Deixis and Demonstratives in Oceanic Languages
Title | Deixis and Demonstratives in Oceanic Languages PDF eBook |
Author | Gunter Senft |
Publisher | Pacific Linguistics Research School of Pacific and Asian Stu |
Total Pages | 216 |
Release | 2004 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN |
When we communicate, we communicate in a certain context, and this context shapes our utterances. Natural languages are context-bound and deixis 'concerns the ways in which languages encode or grammaticalise features of the context of utterance or speech event, and thus also concerns ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance' (Stephen Levinson). The systems of deixis and demonstratives in the Oceanic languages represented in the contributions to this volume illustrate the fascinating complexity of spatial reference in these languages. Some of the studies presented here highlight social aspects of deictic reference illustrating de Leon's point that 'reference is a collaborative task' . It is hoped that this anthology will contribute to a better understanding of this area and provoke further studies in this extremely interesting, though still rather underdeveloped, research area.
Demonstratives in discourse
Title | Demonstratives in discourse PDF eBook |
Author | Åshild Næss |
Publisher | Language Science Press |
Total Pages | 360 |
Release | 2020-10-27 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 3961102864 |
This volume explores the use of demonstratives in the structuring and management of discourse, and their role as engagement expressions, from a crosslinguistic perspective. It seeks to establish which types of discourse-related functions are commonly encoded by demonstratives, beyond the well-established reference-tracking and deictic uses, and also investigates which members of demonstrative paradigms typically take on certain functions. Moreover, it looks at the roles of non-deictic demonstratives, that is, members of the paradigm which are dedicated e.g. to contrastive, recognitional, or anaphoric functions and do not express deictic distinctions. Several of the studies also focus on manner demonstratives, which have been little studied from a crosslinguistic perspective. The volume thus broadens the scope of investigation of demonstratives to look at how their core functions interact with a wider range of discourse functions in a number of different languages. The volume covers languages from a range of geographical locations and language families, including Cushitic and Mande languages in Africa, Oceanic and Papuan languages in the Pacific region, Algonquian and Guaykuruan in the Americas, and Germanic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages in the Eurasian region. It also includes two papers taking a broader typological approach to specific discourse functions of demonstratives.
Demonstratives, Deictic Pointing and the Conceptualization of Space
Title | Demonstratives, Deictic Pointing and the Conceptualization of Space PDF eBook |
Author | Holger Diessel |
Publisher | Frontiers Media SA |
Total Pages | 224 |
Release | 2021-05-19 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 2889667820 |
Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
Title | Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective PDF eBook |
Author | Stephen C. Levinson |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 405 |
Release | 2018-07-19 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 1108424287 |
The definitive guide to demonstratives, which play a key role in language acquisition and use.
Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
Title | Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective PDF eBook |
Author | Stephen C. Levinson |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 405 |
Release | 2018-07-19 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 1108341373 |
Demonstratives play a crucial role in the acquisition and use of language. Bringing together a team of leading scholars this detailed study, a first of its kind, explores meaning and use across fifteen typologically and geographically unrelated languages to find out what cross-linguistic comparisons and generalizations can be made, and how this might challenge current theory in linguistics, psychology, anthropology and philosophy. Using a shared experimental task, rounded out with studies of natural language use, specialists in each of the languages undertook extensive fieldwork for this comparative study of semantics and usage. An introduction summarizes the shared patterns and divergences in meaning and use that emerge.
Here and There
Title | Here and There PDF eBook |
Author | Jürgen Weissenborn |
Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing |
Total Pages | 303 |
Release | 1982-01-01 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9027225192 |
Deixis the rooting of utterances in the speech situation is one of the most salient universals of natural language. The ways in which different languages link utterances to pragmatic factors such as speech time, speech place, and speech participants show a rich variation. This makes deixis a particular fruitful domain for the study of universals, language comparison, and the relationship between language and reality. This volume presents and discusses deictic systems of both Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages, including Russian, Czech, Spanish, German (standard and dialect), Hungarian, Chinese, Japanese, Hausa, Swahili, Hopi, Eipo, Tolai, Diyari. Focus is on spatial deixis, but other deictic and demonstrative expressions are treated as well.
The Lexicon of Proto-Oceanic
Title | The Lexicon of Proto-Oceanic PDF eBook |
Author | Malcolm Ross |
Publisher | ANU E Press |
Total Pages | 417 |
Release | 2007-03-01 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 1921313196 |
This is the second in a series of five volumes on the lexicon of Proto Oceanic, the ancestor of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family. Each volume deals with a particular domain of culture and/or environment and consists of a collection of essays each of which presents and comments on lexical reconstructions of a particular semantic field within that domain. Volume 2 examines how Proto Oceanic speakers described their geophysical environment. An introductory chapter discusses linguistic and archaeological evidence that locates the Proto Oceanic language community in the Bismarck Archipelago in the late 2nd millennium BC. The next three chapters investigate terms used to denote inland, coastal, reef and open sea environments, and meteorological phenomena. A further chapter examines the lexicon for features of the heavens and navigational techniques associated with the stars. How Proto Oceanic speakers talked about their environment is also described in three further chapters which treat property terms for describing inanimate objects, locational and directional terms, and terms related to the expression of time.