On Demonstratives In English And Chinese

This research aims to provide a comparative study of English and Chinese demonstratives from functional-typological and grammaticalizational perspectives. Demonstratives pertain to the category of deixis. Deixis plays an important role in relating language to the outside world. Demonstratives belong to spatial deixis, and spatial references serve as the basis, in most languages, for a variety of metaphorical extensions into other domains.This research includes the synchronic description, explanation and comparison of the morphosyntactic features, pragmatic properties and synchronic grammaticalization features of demonstratives in English and Chinese.As regards their morphosyntactic features, the Chinese demonstratives are morphologically more complex compared with their English counterparts. The English and Chinese demonstratives occur mostly in the same syntactic context. The relationship between entity-referring demonstratives and the other four kinds of demonstratives (place-, time-, manner-, and degree-reference) in English is different from that in Chinese. In English, the above-mentioned four kinds of demonstratives are in most cases different words compared with the entity-referring demonstratives. In Chinese, however, they are composed of a corresponding entity-referring demonstrative and an affix. Based on the morphosyntactic properties of demonstratives, it is argued that there is a distinction between the distribution (e.g., pronominal demonstrative, and adnominal demonstrative) and the categorial status (e.g., demonstrative pronoun, and demonstrative determiner) of demonstratives, and that there seems to be a corresponding relationship between them.This research distinguishes between basic uses, extended uses and grammaticalized uses. The basic uses include the exophoric uses and the endophoric uses. The latter can be further divided into three types, namely: anaphoric, discourse deictic, and recognitional uses. The exophoric use is the primary use among them. It is the exophoric use that the other three types of endophoric uses have evolved from. Compared with the other three endophoric uses of demonstratives, exophoric uses appear first in order of time and development of language, and are also prior in language acquisition.The grammaticalization of demonstratives in English and Chinese is examined in some detail in this research. The grammaticalization of demonstratives originates from the anaphoric uses. It is found that grammaticalization follows a cline ranging from exophoric demonstratives that are used to orient the hearer in the outside world to grammatical markers that serve specific syntactic functions. The three endophoric uses stand in between the two ends of this cline and are the transitional stages from the exophoric uses to the grammatical uses. The developmental cline of the uses of demonstratives can be summarized as follows: exophoric uses > endophoric uses > extended uses > grammaticalized uses.The major conclusions of this research are:(i) From the morphosyntactic point of view, both English and Chinese demonstratives have their plural forms, can be followed by numerals, and basically show a dichotomous distinction (proximal vs. distal) in terms of distance. English and Chinese do not distinguish between demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative determiners in form, but in syntactic distribution. In both languages, demonstratives act mainly as independent pronouns, determiners, degree modifiers, and connectives. In nominal phrases, they may be pronominal or adnominal. In both languages, the distal demonstrative occurs in more versatile syntactic contexts than the proximal demonstrative does.However, in nominal phrases, demonstrative determiners in English agree with the head nouns in number, but demonstrative determiners in Chinese do not. The Chinese demonstratives can be followed by classifiers in both the pronominal and adnominal uses, while the English demonstratives do not share this feature. English and Chinese demonstrative determiners have different relationships with other determiners. In English, demonstrative determiners are in paradigmatic relationship with the other determiners, while in Chinese, they are in syntagmatic relationship. The Chinese demonstratives can follow a personal pronoun to modify the head, while the English demonstratives do not share this use.When used as demonstrative pronouns at the object position, English and Chinese demonstratives may have different kinds of reference. Bare demonstratives in English may occur at the object position with semantic restriction to non-personal references. However, bare demonstrative pronouns in Chinese seldom occur in the object position. They are usually followed by (numerals and) classifiers, or occur with affixes, or take complement elements, or be topicalized to the initial position of the sentence. They are usually followed by a classifier and may have personal or non-personal reference, which is determined by the semantics of the classifier employed.(ii) From the pragmatic or functional point of view, demonstratives can serve the basic uses and the extended uses. The similarities between the two languages in these two kinds of uses seem to cover a wider range than the differences between the two languages. This substantiates the argument that deixis is universal in the process of human communication. The semantic components (proximity or distality) can be used to explain the basic uses and extended uses in most cases in both languages.As far as the basic uses are concerned, there is a developmental cline which may be illustrated as: exophoric uses > anaphoric uses > discourse deictic. The distributions of the morphological features in the four kinds of basic uses are similar in both languages. In recognitional uses, demonstratives in both languages are restricted to the adnominal uses, and in other three uses, such a restriction does not exist.Earlier studies have shown that, in discourse deictic uses, English distal that is seldom used to have cataphoric reference except that it denotes affective meanings. However, it is found in this research that that can be used cataphorically without having to show one's subjective attitude or personal feelings. It may be used to refer to a set of juxtaposed propositions in close context. This use is similar to that in Chinese.The differences between English and Chinese demonstratives in the basic uses mainly lie in the following two aspects: (a) In anaphoric uses, the Chinese demonstratives may be used in both direct anaphora and associative anaphora, while the English demonstratives are usually used in direct anaphora. (b) In discourse deictic uses, demonstratives in English are restricted to the singular form, while in Chinese, such a restriction does not exist.(iii) In the extended uses, demonstratives in English and Chinese are used not only to indicate reference in the discourse, but also to join in the functions of other cohesive devices: substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. The singular distal demonstratives, in both languages, may be used outside the domain of a noun phrase to connect two clauses or sentences.The use of demonstratives involves not only the process of judging physical distance, but also the process of metaphoricalization in three ways: space-to-time, space-to-discourse, physical space-to-psychological space. (a) The process of metaphoricalization to time may involves a shift of point of view of the narrator from the present to the past. The proximal demonstrative, in both languages, may have past, present, and future referents, and the distal one may have past or future referents. The distal demonstrative can never have present referents in both languages. Incidentally, the earlier studies seldom dealt with future referents. (b) The process of metaphoricalization to discourse involves such factors as memory retention, topic initialization, information activation. Both English and Chinese demonstratives can be used to show the distance of the referent to the current sentence. (c) The process of metaphoricalization to psychological space involves the speaker's subjective attitude and a shift of point of view (or empathy) from the speaker to the hearer or the third party. Demonstratives in both languages may indicate the speaker's personal attitude toward the referent. Anaphoric demonstratives indicating proximity are used to refer to an idea still fresh in the speaker's or writer's mind, while those indicating distality are used to refer to an idea that is further away or not present in the speaker's or writer's mind. Thus, there is the speaker's subjective involvement (or speaker's point of view) in choosing the proximal or distal demonstrative in communication.Demonstratives might be person-oriented or distance-oriented. In person-oriented cases, when demonstratives are used anaphorically to refer to something that has been said before by oneself, the proximal this/zhèwill be used. And that/nàwill be chosen if the referent is what has been said by others. A shift of point of view or empathy may also occur. In the distance-oriented system, the deictic center (the speaker's location) is the point of reference for the location of the referent. In the person-oriented system, in addition to the real deictic center, the location of the listener may also be taken as the deictic center (empathy or shift of view in person). In narrative descriptions, the speaker or writer may sometimes place himself in the present situation or sometimes in the past situation (shift of view in time).The differences between English and Chinese demonstratives in the extended uses mainly lie in: (a) There exists symmetric and asymmetric substitutability in Chinese and English. In Chinese, both proximal and distal demonstratives can be used as the substitute forms, while in English, only the distal ones can be used as substitute forms. (b) In Chinese, demonstratives can be used in a euphemistic way. The distal demonstrative may be used to refer to something unpleasant, or inappropriate to directly talk about. (c) In Chinese, pronominal and adnominal demonstratives may be deictically neutral. In contrast, the pronominal and adnominal demonstratives in English are usually not deictically neutral partly due to the existence of the definite article the. (d) Besides the exact co-reference, Chinese demonstrative determiners can be used to introduce a noun which is the synonym, super-ordinate or general word of the antecedent.(iv) From a grammaticalization point of view, demonstratives serve as a common historical source for a variety of grammatical items in English and Chinese. The distal demonstrative in both languages is more conducive to grammaticalization and is easier to lose its deictic meaning and become non-deictic.In both languages, syntactic context and semantic suitability are the key elements that determine the non-deictic uses and grammaticalization process of demonstratives. It is found that, by reason of origin, grammatical items are usually associated respectively with pronominal and adnominal demonstratives and that the former usually retain some of the syntactic properties of their source items. It is also discovered that pronominal demonstratives are reanalyzed as grammatical items like sentence connective (in both languages), relative pronoun and complementizer (in English), and that adnominal demonstratives are reanalyzed as grammatical items like determinative (in English), generic marker and relative pronoun (in Chinese). Adnominal demonstratives can also have other non-phoric uses, such as indefinite uses (in both languages), definite article uses, non-referential uses, and appositive uses (in Chinese).From the syntactic point of view, the grammaticalization paths of demonstratives in both languages can be illustrated as follows:In Chinese, demonstratives in the syntactic construction"Modifier + Dem + Head", which falls into the abstract syntactic pattern"Modifier + Grammatical marker + Head", is most likely to have extended uses, and thus develop its various kinds of grammaticalized uses. In the endocentric construction of"NP1 + DEM + NP2", NP1 and NP2 are closely related semantically. They may bear the relationship of possession, co-reference, or metaphor.The similarities in semantic, syntactic, pragmatic and grammaticalization features of demonstratives in both languages give further proof for the existence of linguistic universals, whereas the differences illustrate the various idiosyncracies that languages may have. So far as English and Chinese are concerned, the semantic and pragmatic features show more similarities. This confirms that demonstratives are semantic primitives in human languages, and indicates that demonstratives embody a cognitive process that is universal across different cultures in the world.The major contributions of this research are as follows:(i) This research, for the first time, provides a systematic comparative study of English and Chinese demonstratives, with respect to morphosyntactic features and various functions from a functional-typological point of view.(ii) It describes in detail the grammaticalization of English and Chinese demonstratives from a synchronic point of view, and suggests that different grammatical items may take different grammaticalization channels. It is found that pronominal demonstratives and adnominal demonstratives tend to develop into different grammatical markers.(iii) It is verified that syntactic, semantic and phonological factors are all involved in the grammaticalization process of demonstratives. It is found that grammaticalized items usually retain some of the syntactic properties of their sources. Compared with the proximal demonstrative, the distal demonstrative tends to be more inclined to develop the non-deictic and grammaticalized uses. In the grammaticalization process, demonstratives experienced semantic loss and phonological reduction. Their deictic meaning is gradually reduced and eventually lost. The grammaticalized items are usually not stressed and they have shifted into a smaller lexical category than the category which their sources belong to.(iv) It is verified that grammaticalization of demonstratives takes the same course as that from less grammatical items to more grammatical items. It is found that the grammaticalization process also observes the principles of layering, persistence, and unidirectionality, and that the mechanisms of metaphor (in both languages) and metonymy (in Chinese only) are also involved. What is more, the grammaticalization process involves the process of paradigmaticization (shift from a larger closed class to a smaller one) and obligatorification (obligatory presence in a construction).Issues and prospects for future research are also suggested:(i) The motivations of some uses of Chinese demonstratives need to be explored in the future. This paper deals with the basic and extended uses of English and Chinese demonstratives. It is found that Chinese demonstratives can be used as a marker of topic shift in communication, and can have a euphemistic use. These uses are not shared by English demonstratives. What are the motivations behind these specific uses needs to be explained in the future.(ii) The mechanisms for semantic change in the grammaticalization process need to be further explored and elaborated. The mechanisms of semantic change pertaining to the grammaticalization of lexical items include metaphorical extension, inference, generalization, harmony, absorption of context, etc. Demonstratives, however, are usually taken as grammatical items rather than lexical items. Their grammaticalization proceeds from less grammatical to more grammatical. Thus we have the following questions: How do the above-mentioned mechanisms of semantic change work in the process like this? Do these mechanisms also take place in the on-going grammaticalization process of demonstratives? What roles do the relevant and surrounding items (e.g., the antecedent and the head noun) play in the process? This needs to be further explored.(iii) Another area needs to be further explored is the logical necessity that it is the distal rather than the proximal demonstrative that is inclined to evolve non-deictic and grammaticalized uses. Thus, research needs to be done to confirm if the property of distality is more akin to the quality of being non-deictic and more conducive to grammaticalization.