Folklore as an evidential category

Folklore refers to information that we have learnt as a part of the history of our own people and that has passed on from generation to generation for hundreds, or even thousands of years. This paper shows that as an information source folklore has features in common with other information sources, most notably hearsay, but it nevertheless constitutes an information source of its own, characterized as [-personal] [-direct] and [+internalized]. In addition, the paper proposes a formal-functional typology based on the element used for folklore coding. It is also shown that the semantic similarity of the coded element with the proposed definition of folklore corresponds to its frequency. Finally, the paper discusses the central theoretical implications this study has for our understanding of evidentiality.