{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.028328611898016998, 'fraction_numerical': 0.007554296506137866, 'mean_word_length': 5.235294117647059, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
From perfect to narrative tense


2,500 years ago Pāṇini identified the Sanskrit perfect form as expressing a non-witnessed, and therefore,
evidential meaning. Across languages, the perfect is still attested as one of the central verb forms acquiring meanings of
information source. This paper investigates the development of the perfect meaning into evidential meanings from two vantage
points: firstly, cross-linguistically, and, secondly, in the North-Tungusic language Even. The perfect meaning typically evolves
into the evidential meaning of inference, a development which has been documented in two of the three main dialects of Even by
Malchukov (2000). Inference is accompanied by a mirative interpretation in
first-person contexts; the current study shows that this interpretation extends to second person. As is cross-linguistically
common, in Even inference has evolved to a non-witnessed meaning. By losing its perfect “nature”, this use has crossed over to the
domain of discourse to signal a narrative genre by functioning as a narrative tense.