‘Modal’ that as determiner and pronoun: the primacy of the cognitive-interactive dimension

Abstract

In this article, I examine the ‘modal’ or ‘empathetic’ (Lyons, 1977: 677) use of the distal (or ‘nonproximal’) determiner/pronoun that: namely, where the intended referent may have just been evoked in the immediately prior discourse, but where the distal pronoun that, not the ‘in-focus’ it or the ‘activated’, proximal this is used. The rationale behind the choice of this particular type of indexical seems to be that the speaker is distancing him/herself from the referent, not wishing to ascribe actuality to it in the way that would be the case if either it or this were used instead. Examination of this particular value of that leads to the hypothesis that the principles underlying the choice of that as opposed to this or it generally are not derived ‘objectively’, as it were, from their situational use in terms of degrees of proximity of a referent or demonstratum to the speaker or hearer, nor primarily in terms of attention focus. They are, rather, social and cognitive, and play an important interactional role in the construction of discourse.

This and that: A procedural analysis

“…(10) Give me that pen (11) This cake is delicious However, attempts to understand how demonstrative determiners function have led to broad agreement that we must move beyond this traditional characterisation, (Anderson and Keenan, 1985;Halliday, 1985;Levinson, 2004;Lyons, 1977), and, indeed, much evidence suggests that this 'static' spatial analysis is inadequate (Cornish, 2001;Janssen, 1995;Maes, 1996;Strauss, 1993Strauss, , 2002. Even broadly descriptive approaches allow that the notions of distance and proximity are at least partially subjective, and must be extended to include temporal, anaphoric and emotional uses.…”

“…However, there remains a wide spectrum of cases which do not fall under these categories, and yet are legitimate and standard uses of demonstrative determiners. These are variously termed 'symbolic' (Fillmore, 1997), 'emotional' (Chen, 1990;Lakoff, 1974), 'recognitional' (Diessel, 1999), 'empathetic' (Cornish, 2001) and 'affective' (Riddle, 2010), and they form an apparently disparate group. The range of effects that they are claimed to produce is equally disparate.…”

“…In English, this and that and their plural counterparts these and those can occur on their own, as in (3), or as part of a complex noun phrase, as in (4), and they perform an apparently disparate range of functions which have been well documented in the literature (Chen, 1990;Cheshire, 1996;Cornish, 2001;Diessel, 1999;Fillmore, 1997;Glover, 2000;Huddleston and Pullum, 2002;Lakoff, 1974;Levinson, 2004;Kruisinga, 1925-32).…”

Aspects linguistiques et cognitifs en jeu lors du traitement d'expressions démonstratives anaphoriques

“…Dénoncées par un certain nombre de linguistes, parmi lesquels Cornish, 1999Cornish, , 2001DeMulder, 2000;Kleiber, 1994Kleiber, , 2001Maes & Noordman, 1995…, les théories cognitives uniquement basées sur l'accessibilité ou le statut cognitif que le référent ciblé est supposé avoir dans le modèle de discours en cours manqueraient à voir que le sens des marqueurs de référence n'est pas réductible au seul statut cognitif du référent visé.…”

“…Ces expressions, bien décrites d'un point de vue linguistique (Cornish, 1999(Cornish, , 2001De Mulder, 1997, 2000Kleiber, 2001) n'ont jusqu'à présent fait l'objet que de très peu de travaux psycholinguistiques (mais voir l'étude de Brown-Schmidt, Byron & Tanenhaus 2005 en anglais; celle de Fossard & Rigalleau, 2005 en français, et celle de Fossard (2006) pour une comparaison franco-anglaise). Ceci est d'autant plus surprenant que leur nature déictique (i.e., le fait qu'elles permettent d'attirer l'attention sur un référent particulier: objet, individu…) en fait des expressions très originales pour l'étude du traitement anaphorique en général, et pour l'étude des processus interprétatifs mis en oeuvre par des lecteurs lors de la résolution référentielle en particulier.…”