‘Strict’ anadeixis, discourse deixis and text structuring

Abstract

Taking English as the example language, the article begins by presenting a Scale of indexicality characterizing context-bound expression types, ranging from those signalling pure deixis at one pole, to ones expressing pure anaphora at the other. On the basis of this Scale, the article attempts to determine the specific way in which demonstratives (pronouns as well as NPs) may realize the discourse procedures of deixis and "anadeixis"-a referring procedure that involves partly anaphoric, and partly deictic reference. It is the discourse-structuring function of deictic and anadeictic indexicals that is the particular focus of the article. Textual examples are presented and analysed of anadeicticallyfunctioning demonstrative NPs (whether of the 'strict' anadeixis or the discourse-deixis type) that are either initial or non-initial within their discourse unit, and which serve either to herald a transition between major discourse units within a given text, or to actually implement one. Demonstrative expressions may also serve to switch the focus back to an earlier topical referent or discourse unit, which will have since been superseded by a more recent topic or unit. The current unit then further develops that earlier topic or discourse unit. It is the deictic property of demonstratives, coded morphologically in English via their proximal vs. distal character, along with the nature of the predicative component of the expression where it is a lexical NP, which enables such expression types to perform the discourse-structuring roles at issue here. As such, this component may not correspond to presupposed information, but rather performs a (re-)classifying or predicating function.

Deixis and its role in defining rhetorical space

“…Thus, the second set of analyses deals with the spatial (or local) and time adverbial deictic references based on two-level 'distance' range with the speaker as a referent point, or 'the centre of conceptualization' (Yang, 2011): distal vs. proximal, where proximal pole is considered to be more close to the speaker and the distal one -closer to the addressee (Stawarska, 2008;Cornish, 2011): In the case of spatial demonstratives, Cornish (2011: 757) convincingly argues they may "refer exclusively to one member (or one subset of members) within a given shared set of entities". Thus, the following set of deictic demonstratives and adverbs of place was selected from the corpus: The results demonstrated in Table 4 reveal a quantitative prevalence of the proximal deictic items over the distal ones, which appeal to the earlier and later images in the addressee's working memory respectively.…”

Textual Deixis and the ‘Anchoring’ Use of the Latin Pronoun hic

“…This view is in accordance with current cognitive linguistic theory, which assumes that canonical deixis on the one hand, and anaphora on the other, are not to be seen as mutually exclusive procedure types, but as special instances on a cline of indexical reference. Cornish (2010Cornish ( , 2011) distinguishes between three, interrelated, referring procedures with an indexical function:…”

“…Referring procedures with an 'indexical' function (Cornish 2010(Cornish , 2011 (i) canonical anaphora…”

“…More promising appears to be a cognitively-based discourse-functional approach to anaphora, advocated by, for instance, McCarthy (1994), Kleiber (1994), Janssen (2004), and a number of recent articles by Cornish (2003Cornish ( , 2006Cornish ( , 2010Cornish ( , 2011. Such a discourse-functional approach assumes that interpreting a given anaphor involves the tracking of certain referents in the interlocutors' evolving mental discourse model of the communicative event, rather than in the preceding text.…”

“…cline of indexical reference. In this context, the concept of anadeixis was introduced (Cornish 2010(Cornish , 2011. In the case of anadeictic reference (anaphoric reference by means of demonstratives, like Latin hic and ille), the semantic deictic aspects of proximity and remoteness are to be taken as pertaining to positions in mental space, with proximal demonstratives (like Latin hic) pointing to a region of focal referential concern of the interlocutors, and distal demonstratives (like Latin ille) to a region of disfocal concern.…”