Re: deixis
| From: | Tim Smith <timsmith@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, April 11, 1999, 21:22 |
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At 01:28 PM 4/11/99 -0500, Tom Wier wrote:
>Fabian wrote:
>
>> Are there any natlangs that have more than 3 levels of deixis
>> (this/that/yon)?
>
>Yeah. Plenty of them. There was a Southseas language (Tahitian?
>I forget) I read about that had seven different different levels of
>demonstrative deixis.
IIRC, Malagasy has a deictic system that distinguishes seven degrees of
relative distance from the speaker, and also distinguishes whether something
is visible or invisible to the speaker. Perhaps Matt Pearson, our resident
Malagasyist, could clarify this?
-------------------------------------------------
Tim Smith
timsmith@global2000.net
Get your facts first and then you can distort them as you please.
- Mark Twain