This paper examines two types of expressions that seem to exist in all languages, demonstratives and interrogatives. Based on a representative sample of 100 languages it is shown that demonstratives and interrogatives have some striking features in common. They cross-cut the boundaries of several word classes and encode the same semantic features: person, thing, place, direction, manner, time, and amount. It is the central hypothesis of this study that the crosslinguistic parallelism between demonstratives and interrogatives is motivated by their pragmatic functions: both initiate a search for information that is guided by their semantic and syntactic features. Further, it is argued that demonstratives and interrogatives have a special status in language. Although both types of expressions are commonly considered grammatical markers, they do not serve an ordinary grammatical function. Grammatical markers organize the information flow in the ongoing discourse, whereas basic demonstratives and interrogatives are immediately concerned with the speaker-hearer interaction.
2024. Demonstratives in Afaan Oromoo. Cogent Arts & Humanities 11:1
Jaradat, Abdulazeez
2024. From nominal source to demonstrative: a case of grammaticalization in Standard Arabic. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 77:3 ► pp. 315 ff.
Ruys, E. G.
2023. Not every pronoun is always a pronoun. Linguistics and Philosophy 46:5 ► pp. 1027 ff.
Lu, Man
2022. Polygrammaticalization: the morphemekoin the Miluo Xiang dialect. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 75:2 ► pp. 239 ff.
2021. Syntactic position, qualitative features and extended demonstrative functions: Dagaare distal demonstratives nὲ and lὲ in interactional discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 182 ► pp. 265 ff.
Rubio-Fernandez, Paula
2021. Pragmatic markers: the missing link between language and Theory of Mind. Synthese 199:1-2 ► pp. 1125 ff.
Rubio-Fernandez, Paula
2022. Demonstrative systems: From linguistic typology to social cognition. Cognitive Psychology 139 ► pp. 101519 ff.
2020. Where do demonstratives come from?. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 73:3 ► pp. 403 ff.
Vajda, Edward
2020. A typology of questions in Northeast Asia and beyond: An ecological perspective, written by Andreas Hölzl. International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics 1:2 ► pp. 361 ff.
2019. Similarity, comparison of equality and verbal manner demonstratives in Polynesian languages. Faits de Langues 50:1 ► pp. 135 ff.
Baunaz, Lena & Eric Lander
2018. Deconstructing categories syncretic with the nominal complementizer. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3:1
EVANS, NICHOLAS, HENRIK BERGQVIST & LILA SAN ROQUE
2018. The grammar of engagement I: framework and initial exemplification. Language and Cognition 10:1 ► pp. 110 ff.
Gärdenfors, Peter & Maja Brala-Vukanović
2018. Semantic domains of demonstratives and articles: A view of deictic referentiality explored on the paradigm of Croatian demonstratives. Lingua 201 ► pp. 102 ff.
2011. Using a game controller for relaying deictic gestures in computer-mediated communication. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 69:6 ► pp. 362 ff.
Suárez-Gómez, Cristina
2008. Strategies in Competition: Demonstratives and Interrogatives as Relativizers in the History of English. English Studies 89:3 ► pp. 339 ff.
Cysouw, Michael
2007. Content Interrogatives in Pichis Ashéninca: Corpus Study and Typological Comparison. International Journal of American Linguistics 73:2 ► pp. 133 ff.
Diessel, H.
2006. Demonstratives. In Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, ► pp. 430 ff.
Diessel, Holger
2006. Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 17:4
Diessel, Holger
2013. Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language. Language and Cognition 5:2-3 ► pp. 239 ff.
Diessel, Holger
2014. Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space. Language and Linguistics Compass 8:3 ► pp. 116 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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