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On the discourse anaphoric properties of Spanish pre- and post-nominal demonstratives: A comparative analysis.
- Source :
-
Linguistics . May2017, Vol. 55 Issue 3, p553-588. 36p. 1 Diagram, 7 Charts, 1 Graph. - Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- This paper studies the referring properties of post-nominal demonstratives in Spanish with an aim to contributing to our present understanding of this marked construction. A corpus analysis is presented, where 600 cases of pre- and post-nominal demonstratives are analyzed based on their discourse anaphoric properties: direct vs. indirect anaphora. The data reveal that post-nominal demonstratives are significantly preferred in cases of indirect anaphora; that is, where no antecedent is linguistically realized in the discourse, and the reference of the demonstrative anaphor has to be inferred from the discourse or situational context. Pre-nominal demonstratives, on the other hand, show a more balanced picture sharing similar numbers in direct and indirect anaphora. However, the data also reveal that post-nominal demonstratives can be used in direct anaphoric uses, which poses a problem for a categorical distinction between pre- and postnominal demonstratives at the referential level. Since variability appears to be the nature of the phenomenon, I propose a uniform presuppositional characterization for pre- and post-nominal demonstratives that is able to account for the observed referential flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00243949
- Volume :
- 55
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Linguistics
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 123399481
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2017-0006