What is grounding?

Definition
	Grounding refers to establishing the time, location or actuality of a situation according to some reference point.

Discussion

Certain morphosyntactic operations, such as inflection, ground the situation that the clause describes.

If the operation is…	Then the reference point is normally …
Temporal	Now (the time of utterance).
Spatial	Here (the place of utterance).
Modal or evidential	Actuality (the situation described by the clause did or will actually take place).

See also
	What is evidentiality? What is mood and modality?

Source
	Payne 1997b

Concept module: grounding
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): G
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 26 March 2002