Re: Deictics was Re: Definite/Indefinite Article Distinction

Quoting wayne chevrier <wachevrier@...>:

> Pablo David nevesht:
>
> >Japanese has three levels of deixis (this/that/yonder)
> >as you said, same as Spanish (este/ese/aquel), where
> >English has two. A more complicated system, anybody? :)
> >
> Inuktitut:that up there, that over there, that to my left, &c.
> several other languages have as complicated deictic systems and some have
> only one(this or that),if two this/that or visible/not-visible or the first
> to be mentioned/the second, and i am certain there are distinction I
> haven't included.
Phaleran deictic anaphora comprise four dimensions:  visible or
invisible; current time or not;  casual, polite or honorific;  and
near speaker and not near hearer, near both, near hearer not speaker
and near neither.

(Politeness is a kind of social deixis between speaker and hearer,
rather than deixis of content.)

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Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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