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What do Swedish demonstratives encode? : A study of exophoric demonstrative preferences

Ask Zaar, Balder LU (2021) ALSK13 20202
Division of Linguistics and Cognitive Semiotics
General Linguistics
Abstract
Swedish exophoric demonstratives have often been seen as words that encode distance-based concepts. Based on the studies of demonstrative systems of several other languages the view of demonstratives as distance-oriented has recently been put into question. Thus, this study aims to investigate the spatiality involved in the semantics of demonstratives. Specifically, the study explores Swedish two-way contrasting demonstrative forms with the help of the David Wilkins Demonstrative Questionnaire (DWDQ). The preferences of demonstrative form usage for 7 participants in 25 scenarios with different contextual cues were gathered. From this data, it was concluded that the distance-oriented view of demonstratives does not satisfactorily explain... (More)
Swedish exophoric demonstratives have often been seen as words that encode distance-based concepts. Based on the studies of demonstrative systems of several other languages the view of demonstratives as distance-oriented has recently been put into question. Thus, this study aims to investigate the spatiality involved in the semantics of demonstratives. Specifically, the study explores Swedish two-way contrasting demonstrative forms with the help of the David Wilkins Demonstrative Questionnaire (DWDQ). The preferences of demonstrative form usage for 7 participants in 25 scenarios with different contextual cues were gathered. From this data, it was concluded that the distance-oriented view of demonstratives does not satisfactorily explain the preferences of the participants. It is abductively argued, evidenced by the data, that demonstratives could encode that the referent is immediately operational (or not) relative to a speaker, meaning simply that the referent is part of a speaker’s activities at the time of utterance of a demonstrative form. Thus, this paper calls into question the idea that Swedish demonstratives merely encode proximity and distality. The overarching implication is that there is a great deal more to learn about exophoric demonstratives cross-linguistically, even for languages we conventionally assumed have demonstratives that encode distance-based or spatial concepts. (Less)
Popular Abstract
Swedish exophoric demonstratives have often been seen as words that encode distance-based concepts. Based on the studies of demonstrative systems of several other languages the view of demonstratives as distance-oriented has recently been put into question. Thus, this study aims to investigate the spatiality involved in the semantics of demonstratives. Specifically, the study explores Swedish two-way contrasting demonstrative forms with the help of the David Wilkins Demonstrative Questionnaire (DWDQ). The preferences of demonstrative form usage for 7 participants in 25 scenarios with different contextual cues were gathered. From this data, it was concluded that the distance-oriented view of demonstratives does not satisfactorily explain... (More)
Swedish exophoric demonstratives have often been seen as words that encode distance-based concepts. Based on the studies of demonstrative systems of several other languages the view of demonstratives as distance-oriented has recently been put into question. Thus, this study aims to investigate the spatiality involved in the semantics of demonstratives. Specifically, the study explores Swedish two-way contrasting demonstrative forms with the help of the David Wilkins Demonstrative Questionnaire (DWDQ). The preferences of demonstrative form usage for 7 participants in 25 scenarios with different contextual cues were gathered. From this data, it was concluded that the distance-oriented view of demonstratives does not satisfactorily explain the preferences of the participants. It is abductively argued, evidenced by the data, that demonstratives could encode that the referent is immediately operational (or not) relative to a speaker, meaning simply that the referent is part of a speaker’s activities at the time of utterance of a demonstrative form. Thus, this paper calls into question the idea that Swedish demonstratives merely encode proximity and distality. The overarching implication is that there is a great deal more to learn about exophoric demonstratives cross-linguistically, even for languages we conventionally assumed have demonstratives that encode distance-based or spatial concepts. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Ask Zaar, Balder LU
supervisor
organization
course
ALSK13 20202
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Swedish demonstratives, den här, den där, semantics of demonstratives, semantic analysis of demonstratives, David Wilkins demonstrative questionnaire
language
English
id
9041451
date added to LUP
2021-03-08 10:58:52
date last changed
2021-03-08 10:58:52
@misc{9041451,
  abstract     = {{Swedish exophoric demonstratives have often been seen as words that encode distance-based concepts. Based on the studies of demonstrative systems of several other languages the view of demonstratives as distance-oriented has recently been put into question. Thus, this study aims to investigate the spatiality involved in the semantics of demonstratives. Specifically, the study explores Swedish two-way contrasting demonstrative forms with the help of the David Wilkins Demonstrative Questionnaire (DWDQ). The preferences of demonstrative form usage for 7 participants in 25 scenarios with different contextual cues were gathered. From this data, it was concluded that the distance-oriented view of demonstratives does not satisfactorily explain the preferences of the participants. It is abductively argued, evidenced by the data, that demonstratives could encode that the referent is immediately operational (or not) relative to a speaker, meaning simply that the referent is part of a speaker’s activities at the time of utterance of a demonstrative form. Thus, this paper calls into question the idea that Swedish demonstratives merely encode proximity and distality. The overarching implication is that there is a great deal more to learn about exophoric demonstratives cross-linguistically, even for languages we conventionally assumed have demonstratives that encode distance-based or spatial concepts.}},
  author       = {{Ask Zaar, Balder}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{What do Swedish demonstratives encode? : A study of exophoric demonstrative preferences}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}