Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar

1
Demonstratives, joint attention, and the
emergence of grammar

• Holger Diessel
• University of Jena
• holger.diessel_at_uni-jena.de
• http//www.holger-diessel.de/

2
English demonstratives

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Hypothesis

• Demonstratives function to coordinate the
  interloctors joint focus of attention.

Developmental psychology Carpenter et al.
1998 Tomasello 1999
Cognitive primatology Butterworth 1998
Povinelli Vonk 2003
Philosophy of the mind Eilan et al. 2005

• The communicative function of demonstratives is
  reflected in a number of properties that together
  characterize them as a particular class of
  linguistic expressions.
• Demonstratives play a key role in the
  organization of discourse and the (diachronic)
  evolution of grammar.

4
Typological database
Diessel (1999a, 1999b, 2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2006)
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Joint attention

Bruner 1983 Dunham and Moore 1995 Carpenter et
al. 1998 Tomasello 1995, 1999 Eilan et al. 2005.
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Joint attention

Moore and Dunham 1995 Morissette et al. 1995
Carpenter et al. 1998 Tomasello 1995, 1999
Eilan et al. 2005
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Gaze following

Scaife Bruner 1975 Butterworth 1998 Franco
2005 Brooks Meltzoff 2005
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Deictic pointing
Deictic pointing is a communicative device that
people of all cultures use to establish joint
attention (Kita 2003).

• Deictic pointing indicates the location of an
  object relative to the location of the pointer,
  i.e. deictic pointing provides spatial
  orientation.
• Deictic pointing coordinates the attentional
  focus of the communicative partners, i.e. deictic
  pointing establishes (or manipulates) joint
  attention.

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Deictic pointing
The earliest pointing gestures emerge at around
the age of 12 months.

• Proto-imperatives
• Proto-declaratives

Declarative pointing is a unique trait of human
communication (Tomasello and Camaioni 1997
Tomasello Call 1997 Krause 1997 Butterworth
1998 Povinelli and Vonk 2003).
Joint attention provides a prerequisite for the
development of communication, social cognition,
and language (Tomasello 1999).
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Demonstratives and deictic pointing

There are many linguistic means that speakers can
use to manipulate a shared focus of attention,
but there is no other linguistic device that is
so closely tied to this function than
demonstratives (Levinson 2004 Diessel 2006) .
The particular communicative function of
demonstratives is reflected in the fact that
demonstratives are commonly accompanied by a
deictic pointing gesture (Bühler 1934 Enfield
2003 Diessel 2006).
In the simplest case, demonstratives and deictic
pointing create a new shared focus of attention,
but they are also commonly used to differentiate
between multiple referents that are already in
the shared attentional focus (Özyürek and Kita
2002 Levinson 2004).
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Demonstratives in L1 acquisition
Demonstratives are among the earliest words that
English-speaking children learn (Clark 1978,
2003 Diessel 2006).
The earliest demonstratives children produce are
always accompanied by a pointing gesture (Clark
1978, 2003 Weissenborn 1988).
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Universal aspects of demonstratives

Demonstratives are one of the few closed-class
expressions that are universal (Himmelmann 1997
Diessel 1999, 2005 Dixon 2003).
Diessel 2005a
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Universal aspects of demonstratives

Acehnese (Durie 1985) (a) ureuengnyan
personthat that person. (b)
neupeuso nyan bek jiteu-peu
lêgop 2hide that NEG
3know-what bys.o.else Hide that so
that no one else will know. (c) Nyan
jipura-pura teungeut jih there
3pretend-pretend sleep he There he
goes pretending to be asleep.
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Diachronic aspects of demonstratives

There is no evidence from any language that
demonstratives developed from a content word or
some other source that is non-deictic (Hopper
Traugott 1993 Himmelmann 1997 Diessel 1999,
2006).
Reinforcement das da (German)
celui-ci (French)
Latin ille Vulgar Latin ecce ille Old
French cest cel French ce
Demonstratives emerged very early in the
evolution of language so that we simply do not
know how they evolved.
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Interim summary

• Demonstratives are commonly combined with a
  deictic pointing gesture.
• Demonstratives are among the earliest words
  children learn.
• Demonstratives are universal.
• Demonstratives are old.

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The discourse use
Demonstratives do not only refer to concrete
entities in the surrounding situation, but are
also commonly used with reference to linguistic
elements in discourse (cf. Bühler 1934 Lyons
1977 Himmelmann 1996 Fillmore 1997 Diessel
1999 Levinson 2004).
Demonstratives that are used with text-internal
reference indicate a link between the linguistic
unit in which they are embedded (e.g. NP, PP, S)
and the linguistic element to which they refer.
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The discourse use
(1) The Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under
three feet of ice. On top of this ice were as
many feet of snow.
Anaphoric
(2) Oh, pretty big. Big enough so that the
rock doesn't look nearly as tall as it is. The
top's bigger than the base. The bluff is sort
of worn away for several hundred feet up.
That's one reason it's so hard to climb.
Discourse deictic
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The discourse use
Anaphoric and discourse-deictic demonstratives
involve the same psychological mechanisms as
demonstratives that speakers use with
text-external reference. In both uses,
demonstratives focus the interlocutors attention
on a particular referent.
Joint attention is thus not only important to
coordinate the interlocutors attentional focus
in the speech situation, it also plays an
important role in the internal organization of
discourse.
When anaphoric and discourse deictic
demonstratives are routinely used to express a
particular relationship between two linguistic
units, they often loose their deictic force and
develop into grammatical markers.
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Definite article

þes (OE) -gt the (ME)
Christopherson 1939 Heinrichs 1956 Krámsky
1972 Ultan 1978 Harris 1978, 1980 Greenberg
1978, 1991 Lüdtke 1991, Traugott 1992 Vogel
1993 Cyr 1993, 1996 Leiss 1994 Epstein 1994,
1995 Lehmann 1995 Laury 1995, 1997 Himmelmann
1997, 1998
that N (deictic) -gt that N (aforementioned)
-gt the N (definite)
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Third person pronouns

ille (Latin) -gt il / elle (French)
Harris 1978 Givón 1984 Bhat 2005 Diessel 2006
hit (OE) -gt it (Modern English)
Ana. DEM -gt 3.PRO -gt clitic -gt agreement
marker -gt Ø
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Relative pronouns

DEM (OHG) -gt der/die/das (Germ)
Behagel 1932 Givón 1984 Lehmann 1982 Diessel
1999, 2006
DEM (OE) -gt that (Modern Engl.)
DEM (IE) -gt tèn (CL Greek)
demonstrative -gt relative pronoun -gt
relative particle
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Copulas

shi (Chinese)
Berman Grosu 1977 Li Thompson 1976 Schuh
1983 Eid 1983 Gildea 1993 Devitt 1994 Diessel
1999
ze (Modern Hebrew)
NPi DEMi NP -gt NPi COPi NP
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Focus marker

Its Peter who met us
Diessel 1999, 2006 Heine Kuteva 2002
DEM PeterS who met usS -gt FOC
PeterNP (who) met usS
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Complementizer

Middle High German (Harris Campbell
1995) Joh gizalta in sâr thaZ, and told them im
mediately that thiu sâlida untar in uuas. the lu
ck among them was And told them immediately
that good fortune was among them.
Lockwood 1968 Harris Campbell 1995 Diessel
1999 Heine Kuteva 2002
I tell you this I am not going to this
party.
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Conjunctions

da-mit DEM-with da-bei DEM-by da-durch DEM-thro
ugh
Diessel 1999, 2006
German Wir haben den Zug verpasst darum
sind We have the train missed
therefore are wir zu spät. we
too late We missed the train therefore we are
too late.
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Other grammatical markers

• Temporal adverbs (Anderson Keenan 1985)
• Directional preverbs (Diessel 1999)
• Linkers (Himmelmann 1997)
• Number markers (Frajzyngier 1999)
• Possessive pronouns (Diessel 1999)
• Topic markers (Vries 1995)
• Determinatives (Diessel 1999)

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Grammatical phenomena

The grammaticalization of demonstratives involves
some of the most frequent and most important
grammatical phenomena that occur in languages
across the world

• definiteness marking
• reference tracking
• relativization
• complementation
• clause combining
• formation of copular clauses

The contribution of demonstratives to the
evolution of grammar is significant grammar
would look very different without this source.
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Conclusion

Demonstratives constitute a special class of
linguistic expressions serving one of the most
basic functions of human communication They
establish/manipulate joint attention.
The communicative importance of demonstratives is
reflected in a number of properties that together
characterize them as a particular class

• Demonstratives are closely tied to a particular
  gesture.
• Demonstratives emerge very early in language
  acquisition.
• Demonstratives are universal.
• Demonstratives are old.

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Conclusion

• Demonstratives play an important role in the
  internal organization of discourse In the
  discourse use, they function to focus the
  addressees attention on a linguistic referent.
• Demonstratives play an important role in the
  (diachronic) evolution of grammar Across
  languages, demonstratives provide a common
  historical source for some of the most frequent
  grammatical markers definite articles, third
  person pronouns, relative pronouns,
  complementizers, conjunctions, copulas, and a
  wide variety of other grammatical markers.