Epistemic modality refers to possibility related to available evidence. van der Auwera and Ammann (2008) provide English examples such as <i>John <b>may</b> have arrived</i> and <i>John <b>must</b> have arrived</i>. <br><br> In these sentences, whether or not John has arrived is established based on available evidence.

A ‘yes’ value to this property indicates that the language expresses this sort of modality with a non-verbal lexical category, such as an adverb. <br><br> For example, Wardaman has no verbal or affixal epistemic modals, but uses the adverb <i>maybe</i> to express this, as shown below (from van der Auwera & Ammann 2008).
<br>
<br><i><b>Yilama</b> ya-yinyja ma-yinyja wurrugu ngarlg-ba</i>
<br><b>Maybe</b> IRR.3sg-go HAB.3sg-go 3n.sg.DAT call-PCL
<br>’Maybe he’ll go, he always goes to call them.’ <br><br>
<b>Reference</b><br>
van der Auwera, Johan & Ammann, Andreas. 2008. Epistemic Possibility.
In Haspelmath et al. (2008), chapter 75.
Available online at <a href=â€http://wals.info/feature/75â€>http://wals.info/feature/75</a href>.	
