Petra Goedegebuure

The Hittite Demonstratives (eBook, PDF)

Studies in Deixis, Topics and Focus

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

In order to mitigate the lack of context inherent to the study of dead languages, the author has developed a descriptive model that combines (a) cognitive approaches to reference, (b) a theory of information structure, and (c) typological studies on demonstratives. With the help of this model the author not only provides for the first time a thorough description of the long-known demonstratives ka- "this" and apa- "that", but also identifies a third demonstrative, asi "that, yonder". This identification has led to a reappraisal of the distal semantics of apa-: apa- does not mark remote objects at all but points at objects in the vicinity of the addressee. In short, the Hittite demonstratives are not distance- but person-based. As a third person pronoun, apa- also expresses emphasis. A detailed analysis within the framework of information structure shows, for example, that apa- in preverbal position marks a referent as the Contrastive Focus of its clause (in "the dog (not the cat) chased the horse", dog is in Contrastive Focus). Non-contrastive focal apa-, on the other hand, always occurs in initial position. The addition of information structure to the grammatical description of Hittite thus provides a better understanding of the meaning effects of word order variation in this SOV language.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, B, BG, CY, CZ, D, DK, EW, E, FIN, F, GR, HR, H, IRL, I, LT, L, LR, M, NL, PL, P, R, S, SLO, SK ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Harrassowitz Verlag
• Seitenzahl: 610
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Januar 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9783447193344
• Artikelnr.: 44740057