week 6 - deixis.ppt

7/27/2019 Week 6 - Deixis.ppt

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Week 6: Deixis


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Introduction Deixis is the most obvious way in which features of

context are encoded in language by speakers

Thus, it also concerns the contextual knowledge thathearers must have for interpretation

Deixis suggests that natural language is designed forface-to-face interaction

Deixis is universal, probably because it affords efficientuses of language


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Deictic information The importance of deictic information for

interpretation is easiest to see in its absence

(1) Meet me here a month from now with amagic wand about this long

When deictic information is available, (1) saves a lot oflinguistic work but when uttered out of context it ismostly meaningless


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Contextual coordinates Deictic information can be thought of as a set of

contextual coordinates

Interpreting deictic expressions (indexicals) reliesupon recognising contextual coordinates of theutterance in which they occur

That is, knowing by whom, when and where an

utterance is produced


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Categories of deixis Three traditional categories of deixis identified are

person, time and place deixis

Further categories have also been identified Deictic expressions include demonstratives,

personalpronouns, and adverbsof place and time

Deictic forms can sometimes be used in a non-deictic

sense


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Deictic vs. non-deictic For example, third-person pronouns can be used

anaphoricallyrather than deictically

Pronouns used impersonallyare not deictic: (2) One/You should never eat the yellow snow

Not always easy to tell with pronouns. However:

(3a) What time did the last bus go?

(3b) The last bus goes at 23.30


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Gestural vs. symbolic deixis Deixis is gestural when interpretation requires hearer

to be co-present with speaker to see someaccompanying physical action as in (4a)

Deixis is symbolic when hearer needs to knowcontextual coordinates but does not need to be co-present with speaker as in (4b)

(4a) Put one here and one over there

(4b) It is snowing here. Is it over there?


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Deictic formsDeictic expression

Deictic use Non-deictic use

Gestural Symbolic


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Deictic centre Point of reference referred to as deictic centre

Deixis usually organised in an egocentric way

Thus, default deictic centre is time and place ofspeaker at moment of utterance

Therefore coincides with contextual coordinates

However, in some contexts speakers can throw or

project the deictic centre


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Person deixis Concerns encoding of reference to participants in the

speech event in which an utterance occurs

Reflected in grammatical category ofperson In English, instantiated in personal pronouns and

possessive determiners

In English, pronouns also encode grammatical

categories number and gender


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Person deixis: Person First-person usually encodes speakers reference to

themselves [+S]

Second-person encodes speakers reference to one ormore addressees [+A]

Third-person encodes speakers reference to persons(and entities) who are neither the speaker nor the

addressee [-S, -A] First-person plural can encode [-S, +A] though


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Person deixis: Person Stock boy: Excuse me, sir, but what are you doing?

George: I'll tell you what I'm doing. I want to buy eight hot dogs and eight hotdog buns to go with them. But no one sells eight hot dog buns. They only selltwelve hot dog buns. So I end up paying for four buns I don't need. So I am

removing the superfluous buns. Stock boy: I'm sorry, sir. But you're going to have to pay for all twelve buns.

They're not marked individually.

George: Yeah. And you want to know why? Because some big-shot over at thewiener company got together with some big-shot over at the bun company and

decided to rip off the American public. Because they think the American publicis a bunch of trusting nit-wits who will pay for everything they don't needrather than make a stink!

Manager: Get me security.


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Person deixis: Person George: Well, they're not ripping off this nit-wit anymore because I'm not

paying for one more thing I don't need! George Banks is saying no!

Stock boy: Who's George Banks?

George: !Me!

Manager: Why don't we just calm down now, sir.

George: I'll tell you why "we" don't calm down, because you're not excited! Ittakes two people for a "we" to calm down, doesn't it?

Manager: Uh, that I don't know, sir. I'm just the assistant manager of asupermarket. But I'll tell you this. If you don't pipe down and pay for those

buns, I'm going to call the police. George: Oh...right! Yeah! Uh-huh. Yeah. Right!


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Person deixis: NumberAll languages encode category of person and

distinguish at least first- and second-person

However, languages differ in encoding number Some do not encode it all, whilst others make a

singular-plural distinction and some make moredistinctions in between: dual-trial-paucal

English encodes a singular-plural distinction


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Person deixis: Number In many languages, there are two first-person plural

pronouns

Encode [+S, +A] or [+S, -A] Unmarked in English and results in ambiguity

ofwe, us and ours. However:

(5a) Lets go to the cinema tomorrow

(5b) Lets go to see you tomorrow


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Person deixis: Gender Pronouns can mark semantic and grammatical gender

All languages that mark gender do it for third-person

pronouns More languages make gender distinctions in the

singular than plural

English only marks semantic gender and only

for third-person singular pronouns


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Projecting person deixis A malamed (Hebrew teacher] discovering that he had left

his comfortable slippers back in the house, sent a studentafter them with a not for his wife. The note read: send me

your slippers with this boy. When the student asked whyhe had written your slippers, the melamed answered:Yold! If I wrote my slippers, she would read my slipperand would send her slippers. What could I do with her

slippers? So I wrote your slippers, shell read yourslippers and send me mind


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Time deixis Concerns encoding of temporal points and spans

relative to time at which utterance is produced

This time is referred to as coding time (CT) Canonically, CT coincides with receiving time (RT)

but not always, as (1) demonstrates

Instantiated in verb tense and adverbsof time like

now and then andyesterday, today and tomorrow


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Time deixisNow and then designate proximal and distal time

respectively

Notice that now can refer to instant of CT as in (6) or aspan including CT as in (7)

(6) I am handing my essay in now [as we speak]

(7) I am now working on my pragmatics essay

Similarly, today can refer to a day or an era


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Time deixis English has deictic names of days for one day before

and one day after day including CT

Some languages (Japanese) have them for more thanday before and after day including CT

Some languages (Hindi) have the same deictic namefor one day either side of day including CT

Deictic names for days take preference over calendricalnames for days


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Time deixis Complex time adverbials like this yearcontain a deictic

modifier and a calendrical unit of time

This yearrefers to the year of utterance where yearisambiguous between a calendrical year or some otherculturally specified unit of 365 days

Same can be said for this weekand this month

However, this July would not normally be used to referto the month of utterance


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Time deixis This Xwhen X is a proper name for a unit within a

larger calendrical unit can be taken to refer to the unitX which is included in the larger unit Y that includesCT

Similarly, next Xwhen X is a proper name for a unitwithin a larger calendrical unit can be taken to refer tothe unit X which follows the unit of the same orderthat includes CT


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Time deixis However, ambiguity arises with next Xwhen X is a

calendrical name for a day

Hence next Thursday can refer to the Thursday of theweek that succeeds the week that includes CT or theThursday that first follows CT

Ambiguity only arises, though, when uttered on

Mondays and Tuesdays!


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Projecting time deixis In some types of speech event, speakers must decide

whether to keep deictic centre at CT as in (8) or projectit to RT as in (9)

(8a) This programme is being recorded today,April 1st, to be broadcast next Thursday

(8b) I write this letter while it is snowing

(9a) This programme was recorded last Tuesday,April 1st, to be broadcast today

(9b) I wrote this letter while it was snowing


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Place deixis Concerns encoding of spatial locations relative to

deictic centre

All languages distinguish proximal and distal

Some languages distinguish more locations on theproximal-distal scale

In English, instantiated in adverbs of place here and

there and demonstrativesthis and that


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Place deixis Here and there and this and that can usually be taken

to refer to locations proximal and distal from speakerslocation at CT as in (10)

(10) Bring thathere and take thisthere

But there can also be used to mean a location proximal

to addressees location at CT as in (11) (11) How are things there?


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Place deixis Place deixis also instantiated in motion verbs come

and go

Come and go seem to distinguish direction of motionrelative to speaker at CT where come/go mean motiontowards/away from speaker

(12) John is coming to the party later

(12) John is going to the party later


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Projecting place deixis Same can be said for bring and take as in (13)

However

(13) Imcoming to the party and Imbringingbooze

(13) involves projecting deictic centre to location

of addressee Thus come can mean movement towards/away from

location of speaker or addressee at CT


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Projecting place deixis Deictic centre can also be projected in uses of the

adverb here

(14) The next station is Hitchin. Change here forservices to Peterborough.

Thus, here can refer to location of speaker at CT or goal

of speaker at CT (14) demonstrates difficulty in distinguishing deixis

and anaphora


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Summary Deictic expressions can be gestural or symbolic

Three main categories of deixis: person, time and place

Deictic expressions encode contextual features ofsituations of utterance

Deictic centres can be projected

Further deictic categories can be identified

week 6 - deixis.ppt

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