The syntax of knowing (and beyond)

In this talk, I present evidence from a range of linguistic phenomena that the most unmarked types of clauses are used to assert a speaker’s knowledge about the actual world. This evidence includes propositional attitude verbs, modality, clause-typing, mood, evidentiality, and discourse particles. While it is not the case that knowledge cannot be marked as such, we show that it need not be linguistically marked, unlike other propositional attitudes. These linguistic patterns invite the conclusion that knowledge (rather than belief) is the most basic propositional attitude. Specifically, I shall argue that knowledge simply involves the representation of a bare proposition, without any attitude. The “feeling of knowing” (in the sense of Burton 2009) ensues. Any other propositional attitude is more complex and arguably requires an explicit representation (and thus linguistic marking) of the attitude itself. Thus, I argue that patterns of linguistic markedness can contribute to the long-standing philosophical debate as to whether knowledge or belief is more basic.