Projekt

It is widely acknowledged that demonstrative reference to a physically present object (known as exophoric reference) is not a straight-forward matter of locating the object in spatial terms. Established functional descriptions, which adhere to the spatial notion for want of video data, are proofed insufficient and partly incorrect by findings in a corpus of audio-video recorded texts from Logea (an endangered language in the DoBeS program). In order to validate these findings, the project investigates exophoric demonstrative references across three archived DoBeS corpora: Even (Northern Tungusic), Saliba-Logea (Oceanic), and Totoli (Austronesian, Sulawesi). The data comprise oral narratives, procedural texts and expositions that are spontaneously produced and video-recorded. This permits the team to combine the morpho-syntactic and discourse-pragmatic analysis of each demonstrative construction with the systematic evaluation of both the accompanying gestures and the spatial relation in the triad speaker - addressee - physical object. The project aims at a taxonomy of the functions that demonstratives with exophoric reference have in the interaction between speech participants.

• Prof. Dr. Nikolaus P. Himmelmann

  Universität Köln
  Philosophische Fakultät
  Institut für Linguistik
  Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
  Köln
  

• Dr. Carmen Dawuda

  Monash University
  School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
  Linguistics Program
  Melbourne, Victoria
  Australien