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Anaphoric demonstratives and mutual knowledge

The cases of Japanese and English

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Abstract

Since Kuno (1973), it has been widely acknowledged that the choice of Japanese demonstratives (the distal a-series, the medial so-series, and the proximal ko-series) in their anaphoric use is regulated by rules concerned with the speaker’s and the hearer’s knowledge of, or acquaintance with, the referent. In cross-linguistic discussions of anaphoric demonstratives, on the other hand, the effect of the interlocutors’ knowledge of the referent has hardly been acknowledged. This paper has the following goals. First, it critically reviews Kuno’s seminal analysis of Japanese anaphoric demonstratives, and presents a modified version of it. Second, it argues that the interlocutors’ knowledge of the referent is relevant to the choice of the English demonstratives this and that too. Third, it provides a formal semantic analysis of anaphoric demonstratives in the two languages.

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Notes

  1. For the sake of simplicity, we will say “adnominal demonstrative X refers to Y” to mean “an NP with X refers to Y.”

  2. Throughout the article, examples without specification of the source are constructed by the authors.

  3. The question of what exactly counts as “know personally” will be taken up below.

  4. The abbreviations in glosses are: Acc = accusative, Acc = accusative, Adv = adverb, Attr = attributive, Ben = benefactive auxiliary, Caus = causative, Cl = classifier, Cond = conditional, Cop = copula, Dat = dative, DAux = discourse auxiliary, DP = discourse particle, Evid = evidential particle, EvidAux = evidential auxiliary, Ger = gerund, Imp = imperative, Inf = infinitive, Loc = locative, Neg(Aux) = negation (auxiliary), Nmz = nominalizer, Nom = nominative, Npfv = nonperfective auxiliary, NSHon = non-subject honorific, Opt = optative, Pass = passive, Pfv = perfective auxiliary, Plt(Aux) = polite(ness auxiliary), Pot = potential, Pro = pronoun, PP = past participle, Prs = present, Pst = past, SHon = subject honorific, Top = topic, Vol = volitional. Subscript ko, so, and a in the glosses/translations indicate that the corresponding Japanese expression is a ko-, so-, and a-demonstrative, respectively.

  5. Kuroda (1979) puts forth the following characterizations of Japanese demonstratives (the translation and summary by Takubo and Kinsui 1997:753).

    1. (i)
      figure j

    Kinsui and Takubo (1990) claim that a so-demonstrative, whether used exophorically or anaphorically, refers to an entity belonging to the hearer’s domain. Takubo and Kinsui (1997) propose that a speaker uses an anaphoric so-demonstrative to identify an object in the “indirect experience domain (I-domain)” in his mental database, which is linked to the temporary memory set up for the purpose of each discourse, and an anaphoric a-demonstrative to identify an object in the “direct experience domain (D-domain),” which is linked to the long-term memory. As we understand them, these accounts all fail to explain why the use of a so-demonstrative is felicitous in cases like (5A) and (6).

  6. It is interesting to ask how various means of distant communication, such as letters/written notes, emails, phone calls, and video chats, factor into the establishment of the acquaintance relation. We leave this issue for future research.

  7. In a case where one has the knowledge that he has had contact with some referent x but did not directly perceive it, or does not remember directly perceiving it (e.g., the nurse in (i)), x is treated as “not recognized.”

    1. (i)
      figure o

  8. Pragmatic accommodation is relatively easy when the information to be accommodated is relatively typical or mundane, and more difficult when the information is surprising:

    1. (i)
      figure t

    A similar effect can be observed with a Japanese anaphoric demonstrative.

    1. (ii)
      figure u

  9. Kinsui and Takubo (1990:94–96) remark that exceptional usage of a-demonstratives is observed “in a certain kind of context where the speaker gives instructions to the hearer.”

  10. Roberts (2002:122–124) suggests that anaphoric demonstratives are a kind of discourse-deictic demonstratives, and reference with them involves “demonstration in discourse”; we depart from her in not adopting this view.

  11. It is interesting to ask whether the relation of “recognize” (“acquainted with”) is to be taken as a primitive, as it is here, or should be formulated with a more general apparatus for belief ascriptions. An attempt at such decomposition, which utilizes a DRT-style formulation of attitudes with anchoring functions, was made in Oshima and McCready (2014).

  12. https://guidedbycereal.com/europe/london/ (Accessed 2 June 2014).

  13. “ ‘Get off your asses for these old broads!’: Elizabeth Taylor, aging and the television comeback movie,” an article on Celebrity Studies 3(1) (published in 2012; doi:10.1080/19392397.2012.644717).

  14. As noted by Roberts (2002:93) and Kinsui and Takubo (1990:105), there are cases where this or a ko-demonstrative is used in a modal subordination environment and refers to an entity whose existence is not entailed in the global context.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for valuable comments to the four anonymous reviewers and the editor Julie Anne Legate. Some materials in this article were presented at PACLIC 28 and published in Oshima and McCready (2014); thanks also to the audience there for helpful feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of International Communication, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 466-8601, Japan

    David Y. Oshima

  2. Department of English, Aoyama Gakuin University, 4-4-25 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8366, Japan

    Elin McCready

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Correspondence to David Y. Oshima.

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Oshima, D.Y., McCready, E. Anaphoric demonstratives and mutual knowledge. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 35, 801–837 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9356-6

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