This paper deals with the scope properties of evidential meanings. It rejects the idea that different types of evidential meanings have different scope properties. More basically, it rejects the idea that evidential meanings apply to ‘speech acts’ or to ‘states of affairs’. The paper argues that evidential meanings share scope properties in the sense that they are all conceptually dependent on a ‘proposition’ – i.e. a meaning unit which can be said to have a truth value. Subsequently, it outlines how the scope properties can be employed in criteria of membership of the category of evidentiality.

Keywords: scope, propositions, states of affairs, speech acts