The role of discourse topic and proximity for demonstratives in German and Russian

Maria Averintseva-Klisch | University of Tübingen, University of Jena (Germany)

Manfred Consten

This article discusses the textual functions of demonstratives in German and Russian in terms of ‘discourse topicality’ and ‘proximity’, thus covering a broad range of referential phenomena within a unified approach. It shows that — in spite of important grammatical differences between German and Russian — anaphoric and deictic uses of demonstratives are ruled by the same principles in both languages.

Keywords: deixis, anaphora, German/Russian, demonstratives

Published online: 07 December 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.7.2.08ave

Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Consten, Manfred & Maria Averintseva-Klisch

2012. Tentative Reference Acts? ‘Recognitional Demonstratives’ as Means of Suggesting Mutual Knowledge – or Overriding a Lack of It. Research in Language 10:3 ► pp. 257 ff.

Schumacher, Petra B., Manfred Consten & Mareile Knees

2010. Constraints on ontology changing complexation processes: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Language and Cognitive Processes 25:6 ► pp. 840 ff.

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