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Atypical demonstratives : syntax, semantics and pragmatics
Atypical demonstratives have not received adequate attention in the literature so far, or have even been completely neglected. By providing fresh insights and discussing new facets, this volume contributes to the better understanding of this group of words, starting from specific empirical phenomena, and advances our knowledge of the various properties of demonstratives, their syntactic multi-functionality, semantic feature specifications and pragmatic functions. In addition, some of the papers discuss different grammaticalization processes involving demonstratives, in particular how and from which lexical and morphosyntactic categories they originate cross-linguistically, and which semantic or pragmatic mechanisms play which role in their emergence. As such, the different contributions guide the readers on an adventurous journey into the realm of different exotic species of demonstratives, whose peculiar properties offer new exiting insights into the complex nature of demonstrative expressions themselves.
BOOK
Articulated Definiteness without Articles
While it lacks a definite article, Mandarin makes a principled distinction between unique and anaphoric definites: unique definites are realized with a bare noun, and anaphoric definites are realized with a demonstrative, except in subject position. The following proposals account for these facts: (a) bare nouns achieve definite interpretations via a last-resort type-shifting operator
, which has a unique definite meaning; (b) demonstratives can occur as anaphoric definites because they have a semantic argument beyond their nominal restriction that can be filled by an index; and (c) bare nominal subjects are topics. A principle called Index! requires that indexical expressions be used whenever possible. Mandarin is contrasted with Cantonese, which, like English, is shown to have access to an ambiguous definite article.
Journal Article
Complex demonstratives, hidden arguments, and presupposition
Standard semantic theories predict that non-deictic readings for complex demonstratives should be much more widely available than they in fact are. If such readings are the result of a lexical ambiguity, as Kaplan (in: Almog, Perry, Wettstein (eds) Themes from Kaplan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977) and others suggest, we should expect them to be available wherever a definite description can be used. The same prediction follows from ‘hidden argument’ theories like the ones described by King (Complex Demonstratives: a Quantificational Account, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001) and Elbourne (Situations and Individuals, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005). Wolter (That’s That; the Semantics and Pragmatics of Demonstrative Noun Phrases. Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Santa Cruz, 2006), however, has shown that complex demonstratives admit non-deictic interpretations only when a precise set of structural constrains are met. In this paper, I argue that Wolter’s results, properly understood, upend the philosophical status quo. They fatally undermine the ambiguity theory and demand a fundamental rethinking of the hidden argument approach.
Journal Article
Index as a syntactic object: Evidence from Korean
This paper examines the distribution of anaphoric demonstrative and 3\" person singular pronoun in Korean that share the same morphology, namely ku. I show that evidence building on these referential expressions provides support for recent theories in which indices are independent syntactic objects and head their own functional projection such as idxP (indexP) within the DP (e.g, Schwarz 2009; Hanink 2021; Jenks and Konate 2022). I propose that the demonstrative ku realizes idxP in the specifier of DP giving rise to an anaphoric interpretation. It is also proposed that the 3™ person singular pronoun ku instantiates idxP, but the pronominal idxP appears either in the specifier of DP when it has a referential reading or in the specifier of P with a variable reading. The two indexed definites realized by the same morpheme ku in Korean provide strong evidence for the syntactic realization of indices, similar to Washo (isolate) where deictic demonstratives and the 3 person pronoun are realized by the same morpheme. I extend the proposed analysis to the deictic demonstratives i (proximal) and ce (distal) in Korean; these demonstratives realize idxP in the specifier of DP having spatial features (e.g., [+PROX]) unlike the anaphoric demonstrative ku that bears the feature [+ANAPH]. The consequence of this paper thus contributes to the syntactic theory of indices developed in recent researches (e.g., Hanink 2021; Jenks and Konate 2022).
Journal Article
A conceptual framework for the study of demonstrative reference
Language allows us to efficiently communicate about the things in the world around us. Seemingly simple words like
this
and
that
are a cornerstone of our capability to refer, as they contribute to guiding the attention of our addressee to the specific entity we are talking about. Such demonstratives are acquired early in life, ubiquitous in everyday talk, often closely tied to our gestural communicative abilities, and present in all spoken languages of the world. Based on a review of recent experimental work, here we introduce a new conceptual framework of demonstrative reference. In the context of this framework, we argue that several physical, psychological, and referent-intrinsic factors dynamically interact to influence whether a speaker will use one demonstrative form (e.g.,
this
) or another (e.g.,
that
) in a given setting. However, the relative influence of these factors themselves is argued to be a function of the cultural language setting at hand, the theory-of-mind capacities of the speaker, and the affordances of the specific context in which the speech event takes place. It is demonstrated that the framework has the potential to reconcile findings in the literature that previously seemed irreconcilable. We show that the framework may to a large extent generalize to instances of endophoric reference (e.g., anaphora) and speculate that it may also describe the specific form and kinematics a speaker’s pointing gesture takes. Testable predictions and novel research questions derived from the framework are presented and discussed.
Journal Article
Pointing things out: in defense of attention and coherence
Nowak and Michaelson (Linguist Philos,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-019-09266-7
,
2019
) have done us the service of presenting direct and clear worries about our account of demonstratives. In response, we use the opportunity to engage briefly with their remarks as a useful way to clarify our view.
Journal Article
Effect of evaluative expressions on two types of demonstrative pronouns in German
We propose a unified prominence-based account of the two paradigms of demonstrative pronouns in German: the die- and diese-paradigm. The two types of demonstrative pronouns have been shown to have similar referential preferences — avoiding the most prominent referent — but different language register and modality preferences — diese pronouns prefer formal language whereas die pronouns prefer informal language and the spoken modality. They also reveal different strengths in terms of referential shift and last-mentioned antecedent preference. We propose that the perspectival prominence-based account initially proposed by Hinterwimmer & Bosch (2016; 2017) for die pronouns can be extended to incorporate both demonstrative pronouns. Our extended proposal suggests that the perspectivally prominent discourse referent is the highest ranked element on the prominence scale only for die pronouns but not for diese pronouns, and that perspectival prominence can be modulated by evaluative expressions. For diese pronouns, on the other hand, the aboutness topic is the highest ranked discourse referent on the prominence scale and they are not influenced by evaluative expressions. We report two experiments to test our account. The experimental results largely support the predictions of the new unified account.
Journal Article
Acquisition of demonstratives in cross-linguistic perspective
This paper examines the acquisition of demonstratives (e.g., that, there) from a cross-linguistic perspective. Although demonstratives are often said to play a crucial role in L1 acquisition, there is little systematic research on this topic. Using extensive corpus data of spontaneous child speech, the paper investigates the emergence and development of demonstratives in three European (English, French, Spanish) and four non-European languages (Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Indonesian) between age 1;0 and 6;0. The data show that, across languages, demonstratives are among the earliest and most frequent child words, but their frequency decreases with age and MLU. As children grow older, they tend to use other types of referring terms (e.g., anaphoric pronouns) and other types of spatial expressions (e.g., adpositions). Considering these results, we hypothesize that children shift from using a body-oriented strategy of deictic communication to more abstract and disembodied strategies of encoding reference and space during the preschool years.
Journal Article
Revisiting Pronominal Typology
The overarching goal of this article is to shed new light on the debate over whether pronouns (she/he/it) generally have the syntax and semantics of definite descriptions (the woman/the man/the thing) or that of individual variables. As a case study, we investigate the differences between personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns in German. We argue that the two types of pronouns have the same core makeup (both contain a null NP and a definite determiner), but demonstrative pronouns have additional functional structure that personal pronouns lack. This analysis is shown to derive both their commonalities and their differences, and it derives the distribution of demonstrative vs.personal pronouns by means of structural economy constraints.
Journal Article