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Epistemic modality is a sub-type of linguistic modality that deals with a speaker's evaluation/judgment of, degree of confidence in, or belief of the knowledge upon which a proposition is based. In other words, epistemic modality refers to the way speakers communicate their doubts, certainties, and guesses — their "modes of knowing".

Epistemic modality may be indicated

• (a) grammatically: through
  • modal verbs (e.g., English: may, might, must; German: sollen),
  • a particular grammatical mood on verbs, or
  • a specific grammatical element, such as an affix (Tuyuca: -hīyi "reasonable to assume") or particle; or

• (b) non-grammatically (often lexically): through
  • adverbials (e.g., English: perhaps, possibly), or
  • through a certain intonational pattern.

Many linguists consider evidentiality (the indication of the source of the information upon which a proposition is based) to be a type of epistemic modality. An English example follows:

I doubt that it rained yesterday. (epistemic: judgment of information source)

I heard that it rained yesterday. (evidential: identification of information source)

However, other linguists feel that evidentiality is distinct from and not necessarily related to modality. Some languages mark evidentiality separately from epistemic modality.

• Linguistic modality
• Epistemic mood
• Grammatical mood
• Evidentiality
• Epistemic probability
• Epistemology

• Modality and Evidentiality
• SIL: mood and modality
• SIL: epistemic modality
  • SIL: judgment modality: (assumptive mood, declarative mood, deductive mood, dubitative mood, hypothetical mood, interrogative mood, speculative mood)
  • SIL: evidentiality

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• Saeed, John I. (2003). Sentence semantics 1: Situations: Modality and evidentiality. In J. I Saeed, Semantics (2nd. ed) (Sec. 5.3, pp. 135-143). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22692-3, ISBN 0-631-22693-1.