Data_Sheet_1_Elevation as a Grammatical and Semantic Category of Demonstratives.PDF

In this paper I study semantic and pragmatic properties of elevational demonstratives by means of a typological investigation of 50 languages with elevational demonstratives from all across the globe. The four basic verticality values expressed by elevational demonstratives are UP, DOWN, LEVEL, and ACROSS. They can be ordered along the elevational hierarchy (UP/DOWN > LEVEL/ACROSS), which reflects cross-linguistic tendencies in the expression of these values by demonstratives. Elevational values are frequently co-expressed with distance-based meanings of demonstratives, and it is almost always distal demonstratives that express elevation, whereas medial or proximal demonstratives can lack elevational distinctions. This means that elevational demonstratives largely refer to areas outside the peripersonal sphere in a similar way as simple distal demonstratives. In the proximal domain, fine grained semantic distinctions such as those encoded by elevational demonstratives are superfluous since this domain is accessible to the interlocutors who in the default case of a normal conversation are located in close proximity to each other. I then discuss metaphorical extensions of elevational demonstratives to non-spatial uses such as temporal and social deixis. There are a few languages in which elevational demonstratives with the meaning UP express the temporal meaning future, whereas the DOWN demonstratives encode past. This finding is particularly interesting in view of the widely-debated use of Mandarin Chinese spatial terms ‘up’ for past events and ‘down’ for future events, which show the opposite metaphorical extension. I finally examine areal tendencies and potential correlations between elevational demonstratives and the geographical location of speech communities in mountainous areas such as the Himalayas, the Papuan Highlands and the Caucasus. I tentatively conclude that languages spoken in similar topographic environments do not tend to have similar systems of elevational demonstratives if they belong to different language families.

本文旨在通过对全球范围内具有高度指示性的50种语言的类型学调查，深入研究高度指示性词汇的语义和语用特性。高度指示性词汇所表达的基本垂直性价值包括向上、向下、水平以及跨越。这些价值可以按照高度层次进行排序（向上/向下 > 水平/跨越），这一排序反映了跨语言中指示性词汇表达这些价值的普遍趋势。高度指示性价值常常与指示性词汇的基于距离的意义共同表达，而几乎总是远距离指示性词汇表达高度，而中间或近距离指示性词汇可能缺乏高度区分。这意味着高度指示性词汇在很大程度上类似于简单的远距离指示性词汇，主要指代个人空间之外的区域。随后，我讨论了高度指示性词汇在非空间用途中的隐喻扩展，例如时间和社会指示。在少数语言中，具有向上意义的指示性词汇表达未来时间，而向下指示性词汇则编码过去。这一发现尤其有趣，因为关于普通话中“上”字用于表示过去事件、“下”字用于表示未来事件的广泛讨论，这显示出相反的隐喻扩展。最后，我考察了地区趋势以及高度指示性词汇与位于喜马拉雅山脉、巴布亚高原和高加索山脉等山区言语社区的地理位置之间的潜在相关性。我初步得出结论，具有相似地形环境的语言，如果它们属于不同的语系，则往往不倾向于拥有相似的高度指示性词汇系统。