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John Charles Smith : « L'évolution sémantique et pragmatique des adverbes déictiques ici, là, et là-bas » The semantic and pragmatic value of the French deictic adverbs ici, là, and là-bas has changed significantly between the pre-Classical language and the present day. The development of these items involves subjectification — a tendency for meanings « to become increasingly situated in the speakers subjective belief state or attitude towards the proposition ». At the same time, the data enable us to conclude that semantic change involving metaphor takes place within a « window » , and that forms can be affected by a given change only if they exist during the relevant period.

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The main goal of this chapter is critically to address from a comparative perspective some of the most important issues in Romance deixis, covering the restructuring of Latin demonstrative and personal-spatial systems into the various Romance varieties; the diachronic and synchronic distributions, formal developments and internal organizations of the numerous Romance demonstratives and personal-spatial deictic systems; comparisons and detailed examinations of the structure and distribution of single, binary, and ternary deictic systems across Romance.