Evidentiality

Reportedly, allegedly,
Apparently, supposedly,

You saw it with your own two eyes.
It really looked like it happened.

You felt it. You saw it. You saw
Some sort of evidence for it.

Somebody told you about it
Who said they’d heard about it first

From someone who’d seen it themselves.
And so on. All the old syntax

And clarifying semantics
Boasting degrees of confidence,

Where are they now? What language starts
With verb forms including endings

To indicate that you learned this
From a print source, or gatekeeper,

Or web encyclopedia,
Or chatbot, or mother of codes?