Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

N J Enfield editor Stephen C Levinson editor Michael J Dunn editor Sarah Cutfield editor Sérgio Meira editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:19th Jul '18

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective cover

The definitive guide to demonstratives, which play a key role in language acquisition and use.

Demonstratives with their pointing gestures are amongst the first words that children learn, and they have fascinated theorists by the combination of slender semantic content and the practical force in communication. This book is for researchers and students in linguistics, philosophy and psychology interested in demonstratives, a key anchor tying language to the world.Demonstratives play a crucial role in the acquisition and use of language. Bringing together a team of leading scholars this detailed study, a first of its kind, explores meaning and use across fifteen typologically and geographically unrelated languages to find out what cross-linguistic comparisons and generalizations can be made, and how this might challenge current theory in linguistics, psychology, anthropology and philosophy. Using a shared experimental task, rounded out with studies of natural language use, specialists in each of the languages undertook extensive fieldwork for this comparative study of semantics and usage. An introduction summarizes the shared patterns and divergences in meaning and use that emerge.

'Reporting on demonstratives in fifteen nearly all unrelated and 'exotic' languages, each language is studied with an identical, interactive elicitation technique, resulting in very detail language-specific descriptions as well as a typological sketch of the key parameters of variation. Even if readers already know that there is much more to this, that and the other than a proximal verus distal distinction, this book is a must.' Johan van der Auwera, Universiteit Antwerpen

ISBN: 9781108424288

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 22mm

Weight: 780g

402 pages