Part of
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVII: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Bloomington, Indiana, 2013Edited by Stuart Davis and Usama Soltan
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 3] 2016
► pp. 99–120
Edited by Stuart Davis and Usama Soltan
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 3] 2016
► pp. 99–120
A salience-based analysis of the Tunisian Arabic demonstrative hāk as used in oral narratives*
This paper reports on a study of the Tunisian Arabic demonstrative hāk, which encodes the cognitive status FAMILIAR, in the sense of the Givenness Hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993). Although this demonstrative is usually used for at most FAMILIAR, it is frequently used in folk tales for the statuses ACTIVATED and IN FOCUS. I propose that this is a strategy used by the narrator to impose more processing effort on the hearer in order increase the relative salience of the referent of hāk. However, the degree of relative salience to which these entities are promoted is not always the same, and has to do with the centrality of the referent of hāk in the story.
References (24)
Al-Irwi, A. (1989a). Hikayaat Al-Irwi (2nd ed., Vol. 4). Tunis: Al-Daar Al-Tunisiya Li-l-nachr.
. (1989b). Hikayaat Al-Irwi (2nd ed., Vol. 1). Tunis: Al-Daar Al-Tunisiya Li-l-nachr.
Baker, C.L. (1995). Contrast, discourse prominence, and intensification, with special reference to locally free reflexives in British English. Language, 71, 63–101. 
Biber, D. (1984). Pragmatic roles in central Somali narrative discourse. Studies in African Linguistics, 15(1), 1-26.
Brustad, K.E. (2000). The syntax of spoken Arabic: A comprehensive Study of Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian, and Kuwaiti dialects. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Clamons, C.R., Mulkern, A.E., & Sanders, G. (1993). Salience signaling in Oromo. Journal of Pragmatics, 19, 519–536.
Eid, M. (1983). On the communicative function of subject pronouns in Arabic. Journal of Linguistics, 19(2), 287–303.
Givón, T. (1983). Topic continuity in discourse: The functional domain of switch reference. In J. Haiman & P. Munro (Eds.), Switch-reference and universal grammar, (pp. 51-82). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press.
Grosz, B.J., Joshi, A.K., & Weinstein, S. (1995). Centering: A Framework for modeling the local coherence of discourse. Computational Linguistics, 21, 203–225.
Gundel, J.K., Hedberg, N., Zacharski, R., Mulkern, A., Custis, T., Swierzbin, B., … Watters, S. (2006). Coding Protocol for Statuses on the Givenness Hierarchy. Retrieved from [URL].
Gundel, J.K., & Mulkern, A.E. (1998). Quantity implicatures in reference understanding. Pragmatics and Cognition, 6, 21–45.
Gundel, J.K., Zacharski, R., & Hedberg, N. (1993). Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language, 69(2), 274–307.
Gundel, K.J., Bassene, M., Gordon, B., Humnic, L., & Khalfaou, A. (2010). Testing predictions of the Givenness Hierarchy framework: A crosslinguistic investigation. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1770–1785.
Humnick, L. (2009). Pronouns in Kumyk discourse: A cognitive perspective (PhD. Dissertation). University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Khalfaoui, A. (2007). A cognitive approach to analyzing demonstratives in Tunisian Arabic. In M.A. Mughazy (Ed.), Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Vol. XX, (pp. 169-186). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
. (2009). A cognitive approach to analyzing demonstratives in Tunisian (PhD. Dissertation ). University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Lichtenberk, F. (1996). Patterns of anaphora in To’aba’ita narrative discourse. In B. Fox (Ed.), Studies in anaphora, pp. 379–411. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Mulkern, A.E. (2003). Cognitive status, discourse salience and information structure: Evidence from Irish and Oromo (PhD. Dissertation). University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
. (2007). Knowing who’s important: Relative discourse salience and Irish pronominal forms. In N. Hedberg & R. Zacharski (Eds.), The Grammar–Pragmatics Interface: Essays in honor of Jeanette K. Gundel (pp. 113–142). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
OH, S.-Y. (2001). A focus-Based study of English demonstrative reference: With special reference to the genre of written advertisements. Journal of English Linguistics, 29(2), 124–48.
Propp, V. (1998). Morphology of the folk tale. (L. Scott, Trans., L.A. Wagner, Eds.) (Revised Edition.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance: Communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Östen, D., & Fraurud, K. (1996). Animacy in grammar and discourse. In T. Fretheim & J.K. Gundel (Eds.), In Reference and Referent Accessibility (pp. 47–64). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.