A mirative (or admirative; abbreviated mir) is a particular grammatical element in some languages that indicates unexpected and new information. The grammatical category involving miratives is known as mirativity.
The seminal article on mirativity is Scott DeLancey (1997).
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Languages that have miratives include Ainu, Albanian, Tibetan, Turkish, Western Apache, Barbacoan languages (Tsafiki, Cha'palaa, Awa Pit), Hare (Slavey), Korean, and the constructed language Na'vi.
The non-personal knowledge past tense paradigm may be used to express the mirative in the Aymara language. This usage is most striking with a first-person actor:
Adding 啊 (Mandarin: a) in the end of a sentence indicates emphasis similar to Korean 네요 below. Similarly, particle 了 (le) has a form 啦 (la) that adds this meaning to 了.
Kız-ınız çok iyi piyano çal-ıyor-muş.
daughter-your very good piano play-PRES-MIR
Your daughter plays the piano very well!— DeLancey (1997)
딸이 피아노를 완전 잘 하네요.
ttal-i phiano-lul wanjen jal ha-ney-yo.
daughter-SUBJ piano-OBJ very well do-MIR-HON
Your daughter plays the piano very well!
Miratives often have a dual function indicating inferential evidentiality. Although there is an overlap between the marking of mirativity and evidentiality in some languages (e.g. Tibetan), other languages have two independent systems that mark both of these separately (e.g. Western Apache).
Miratives are often translated into English with an exclamatory intonation pattern.
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