Aperçu des notions d’évidentialité et de médiativité

This paper attempts to explain the terminological and conceptual confusion between evidentiality and mediativity and to show what they share as well as what separates them. It emphasizes the fact that the terms mediative and mediativity (mediative utterance) should not be automatically rendered by evidential and evidentiality respectively. It is argued that the main function of the grammatical category of the mediative in languages where it can be identified as such—is to show the disengagement of the speaker as regards the information provided, the source of such information being a consequence but not a determining factor in the choice of the adequate form.