Discourse-structuring functions of Abui demonstratives

Kratochvíl, František

doi:10.1075/tsl.96.26kra

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Abui, for instance, has hearer‐based demonstratives that indicate a contrast between two referents in different distances to the addressee (cf. Kratochvíl ). Thus, although demonstratives are not generally used to indicate distance, they provide spatial orientation and often mark a contrast between referents in different distances to the deictic center.…”

Section: Demonstratives and The Analysis Of Frames Of Referencementioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space

Diessel¹

2014

Language and Linguist. Compass

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There is a large body of research indicating that speakers of (familiar) European languages tend to encode and conceptualize space from an egocentric perspective, but linguistic fieldworkers have shown that speakers of certain other languages (e.g. Tzeltal) often describe the same spatial scenes based on fixed coordinates of the environment. This has led some researcher to challenge longstanding assumptions about semantic universals of space and the uniformity of spatial cognition. Specifically, Levinson and colleagues have questioned the hypothesis that there is a universal preference for egocentric, body-oriented representations of space in language and cognition. It is the purpose of the present paper to reconsider this hypothesis in light of an important class of spatial terms that has been disregarded in this research: demonstratives such as English this and that and here and there. The paper shows that the semantic interpretation of demonstratives presupposes a coordinate system with the same conceptual constituents as body-based expressions such as left and right or up and down. Combining evidence from linguistic typology with psychological research on joint attention, it is argued that demonstratives constitute a universal class of spatial terms that invoke an egocentric, body-anchored frame of reference grounded in basic principles of spatial and social cognition. The Cross-linguistic Classification of Frames of ReferenceThere are many different ways of indicating locations and directions in language (e.g. Talmy 2000). Of particular interest are spatial expressions whose interpretation involves a coordinate system, commonly referred to as a frame of reference. These coordinate systems have been at center stage in current linguistic and psycholinguistic research on spatial language and Demonstratives and Frames of Reference 117

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Section: Demonstratives and The Analysis Of Frames Of Referencementioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space

Diessel¹

2014

Language and Linguist. Compass

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“…Systems that take more than one conversational party as spatial anchor points may then be elaborated further by taking degrees of distance from two or more of these reference points. Abui, for instance (Kratochvil, 2007, 2011) has speaker-proximal, addressee-proximal, speaker-medial, addressee-medial, and distal (note that the speaker vs. addressee anchor point becomes irrelevant once the referent is far enough away), among other values bringing in factors like elevation. For example, one would say do fala for ‘this house, near me’, to fala for ‘that house, near you’, o fala or lo fala for ‘that house, some distance from me (but closer to me than you)’, yo fala for ‘that house, some distance from you (but closer to you than me)’, and oro fala for ‘that house (far from us both)’.…”

Section: Demonstratives and The Coordination Of Attention To Objects mentioning

confidence: 99%

The grammar of engagement I: framework and initial exemplification

2017

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a b st r a c t Human language offers rich ways to track, compare, and engage the attentional and epistemic states of interlocutors. While this task is central to everyday communication, our knowledge of the cross-linguistic grammatical means that target such intersubjective coordination has remained basic. In two serialised papers, we introduce the term 'engagement' to refer to grammaticalised means for encoding the relative mental directedness of speaker and addressee towards an entity or state of affairs, and describe examples of engagement systems from around the world. Engagement systems express the speaker's assumptions about the degree to which their attention or knowledge is shared (or not shared) by the addressee. Engagement categories can operate at the level of entities in the here-and-now (deixis), in the unfolding discourse (definiteness vs indefiniteness), entire event-depicting propositions (through markers with clausal scope), and even metapropositions (potentially scoping over evidential values). In this first paper, we introduce engagement and situate it with respect to existing work on intersubjectivity in language. We then explore the key role of deixis in coordinating attention and expressing t h e g r a m m a r o f e n g a g e m e n t i 111 engagement, moving through increasingly intercognitive deictic systems from those that focus on the the location of the speaker, to those that encode the attentional state of the addressee.k e y w o r d s : engagement, attention, intersubjectivity, deixis, coordination.These two individuals, the producer and the recipient of language, or as we may more conveniently call them, the speaker and the hearer, and their relations to one another, should never be lost sight of if we want to understand the nature of language and of that part of language which is dealt with in grammar.

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“…This development is also often found in Austronesian and Papuan languages. For example, the third‐person genetive enclitic =nya in Malay, as seen in (55), and the Abui demonstratives (Kratochvil forthcoming), as illustrated with the proximal demonstrative to (‘this one near the speaker’) in (56), demonstrate a reanalysis of verbal predicates into stance‐encoding constructions, i.e. mirativity and inferential evidentiality, respectively.…”

Section: Nominalization As Mood/stance Markermentioning

confidence: 99%

Non‐Referential Uses of Nominalization Constructions: Asian Perspectives

Yap

Grunow-Hårsta

2010

Language and Linguist. Compass

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This study reviews extended uses of nominalization constructions in a wide range of Asian languages. It combines typological and diachronic perspectives, and traces how nominalization constructions over time develop from referential to non‐referential uses. The latter include modifying functions (e.g. relativization and adverbialization); in some cases, nominalization constructions further develop into finite clauses, and sometimes are reanalyzed as stand‐alone constructions with mirative, evidential, epistemic, attitudinal, or other speaker mood/stance interpretations. These developments form part of a general tendency for versatile constructions to extend from proposition‐based uses to grammatical and pragmatic uses (a laTraugott 1982, 1989, 1995, inter alia). This review, in particular, focuses on semantic extensions within and beyond the nominal domain, with the latter extensions involving reanalyses in functions whereby nominalization constructions drift from referent identification to event predication and the expression of speaker’s stance.

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Discourse-structuring functions of Abui demonstratives

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space

Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space

The grammar of engagement I: framework and initial exemplification

Non‐Referential Uses of Nominalization Constructions: Asian Perspectives

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