the non-perfect, ‘simple past’ tense being neutral with respect to evidentiality or tending to occur in witnessed contexts • the use of quotative / reportative enclitics (usually going back to the verb ‘say’) with various finite forms, to express specifically the hearsay meaning