Asserting

Tom was asserting, judging by the verb in front of him, that the sentence was past tense, while Mary, seeing the gerundive under her eyes, was swearing it was a present.

She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch.

From this perspective, when one evaluates assertions one is primarily evaluating assertings performances on the part of asserters, and the evaluations of what is said in those assertings in some way depend upon these prior evaluations.