LINGUIST List 3.4

Thu 02 Jan 1992

Disc: Demonstratives

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Herb Stahlke, African Demonstratives
2. Jacques Guy, Iconicity in demonstratives
3. David Adger, Re: 2.886 Queries - iconicity in demonstratives

Deictics:

Welmers' _African Language Structures_ (U of Cal 1973:286-287)
provides some interesting examples of demonstratives, a few of which
appear to be clear counterexamples to Martin Haase's correlation of
proximity with closeness in vowels. Swahili has ule/huu/huo
"that/this/the aforesaid" and ile/hii/hiyo "those/these/the
aforesaid". Kpelle has ngi/ti "this-these/that-those". I don't
know if this is a none example or a counterexample. It may depend on
which feature system you use to describe the consonants. Yatye (my
data) has forms with na'` for proximal and mE for distal, another
counterexample.

Herb Stahlke
Ball State University

I never have much success e-mailing to BITNET, so I can't answer
Martin Haase's query directly.

Rather than translating those demonstratives, I'll number them 1, 2, 3, in order
of increasing distance (viz. Japanese kore, sore, are)

Tolomako (Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu):

 1. ka/kaho
 2. tuha
 3. keni

Those Tolomako demonstratives serve as adjective, pronouns, or adverbs,
depending on the preceding particle and the construction, e.g. i ka "this"
(pronoun); i ka na poe "this pig"; ne ka "here".

Sakao (NE Espiritu Santo) has a rather richer system:

 A B C D E F G H

 1. mam mEd ncn noed dad jEd wa wEd
 2. Am mEr/kEr ni noer dAm dEr wAm wEr
 3. mom mAr/kAr njo nAr dod dAr o wAr

Those in columns A and B are adjectives, in C and D adverbs,
in E and F locatives, and in G and H pronouns.

Key for Sakao: A Hungarian a
 a IPA [a]
 o IPA [o]
 E IPA "epsilon"
 c its IPA mirror-image (mid open back rounded vowel)
 oe IPA [oe] (as a single letter: mid open front rounded vowel)
 d is the voiced apico-dental fricative

Message 3: Re: 2.886 Queries - iconicity in demonstratives

Martin Haase notes

> It seems
> that such systems follow an iconic principle: typically, smaller
> or greater distance from the speaker/hearer (the 'deictic point')
> are indicated by closer or more open vowels.

Scottish Gaelic has a three way distinction with the proximate form
being "sinn" (near cardinal vowel 1), medial being "seo" (a lax form
of cardinal 7 -ish) and distal "siad" which is pretty schwalike but
slightly higher.

David