demonstrative ten, anaphoric use, narrative discourse, grammaticalization, theme-rheme structure Anaphoric function of the demonstrative ten in grammaticalization perspective
Abstract
In the paper, the anaphoric use of the demonstrative ten in spoken narrative discourse is examined. Two questions are of main concern to the study: (i) frequency and contextual distribution of the demonstrative, and (ii) grammaticalization potential of the demonstrative in anaphoric function.
Concerning (i), all nominal phrases containing the demonstrative ten (determined NPs; 230 in total) are contrasted with their non-determined lexical counterparts, i.e. those not containing the demonstrative (bare NPs; 400 in total). Each item is then inspected in terms of a set of linguistic parameters.
It turns out that determined NPs dominate over the bared NPs in the data - speakers use them in more than 60 % of repeated mentions. The most decisive factors are animacy of the referent and sentence perspective (theme - rheme structure).
In this way, two functions are identified in the anaphoric use: (i) contextualizing, and (ii) strongly demonstrative, none of which seems to be a plausible source of potential grammaticalization of the demonstrative into a definite article.