Languages & Linguistics
Demonstrative Pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns are words that replace or refer to a specific noun or noun phrase. They indicate the proximity of the noun to the speaker or the listener. Common demonstrative pronouns include "this," "that," "these," and "those." These pronouns help to clarify which person or thing is being referred to in a conversation or text.
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12 Key excerpts on "Demonstrative Pronouns"
eBook - PDF- Manuel Widmer(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
5 Pronouns and demonstratives 5.1 Introduction This section discusses different types of pronouns and demonstratives. The status of pronouns and demonstratives as a distinct lexical class rests on two morphosyntactic criteria. First, pronouns and demonstratives can substitute for and anaphorically refer to whole noun phrases. Second, pronouns and demonstratives cannot be modified by adjectives or relative clauses. With regard to their semantic content, pronouns and demonstratives also distinguish themselves from nouns, as their meaning depends on the pragmatic context. Whereas a noun like ʂ a ŋs ‘horse’ possesses some degree of inherent referential value and evokes connotations of a particular animal species, a demonstrative pronoun like tʰ a dzu ‘that’ is devoid of any specific semantic content and only receives a referential value in the pragmatic context of an utterance. Demon-stratives additionally distinguish themselves from pronouns in terms of their strong deictic connotation. The demonstrative expressions of Bunan revolve around a binary opposition of spatial proximity (‘this’, ‘here’, ‘like this’, ‘this much’, etc.) vs. spatial remoteness (‘that’, ‘there’, ‘like that’, ‘that much’, etc.). However, as I will argue below, these spatial relations have been metaphorically extended to other semantic domains and may likewise express differences in temporal deixis, social deixis, etc. The chapter is structured in the following manner: In Section 5.2, I give an over-view of the different types of pronouns. In Section 5.3, I discuss the different types of demonstratives that are attested in my data. Note that I follow Diessel (1999: 74) in including demonstrative adverbs of location, manner, quantity and quality in my description of demonstrative expressions.
eBook - PDFMastering English
An Advanced Grammar for Non-native and Native Speakers
- Carl Bache, Niels Davidsen-Nielsen(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
But in addition, these is occasionally used anaphorically in competition with they (as in All her best friends were there and these never dare criticize her), and those is used freely with personal reference when restrictively modified (as in Those who want to continue, please raise your hands / Those in the know will surely keep it a secret). C) Deixis. Like the definite article, the Demonstrative Pronouns are markers of defmiteness. But unlike the definite article, the demonstratives specify the referent as near or distant in relation to the speaker, especially in cases of non-textual reference. The basically deictic nature of Demonstrative Pronouns is clear in examples of non-textual reference like the following: (28) I want these gloves, not those. Pronouns without a person distinction 421 (29) Non-native language teacher, holding a book in his hand: 'Repeat after me: This is a book' Learner at the back: That is a book.' Language teacher: Ί said: This is a book.' Learner: 'Well, let's just say: It's a book.' This last example is from an authentic classroom situation, where the learner had a better intuitive understanding of the deictic nature of the Demonstrative Pronouns than the teacher. In both examples, the near pronouns this and these are used about what is near at hand in relation to the speaker, and the distant pronouns that and those are used about more distant referents. The deixis of demonstratives operates not only on a spatial dimension but also on a temporal one: (30a) This/*That is the News in English read by ... (30b) That/*This was the News in English read by ... (31 a) How 's life these days! (3 Ib) How was life back in those days! As we see in these examples, this and these are used about present time and that and those about past time. D) Related referential properties. When used with textual reference, the deictic nature of the demonstratives is often subdued.
eBook - PDFEssentials of Mastering English
A Concise Grammar
- Carl Bache(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
B) Reference to persons. When used determinatively, all four demon-stratives are compatible with personal referents: that girl, this woman, those neighbours, these composers. When used autonomously, the singular forms are used only with personal referents in expressions serving as introductions or identification (in competition with it) (17) This is my wife. ( 18) That was my brother on the phone. Elsewhere emphatic personal pronouns, not Demonstrative Pronouns, are used to refer deictically to singular personal referents: (19) 'I'm not going with her/*that.' 210 Pronominali The plural forms are used in these contexts too: These are my neighbours / Those were two of my colleagues. But in addition, these is occasionally used anaphorically in competition with they (as in All her best friends were there and these never dare criticize her), and those is used freely with personal reference when restrictively modified (as in Those who want to continue, please raise your hands / Those in the know will surely keep it a secret). C) Deixis. Like the definite article, the Demonstrative Pronouns are markers of definiteness. But unlike the definite article, the demonstratives specify the referent as near or distant in relation to the speaker: (20) I want these gloves, not those. (21) Non-native language teacher, holding a book in his hand: 'Repeat after me: This is a book.' Learner at the back: 'That is a book.' Language teacher: Ί said: This is a book.' Learner: 'Well, let's just say: It's a book' This last example is from an authentic classroom situation, where the learner had a better intuitive understanding of the deictic nature of the Demonstrative Pronouns than the teacher. In both examples, the near pronouns this and these are used about what is near at hand in relation to the speaker, and the distant pronouns that and those are used about more distant referents.
eBook - PDF- Claire Bowern(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Chapter 7 Pronouns and Demonstratives This chapter outlines the free pronouns and demonstratives in the language. Pronominal categories are found in several places in the agreement and mor-phological system; these are summarized in (7.1). There are four types of pronouns: personal pronouns, emphatic pronouns, Demonstrative Pronouns, and interrogative/ignorative pronouns. There are free pronouns, affixes, and clitics, which establish or cross-reference pronominal categories; they are listed in (7.1a). Only the free pronouns are discussed here; the other areas of pronominal reference are discussed elsewhere in the grammar. (7.1) a. Personal marking – free ‘absolutive’ pronouns (the absolutive stem is the basis for further case marking) § 7.1; – free oblique/possessive pronouns § 7.4; – possessive suffixing on nouns [transparently reduced forms of free oblique pronouns]; – indirect object/oblique agreement on verbs [related to the free oblique pronouns]; – subject agreement on verbs (see Chapter 9 and Chapter 10); – object/predicate agreement on nouns, verbs and adjectives; – possessive prefixing on nouns (see § 7.5). b. Emphatic ‘pronouns’ [ nimalgoyarr ] § 7.3 c. Demonstrative Pronouns ( § 7.8) d. Interrogative/indefinite pronouns ( § 7.6) Third person pronouns of several types, particularly the singular pronouns, have several additional discourse functions in addition to anaphoric reference. Anaphoric use of free pronouns is less important than their other uses. They mark focus and topic status, for example, but are seldom used in reference tracking. Bowern (2008a) provides some earlier discussion, and these func-tions are described below. 286 Pronouns and Demonstratives 1. Personal pronouns The evidence for pronouns as a word class distinct from nouns is not par-ticularly strong. They do not show case marking paradigms distinct from nouns, for example.
- Martin Pütz, René Dirven, Martin Pütz, René Dirven(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Demonstrative noun phrases rather function in the following way: (1) The French demonstrative determiner is an opaque deictic expression: it signals that the referent is to be identified by using elements of the context of its own utterance, without identifying those elements of itself. It thus signals that the referent is to be searched for and that its identification cannot be taken for granted, as is the case for the defi-nite article. (2) When the demonstrative noun phrase is used to refer to an object pre-sent before the eyes, this means that the demonstrative is linked to elements of a situation that is modelled, as perceived situation, along a figure-gound model. The linguistic meaning of the demonstrative thus gets combined to the cognitive structure imposed on the percep-tual scene. (3) In such a case, the demonstration or any other perceptual means (an ostensive sniffling, for instance), or even linguistic information ('Regardez la-haut' , Look up there), interpreted in accordance with general knowledge schemes, identifies a region of space that functions as a background, in which the descriptive content of the noun phrase then singles out a figure. (4) Since the figure-ground organisation is a fundamental feature of cognitive organization, it is not surprising to find that it can also be 44 Walter De Mulder used to explain the use of demonstrative noun phrases in discourse, where they have a particular cohesive force, to be distinguished from that associated with definite noun phrases. Notes 1. Haviland (1992: 9) suggests that such a redundancy would exist in Guugu Yimidhirr. 2. Let me point out here that one does not always need pointing gestures: what counts is that the referent gets attention. Thus, other devices than pointing, e.g. ostensive sniffling, can attract attention, or the referent can be salient by itself, as when I see one man running down the street and say to a companion: 'That man is in a hurry'.
eBook - ePub- Stefan Kaiser, Yasuko Ichikawa, Noriko Kobayashi, Hilofumi Yamamoto(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Chapter 5 Demonstrative/interrogative words and pronounsWhen used to point at things, demonstrative words/pronouns make a three-way distinction, which is based on proximity to the speaker or listener: ko- ‘this’ (near speaker), so- ‘that’ (near listener) and a- ‘that over there’ (distant from both). The endings attached differ according to whether what is referred to is a thing or place, is used by itself like a noun or to modify a noun, etc.However, demonstrative words/pronouns are also used to refer to previous or following context, where the above three-way distinction does not apply in quite the same way – refer to the examples in 5.2 .Question (or interrogative) words + pronouns (beginning with the syllable ‘do-’, which is equivalent to English ‘wh~’) share the same endings as the ko-/so-/a- series (see 5.2 , 18 ).Table 5.1ko-so-a-do sets of Demonstrative Pronouns and question wordsNotes * colloquially kotchi, sotchi, atchi, dotchi.** indicating degree; cf., ikura ‘how much (money)’.Others include dare ‘who’, dochira ‘which’, dore ‘which’, itsu ‘when’, ikura ‘how much (money)’, nani ‘what’ (see 5.2 and Table 5.2 ).One of the differences between dore and dochira is its use in comparative sentences, where dochira refers to a choice of two items, and dore of three or more (see 6.7 ).5.1 Demonstrative words and pronouns5.1.1 Demonstratives: spatial/temporal reference Demonstratives are used to point at, or refer to, persons, places, times, and things. Note especially example c, where kono
eBook - PDFThe Hittite Demonstratives
Studies in Deixis, Topics and Focus
- Petra Goedegebuure(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Harrassowitz Verlag(Publisher)
This pointing, or situational refer-ence , can be achieved by gesture (such as the pointing finger, a nod of the head, eye gaze), prosody (high level of pitch and accent in spoken medium), or certain referring expressions (Demonstrative Pronouns, adverbs or particles, demonstra-tive descriptions, but also accented pronouns) (see L EVINSON 1983: 65ff., D IESSEL 1999: 2, 93ff.). Of these linguistic expressions only demonstratives are capable of partition-ing space. Demonstratives “indicate the location of a referent relative to the deictic centre” and “they serve to coordinate the interlocutors’ joint attentional focus” (D IESSEL 2006: 469). All languages have at least two demonstratives, one for a referent related to the speaker and one for a referent not related to the speaker (D IESSEL 1999: 50). Even languages with demonstratives that are neu-tral with respect to location relative to the interlocutors (such as French ce and German dies , D IESSEL 1999: 38) will contain adverbial demonstratives that show a deictic contrast. The semantic features of demonstratives and the types of contrast they ex-hibit will be discussed in section 2.3.2.3, but first I will present several different types of pointing. 2.3.2.2 Types of deixis There are two types of pointing at an entity present in the speech setting. The first type, gestural deixis , requires the monitoring of the situation because the situation provides the addressee with the only clues from which to derive the correct interpretation of what the speaker means 61 : 61 Descriptions of deixis in the literature are very often restricted to objects or locations. However, demonstratives may also refer to events in the physical surroundings. Take for example “Did you see that?”, not in reference to an object but to a scene. The ISBN Print: 9783447102285 — ISBN E-Book: 9783447193344 © 2014, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
eBook - PDFGrounding
The Epistemic Footing of Deixis and Reference
- Frank Brisard(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Deictic principles of pronominals, demonstratives, and tenses Theo A. J. M. Janssen 1. Introduction 1 Personal pronouns, demonstratives, and tenses are generally seen as deictic elements. 2 This suggests that they share some important se-mantic characteristics. This possibly common set of characteristics asks for an explanation of both their cognitive functionality and the way speakers and addressees construe the situation for which deic-tics are applied. Therefore, I will explore the cognitive structuring of the framework of the speech situation. With regard to the use of deictics, I will suggest that the speaker and, in her wake, the ad-dressee discern a specific structuring of the cognitive framework of the speech situation. The main characteristics of this framework are, first, the speaker's vantage point, second, her mental field of vision, and, third, the division of the speaker's mental field of vision into a number of deictic dimensions, each of which is divided into at least two distinct regions or zones. The entities referred to by means of deictic expressions are conceived of as each occupying a different region of the speaker's mental field of vision. The terminology (field of vision, deictic dimension, region, and zone) might suggest that my approach to deixis is based on a localist assumption. However, I will argue that deictics such as demonstra-tives cannot be adequately characterized on the basis of spatial no-tions. I will describe demonstratives — and tenses — in a way simi-lar to personal pronouns, namely by means of a nonlocalist analysis. The semantic interconnectedness of personal pronouns (which is re-flected morphologically in some languages, as I will show) appears to be closely related to the internal interconnectedness of demonstra-tives with regard to both their semantic and — in some languages — their morphological structure.
eBook - PDFSpoken Language Pragmatics
Analysis of Form-Function Relations
- Regina Weinert(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Continuum(Publisher)
With regard to personal pronouns in (20), they appear to be part of the scene-setting for the crucial topic - the problematic schein, a preamble. It would not, however, seem appropriate to see this use as evidence for the unmarked status of anaphoric personal pronouns per se. After all, 65 per cent of all masculine, feminine and plural pronouns in the academic consultations are demonstratives. The nature of pronoun/pro-form chains supports the view that demonstratives contribute centrally to discourse cohesion in the academic consultations. Two factors are therefore responsible for the role of demonstratives in the two data sets: one informational, one interpersonal. Without attempting a direct comparison with Biber (1990), we may borrow the labels for two textual dimensions he identified: involvement and on-line informational elabo-ration. Biber found that these two textual factors have a strong weighting of pronouns and demonstratives in English. On-line informational elaboration is characteristic of spontaneous, unplanned informational discourse which relies heavily on markers of discourse cohesion. Involvement means the inter-personal aspect of spoken language which demonstratives can serve to express. Both dimensions are present in both data sets. The conversations have a higher degree of involvement which is evident in the content, lexical choices and high frequency of modal and discourse particles. The academic consul-tations have a higher level of on-line informational elaboration, reflected in the higher frequency of Demonstrative Pronouns and discourse deictics. 3.5 Demonstratives and discourse cohesion Demonstrative masculine, feminine and plural pronouns play a central role in creating cohesive discourse and as such they fit into the larger picture of deixis in spoken German. We saw in 3.1 that neuter demonstrative das is a highly frequent discourse deictic occurring predominantly in clause-initial position.
- Ruth Crymes(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
(Cf. Cassirer). Classification of such words on the basis of shifting versus non-shifting reference he considers more fundamental than classification on the basis of morphological or syntactic criteria. 26 An analysis of deictic words as participants in systems of oppositions without the philosophical implications of Benveniste's analysis has been made by Henri Frei. He says that such deictic words as celui-ci, celui-la, cet in cet homme; ici, la, la bas; and void, voila form a subsystem of oppositions coherent and closed enough to be studied separately in spite of ultimate differences in their structure and in their associations with other elements in the rest of the system. He analyzes systems of deictic reference in several languages according to the number of oppositions that each system has, varying from two terms in English this and that to six terms in the Yisayan demon-stratives. 27 Perhaps the most ambitious attempt to describe the traditional list of English pro-nouns from the point of view of their function as indicating words is to be found in W. E. Collinson's Indication: A Study of Demonstratives, Artides, and Other 'Indi-caters', published in 1937. 28 Collinson is dealing, as the title suggests, with a group of words somewhat larger than the traditional pronoun group but one which includes them. At the outset he declares his criteria to be notional and his goal to be a descrip-tion of these words in those situations where the speaker uses them either to point to some item in the real world or to mark some item already presented in an utterance, both of which are indicating uses. Collinson believes that although these words are neither morphologically nor syn-tactically a class, they are notionally a class. His major subclassifications are definite and indefinite indication, which he orients separately for hearer and speaker.
- Martin Everaert, Simon Musgrave, Alexis Dimitriadis, Martin Everaert, Simon Musgrave, Alexis Dimitriadis(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
4.3.2. Demonstratives used as 3 rd person A second typologically marked pronoun system is one in which there are no distinct 3 rd person personal pronouns. These types of systems use demon-strative pronouns for this purpose. In our database, there are seven 13 lan-guages of this type, including Basque (Basque, Spain), Kiowa (Kiowa-Tanoan, United States), Telugu (Dravidian, India), and Yimas (Sepik-Ramu, Papua New Guinea). The existence of these pronoun systems raises interesting typological questions regarding the distinction between 3 rd person personal pronouns and Demonstrative Pronouns. In most languages (where these two types of 13 This number does not include Djingili (Australian, Australia). In Djingili de-monstratives are used for nominative and ergative cases only as there exists a dedicated 3 rd person objective pronoun. A typological database of personal and Demonstrative Pronouns 101 pronouns are distinct), Demonstrative Pronouns are coded for additional features that do not play a role in personal pronoun systems, such as prox-imity to the speech act or other deictic properties. In languages like Basque and Kiowa, for example, these types of distinctions are extended to the 3 rd person personal pronouns. In his grammar of Yimas, Foley (1991: 114) ex-plains that “[t]he choice between proximal, distal or remote to refer to a 3 rd person most often reflects the “centrality of the participant in the discourse, or the speaker’s empathy towards it”. Foley goes on to explain that in Yimas, proximal forms are used for 3 rd person if the referent is immediately in-volved in the speech act, or if the speaker has good feelings toward the ref-erent. Remote forms are employed if the referent is of secondary interest or if the speaker has negative feelings towards the referent. It is an open question whether this characterization of Yimas can be ex-tended to other languages that use demonstratives as 3 rd person pronouns.
eBook - PDF- Martin Durrell(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
5 Other determiners and pronouns D ETERMINERS are a limited set of small words used with N OUNS to relate them to a particular context or situation. They typically occupy the first position in a N OUN PHRASE , before any adjectives. TABLE 5.1 The noun phrase: other determiners Determiner Adjective/adjectival phrase Noun diese einige ihr jedes heidnische fleißige sehr elegantes in der Bundesrepublik geborene Gottheit Studenten Ensemble Kind The determiners include the DEFIN ITE and IN DEFINITE ARTICLES , which are dealt with in Chapter 4 , and all other words used to determine nouns, like the DEMON STRATIVES ( dieser , jener , etc.), the POSSESSIVES ( mein , sein , etc.), the IN TERROGATIVES (e.g. welcher? ) and indefinites ( einige , etliche , etc.). PRON OUNS are a limited set of small words which stand in place of N OUNS or N OUN PHRASES . In particular they stand for nouns or noun phrases which have already been mentioned or which do not need to be repeated in full. They include the PERSON AL PRON OUNS , which are dealt with in Chapter 3 , DEMON STRATIVE PRONOUNS , POSSESSIVE PRON OUNS , IN TERROGATIVE PRONOUNS (asking questions), the RELATIVE PRON OUNS (the ‘who’, ‘which’ and ‘that’ words) and IN DEFINITE PRONOUNS . Determiners and pronouns qualify or stand in place of nouns and in German, they typically DECLIN E , i.e. they have endings which indicate the same grammatical categories as nouns – CASE , N UMBER and GEN DER . Table 5.2 gives the DECLEN SION of dieser ‘this’, which is one of the most frequent demonstratives and can be used as a determiner or a pronoun. Many of the other determiners and pronouns have the same endings as dieser . TABLE 5.2 Declension of dieser Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative dies er dies en dies es dies em dies e dies e dies er dies er dies es dies es dies es dies em dies e dies e dies er dies en
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