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About this book
In order to mitigate the lack of context inherent to the study of dead languages, the author has developed a descriptive model that combines (a) cognitive approaches to reference, (b) a theory of information structure, and (c) typological studies on demonstratives. With the help of this model the author not only provides for the first time a thorough description of the long-known demonstratives ka- "this" and apa- "that", but also identifies a third demonstrative, asi "that, yonder". This identification has led to a reappraisal of the distal semantics of apa-: apa- does not mark remote objects at all but points at objects in the vicinity of the addressee. In short, the Hittite demonstratives are not distance- but person-based. As a third person pronoun, apa- also expresses emphasis. A detailed analysis within the framework of information structure shows, for example, that apa- in preverbal position marks a referent as the Contrastive Focus of its clause (in "the dog (not the cat) chased the horse", dog is in Contrastive Focus). Non-contrastive focal apa-, on the other hand, always occurs in initial position. The addition of information structure to the grammatical description of Hittite thus provides a better understanding of the meaning effects of word order variation in this SOV language.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- Body
- List of tables
- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Reference, deixis and discourse
- 3 The distal demonstratives aši+ and anna/i-
- 4 The medial or second person demonstrative apā-
- 5 The proximal or first person demonstrative kā-
- 6 Pilot study: the use of apā- in the laws
- 7 Exclusive focus apā-
- 8 Inclusive focus apā-
- 9 Topics, contrast and apā-
- 10 Connecting the data: deixis, discourse and reference in Hittite
- Bibliography
- Cited texts