The linguistic status of the “here and now”

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Abstract

References to the “here and now” of the discourse Situation are considered the most basic type of referential acts, on which other references (to our knowledge store, to previously mentioned portions of the discourse) are based. Linguistically, reference to the physical speech Situation might be seen as basic if it is frequent, easy to process, and coded by unmarked linguistic expressions. I argue against the assumption that references to the physical context are the most basic, claiming that the physical Situation context is not at all frequently referred to, and that references to the physical Situation are far from straightforward and simple. Moreover, even those referring expressions considered deictic are not dedicated to physical context retrievals. They are linguistically marked, they are not frequent in discourse, and the entities they point to are precisely the less salient ones. Finally, first- and second-person references, which are indeedfrequent, show that their retrieval is dependent on the discourse role they currently have, rather than on their sheer availability in the physical context.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)189-238
Number of pages50
JournalCognitive Linguistics
Volume9
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1998

Keywords

  • context
  • deixis
  • demonstrative pronoun
  • first- or second-person references
  • reference
  • speech Situation

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