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Communication and Cognition Research Group
Humanities Faculty
Tilburg University
maes@uvt.nl
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The interpretation of demonstratives in any context somehow relies on the spatial configuration of human communication (speaker –
addressee – objects to be referred to). But how exactly do space and distance determine a demonstrative speech act? In a controlled
production experiment, we collected baseline data on how humans construct a demonstrative contrast in different spatial configurations
and referring to objects with a different degree of saliency. We asked 7 to 9 year old children to find salient and less salient differences
between two nearly identical visuals presented to them, in one of two conditions, in both of which the two visuals had a different
location and orientation with respect to the speaker. In the QHDU condition, two visuals were located within the arm reach of the child,
one central in front of the child, the other left or right a bit further away; in the IDUcondition, the frontal visual had the same location,
the left or right visual was placed a little bit further away, just outside the arm reach of the speaker. The results show that distance is a
strong determinant for demonstrative behaviour, and that space slightly interacts with the saliency of objects. Congruent
demonstratives (WKLV QHDU vs. WKDW IDU) were only fairly standard in the IDU condition, whereas in the QHDU condition the differences
were much more referred to by using two proximate forms. The tendency to use congruent demonstratives slightly decreased in the
case of salient objects. Also, salient objects more often took the first position in a demonstrative pair. Finally, distance appears to have
a systematic effect on pointing behavior: in the IDUcondition participants pointed less systematically to the further away object than in
the QHDUcondition
(3). And, to top it all, a WKLV referent can even be more
distant with respect to the deictic center than a WKDW
referent Consider (4), in which the doctor uses WKLV to
refer to an object which is further away from him than
from the patient, and the patient uses WKDW to refer to an
object which can hardly be more near to him, i.e., his
own head.
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There are two claims about demonstratives in language
that linguists around the world largely agree on: on the
one hand, demonstratives somehow code aspects of the
spatial constellation between speaker, addressee and
reference objects (most typically near vs. far away
from speaker or addressee), on the other hand, they
never code literal or Euclidian space or distance (e.g.
five vs. twenty inches away from speaker or
addressee). The first claim is based on the assumption
that all languages have adnominal or adverbial
demonstrative variants which – at least in their basic
exophoric use – somehow express differences in
distance with respect to speaker, addressee or referent.
In a survey of demonstrative systems in the recent
world atlas of language structures, Diessel (2005)
concludes that all languages seem to have at least a
dual distance contrast, whereas the most complicated
systems most probably have no more than a tripartite
distance axis. The second contention is supported by
the observation that demonstratives can be used to
identify referents irrespective of the metrical distance
with respect to the deictic center. Thus, the two objects
referred to in (1) can both be centimeters or light years
away from the speaker (e.g. two pens on the table vs.
two stars in the sky).
Demonstratives exhibit more degrees of freedom
with respect to space and distance, however. They do
not have to be in accordance with the relative distance
between referents. The objects referred to in (1) may
well have exactly the same distance with respect to the
deictic center. Conversely, the same demonstrative
term can be used to identify referents on a different
distance with respect to the deictic center, as in (2) and
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Do you like WKLV one (KHUH or WKDW one (WKHUH ?
Do you like WKLV one, or WKLV one?
Do you like WKDW one, or WKDW one?
Doctor: Is WKLV where it hurts (pushing with his
thumb on the forehead of the patient)?
Patient: Yes, WKDW is where it hurts.
These examples suggest that context may make the use
of demonstratives more exciting than what one would
expect on the basis of the simple proximal-distal
dichotomy (see e.g., Enfield, 2003). There is a simple
reason for this capricious behavior of demonstrative
terms. On the one hand, demonstratives are certainly
rooted in the way in which humans perceive and
experience physical space. Their spatial experiential basis
is part of a large range of linguistic conceptualizations
based on bodily space, ranging from the many
'metaphoric' extensions of a simple spatial proposition like
LQ to much more complex metaphoric conceptualizations,
like PDUULDJH LV D MRXUQH\ or D FDUHHU LV DQ DVFHQGLQJ
SDWKZD\ (e.g., Deutscher, 2005; Gibbs, 2005).
On the
other hand, the ultimate communicative function of
demonstratives is not aimed at expressing distance, let
alone metrical distance. Rather, they direct attention and
create joint attention in human communication, as is
convincingly argued for in Diessel (2006).
The study of exophoric as well as anaphoric or
discourse deictic demonstratives can be seen as different
1
In the remainder of this article, I use WKLVand WKDWas a
short cut for all SUR[LPDWH and GLVWDO forms respectively.
attempts to get a grip on the conceptual extensions of the
spatial root of demonstratives. Exophorically used
demonstratives allow conversants to create and orchestrate
attentional regions or engagement spaces in face-to-face
communication (e.g., Enfield, 2003; Levinson, 2004).
&URVVOLQJXLVWLF UHVHDUFK
has discriminated a large
number of perceptual-spatial parameters in languages all
over the world which play a part in shaping a
communicative situation by way of demonstratives. They
include locational factors (e.g., distance, orientational
axes, cardinal directions of speaker, addressee or referent)
as well as spatial-perceptual characteristics of referents
(e.g., visibility, motion, posture, (un)boundedness,
preciseness) (see for a survey Imai, 2003). All these
parameters can be considered experientially based
conceptual extensions of space.
A similar interpretation can be claimed for DQDSKRULF
and GLVFRXUVH GHLFWLF XVHV of demonstratives, albeit the
extensions from the spatial near-far root are more
conceptual and metaphoric (Maes, 2007). Thus, in
discourse reference theories, demonstrative variance has
been related to different degrees of ’mental nearness’. For
example, Ariel (1990) attributes a higher degree of
accessibility to WKLV than to WKDW entities and for Gundel,
Hedberg and Zacharski (1993), WKLV NPs are more ‘given’
than WKDW NPs2. Other authors attribute more saliency to
WKLV entities than to WKDW entities, capturing the difference
in terms like focus (Gerner, 2003; McCarthy, 1994;
Sidner, 1983; Webber, 1991), markedness (Halliday &
Hasan, 1976), figure-ground (Hanks, 1992), or deictic
force (Kirsner, 1979). Other studies relate demonstrative
variation to undeniable but at the same time hard to
control socio-cognitive, relational and perspectival
subtleties. For example, WKLV and WKDW are considered to
express some form of association with the realm of
speaker and listener respectively (e.g. Cheshire, 1996;
Glover, 2000; Kamio, 2001; Laury, 1997; Maes, 1996;
Marchello-Nizia, 2005). Furthermore, many instances of
WKDW involve the perspective of the addressee. They
express shared knowledge with the addressee, as in the
case of reminder or recognitional WKDW (e.g., Cornish,
2001; Himmelmann, 1996; Maes, 1996), or mental
distance between speaker and entity, as in modal or
emotional WKDW (e.g., Cornish, 2001; Lakoff, 1974), or they
even act as turn-construction devices in dialogue
(Hayashi, 2004).
In sum, it is reasonable to assume that the
interpretation of demonstratives in any context ultimately
relies on the fundamental spatial configuration of human
communication, and it is equally reasonable to assume
that no demonstrative ever expresses space or distance
directly, i.e. without the mediation of a speaker who
conceptualizes space on the basis of his or her perspective,
attention and intentions.
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This conclusion, however, does not explain how
exactly space and distance determine the use of
demonstratives, and how they combine with conceptual
and metaphoric extensions of demonstratives. The
methods used in the two research traditions lack control to
enable valid conclusions.
Existing methods used in cross-linguistic as well as
corpus based discourse research are not able to find
conceptual (attentional, social, relational, emotional etc.)
sediments in exophoric demonstratives, or spatial relics in
non-exophoric demonstratives. Cross-linguistic research
largely relies on grammars or explicit elicitation.
Grammars are rarely specific enough to register refined
pragmatic associations. For example, even for a wellrecorded language like Dutch, the pragmatic associations
as described in Kirsner (1979) or Maes (1996) are largely
absent in Dutch grammars. More recently, demonstratives
have been studied cross-linguistically using explicit
elicitation, e.g. on the basis of field manual instructions
(Imai, 2003; Wilkinson, 1999). This may be reliable to
find the parameters encoded in demonstratives, but not to
elicit more conceptual factors, such as the attitude of
participants towards objects or each other. Moreover,
expert judgments about demonstrative variance are
extremely whimsical. Simply ask a few colleagues
whether they prefer WKLV or WKDW in an average stretch of
discourse, and you will hear different intuitions and
solutions. Finally, explicit elicitation is not a safe basis for
the study of the actual use of language, as it treats
participants as confederates.
In discourse studies, the functional interpretation of
demonstrative variants is mostly supported by exegetic
analyses of attested examples, often complemented by
distributional data from corpora. But neither method
offers indisputable evidence about the spatial sediment in
non-spatial demonstratives.
In this paper, we will discuss the set up of a controlled
production experiment which is intended to collect
baseline data for Dutch on how distance determines the
use of demonstratives in contrastive situations. The set up
enables us to draw conclusions about the independent role
of distance, to analyse the relationship between distance,
demonstrative variation and pointing behaviour, and to
explore the interaction of space and conceptual factors (in
particular object saliency) which may be believed to
determine demonstrative behaviour. Finally, as the
experimental method resulted in a large and reliable
collection of spontaneously produced contrastive
demonstratives, it can be used to develop follow up
experiments with gradually more finegrained conceptual,
spatial and interactional variables.
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2
A notable exception is the indefinite use of WKLV, which
allows speakers to introduce new entities vividly (Prince,
1981).
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An important methodological criterion in developing
the experiment was the collection of a VL]DEOH corpus of
VSRQWDQHRXV QDWXUDO and FRPSDUDEOH data from QDwYH
speakers XQDZDUH of what we were interested in. To that
end we asked the participants to play the well-known
game to ILQG WKH GLIIHUHQFHV (either salient or non-salient)
in two nearly identical visuals presented to them. This task
resulted in a spontaneous and frequent production of
demonstratives, which in addition was very much
comparable for all participants.
In this first phase, we restricted the contrastive use of
demonstratives to the basic axis between D GHLFWLF FHQWHU
WKH VSHDNHU DQG REMHFWV. Therefore, we made sure that
the addressee had the same spatial perspective as the
speaker. Thus, we intended to exclude all effects caused
by different spatial perspectives of speaker and addressee.
Furthermore, we opted for children (between 7 and 9)
as participants. In a pilot study, we discovered that
children of this age were much more inclined to use
contrastive demonstratives than adults, who used much
more descriptive (as opposed to pointing/demonstrative)
referential expressions. According to all developmental
studies, children of this age are perfectly able to use
demonstratives appropriately.
Finally, we varied distance on the basis of a parameter
with a high cognitive value: we located the visual either
within or outside the arm reach of the speaker, so that the
objects in the visuals were either graspable/touchable or
not. The cognitive encoding of this distance parameter is
convincingly shown in Kemmerer (1999). Moreover, a
number of languages encode this distance parameter in
that they use different demonstratives to point to referents
within and outside the physical control of the speaker
(Imai, 2003: 135 ff.).
In sum, these conditions result in a natural
communicative situation in which the use of
demonstratives is controlled with respect to a variable of
space (near – far) and attention (salient – non-salient).
in Figure 1). Altogether, 23 differences were implemented
in the three pairs, 14 of which were predefined as salient.
3DUWLFLSDQWV
42 participants took part in the
experiment, all children between 7 and 9 years old
(M=7,83, 23 boys, 19 girls). All children had Dutch as
their native language.
Pair 1
Pair 2
Pair 3
Figure 2. Three pairs of visuals in one of three
presentation modes
,QVWUXPHQWDWLRQ DQG SURFHGXUH
The visuals were
located on a stand on the table. In the QHDU condition, one
visual of each pair was located in front of the participant,
on a 35 cm distance, the other in turn either left or right on
a 45 cm distance. In the IDU condition, one visual had the
same location (35 cm in front of the child), the other left
or right on a 125 cm distance. That way, we varied the
distance with respect to the speaker (absolute distance),
but inevitably also the mutual distance between objects
(relative distance). The temporal order of the three pairs
was identical for all participants (see Figure 2). The
position of the visuals (front vs. left/right) was varied as to
guarantee that all visuals (and thus also all salient and
non-salient differences) were presented equally often on
all locations.
0HWKRG
Participants were presented with three nonequidistant pairs of visuals in one of two between subject
conditions: QHDU vs. IDU.
Figure 1. Find the differences! One pair (pair 1) of visuals
with 6 salient and 3 non-salient differences
0DWHULDOV Three sets of two nearly identical visuals
were constructed. Two types of differences were
implemented systematically. Differences are QRQVDOLHQW
when the two versions of the object are equally normal
with respect to our common knowledge, and hence none
of the two versions is assumed to attract more attention or
be more salient than the other (e.g. the rounds vs. stars in
Figure 1). 6DOLHQW differences are based on the ILQG WKH
PLVWDNHV format: one version is supposed to be uncommon
and deviant with respect to common world knowledge,
and hence may be expected to be more salient than the
other (e.g. the bucket vs. the hat in the director's left hand
Figure 3. Camera position in the QHDU (left picture) and IDU
(right picture) condition.
The experiment took place individually. The
experimenter presented pair 1, asked the child to find the
differences, and repeated the same procedure for pair 2
and 3. During the experiment, the experimenter (i.e. the
second author) stood exactly behind the child (see Figure
3). That way, we ensured that speaker and addressee had
the same perspective on the visuals. The experimenter
acknowledged correct differences (RND\KPP\HV asked
additional information when participants gave minimal
answers, using a few standard cues (ZKDW":KDWH[DFWO\" and hinted at differences that could not be found ($QGWKH
FRZ"$QGWKHFORWKHVRIWKHPDQ"(WF.).
Each session was videotaped so that linguistic and
visual aspects of demonstratives could be analysed
properly. Each session was transcribed and divided in
chunks, each chunk representing the communicative
interaction about one difference.
5HVXOWV
The 42 participants produced altogether 1076 chunks3.
These chunks represent a large variety of referential
strategies. Participants almost exclusively used a
demonstrative strategy to refer to the differences. Only in
a few cases participants did not use a demonstrative
element spontaneously. Adverbial locative demonstratives
(KLHU ’here’ vs. GDDU ’there’) were more frequent than
pronominal demonstratives (GLWGH]H’this/these’ vs. GDWGLH
’that/those’), which were in turn more frequent than
adnominal demonstratives (GLWGH]H 1 ’this/these N’ vs.
4
GDWGLH 1 ’that/those N’ ). Often, locative and pronominal
demonstratives were combined.
6WDQGDUG FRQWUDVWLYH GHPRQVWUDWLYHV DQG VSDFH The
largest part of the data are standard cases of demonstrative
contrast (58,5%, n=629), which we – for analytical
purposes – defined as having the following three
characteristics: (i) they contain at least one demonstrative
device referring to one object, and at least one other
demonstrative device referring to the other objects; (ii)
they are produced spontaneously, without an intervention
of the experimenter; and (iii) they contain enough
semantic content to enable successful identification
without the help of multimodal aspects of reference
(pointing, gaze, etc.). Examples are given in (5) to (7).
(5) And I see that here [F] is a window, but there [L/R] is
not one. 5 [pp 8; far – congruent]
(6) Euh, that [F] has no window and that [L] does. [pp 26,
near – double distal]
(7) Here [L] is a window and here [F] not. [pp 42, near –
double proximal]
We consider these examples the best test bed for
answering our main research question. Overall, in about
half of these standard cases (52,9%), participants used the
WKLVWKDW
contrast congruently (WKLV=QHDU, WKDW=IDU).
Incongruent pairs were rare (n=31, 4,9%), but not
restricted to mistakes. In 16,5% of all cases, participants
used two distal variants; two proximal variants were used
in 25,6%. Table 1 shows that the distance variable
3
The experimenter took care that all differences (42 * 23
= 966) were found. But some differences were mentioned
twice, and now and then, the children mentioned
differences which were not there.
4
The demonstrative system in Dutch is quite similar to
English: a two term demonstrative system (proximal vs.
distal), with locative adverbs (KLHUvs. GDDU and identical
adnominal and pronominal forms (GLWGH]Hvs. GDWGLH , the
distribution of which is related to the grammatical gender
and number of the following noun or object referred to
(neuter singular: GLWvs. GDWmasculine and feminine
singular and all plurals: GH]Hvs. GLH 5
The examples are semi-literal translations from Dutch.
Interventions of the experimenter are italicized. All
examples refer to the same object, representing a salient
difference in visual pair 1 (see Figure 1), i.e., the dormer
window in the circus tent. The codes [F] or [L/R] refer to
the position of the visual, i.e. either in front or left/right of
the speaker.
influenced the proportions of these four classes drastically
2
(3) = 215, p < .0001). In the IDU condition, children
used almost exclusively either congruent demonstratives
(83,5%) or two distal variants (13,7%). The proportion of
congruent cases in the QHDU condition was much lower
(28,8%), even lower than the use of two proximal variants
(43,6%). Distal variants were more frequent in the near
than in the far condition (18,8% vs. 13,7%). Incongruent
cases were exclusively found in the near condition (8,8%
vs. 0%).
Table 1. Number (percentage) of types of contrastive
demonstratives (this-that, *this-that, this-this, that-that)
related to condition (near vs. far) (n=629).
1HDU
)DU
7RWDO
This – That
101 (28,8)
232 (83,5)
333 (52,9)
*This – That
31 (8,8)
0 (0)
31 (4,9)
That – That
66 (18,8)
38 (13,7)
104 (16,5)
This – This
153 (43,6)
8 (2,9)
161 (25,6)
351
278
629 (100)
Total
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The effect of object saliency can be measured in
different ways. First, saliency does not alter the general
proportions of congruent, incongruent, double proximal
and double distal demonstratives 2(3) = 5,68, p = .13).
Although not significant, salient differences tend to
decrease the proportion of congruent demonstratives
(WKLV=QHDU, WKDW=IDU): 58% of all non-salient references are
congruent, vs. 49,6% of all salient references. This
indicates that the normal distance mechanism is weakened
under the influence of salient objects.
One may equally expect that saliency decreases the
gap between near and far in the case of congruent
demonstratives, again because of the fact that saliency
would weaken the effect of distance. As Table 2 shows, a
small tendency can be observed, which is however not
2
VLJQLILFDQW
(1) = 0,95, p = .33). Finally, it can be noted
that most of the incongruent cases (18 vs. 11) were linked
to salient objects.
Table 2. Number (percentage) of congruent salient and
non-salient demonstratives related to condition (near vs.
far) (n=330).
1HDU
)DU
Congruent salient objects
58 (32,6)
120 (67,4)
Congruent non-salient objects
42 (27,6)
110 (72,4)
General
100 (30,3)
230 (69,9)
In sum, saliency appears to have only a slight effect on the
use of demonstrative variants.
Apart from that, saliency is expected to decrease the
natural preference to refer to the frontal object first.
Overall, participants refer to the frontal object first in
68,5% of all cases. In the case of non-salient objects the
percentage decreases to 66,6% (vs. 71,2 for salient
objects), again a slight indication that saliency may more
easily overrule the standard demonstrative pattern (nearest
object = first reference = WKLV), but again not a significant
2
RQH
(1) = 2,379, p = .12).
A final indication for the importance of object
saliency is this: the two versions of the non-salient objects
acted equally often as first referent in a demonstrative
contrast (51% vs. 49%, n=270), which was what we
expected because each visual and thus each object version
was presented equally often in frontal and lateral (l/r)
position. For salient objects however, the salient version
was much more frequently used as first referent (72,1%
vs. 27,9%, n=351), which shows the effect of saliency on
the construction of a demonstrative contrast. This saliency
effect is distance dependent, as it is stronger in the QHDU
condition than in the IDU condition. This suggests that
saliency is becoming more important as distance is less
compelling6.
1RQVWDQGDUG
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GHPRQVWUDWLYHV
The
remaining demonstrative acts (n=447, 41,5%) somehow
deviate from the standard contrastive scheme. A number
of cases were left out of the analysis for a number of
reasons, either, because the difference was not found
spontaneously, or because objects were not recognized, as
is illustrated in (8), or because children had problems to
come up with an appropriate formulation of the difference.
In all these cases, the demonstrative endeavor of the
children resulted in a mix of deictic and anaphoric
referential devices, interesting for a later analysis, but too
complex and not enough comparable for current purposes.
(8) I do not know what this [R] is, but it is there, and not
here [F] [pp. 11, near]
There are two non-standard demonstrative acts, which
are used systematically and which underline the role of
multimodal aspects of reference in the given experimental
task. First, participants spontaneously often refer to one of
the two objects only. Hence they do not meet the first and
second characteristic – as in (9) – or all three
characteristics – as in (10) – of our definition of a standard
demonstrative contrast above. Second, participants refer to
the two objects in a way that does not allow identification
without the help of the multimodal information included
in the pointing gesture, as in (11).
(9) There [L] is a brown window.
:KHUH"
There [L].
2.. [pp 10, near]
(10)That [F]
$QGZKDWLVWKHGLIIHUHQFH"
Well, there [F] is such a thing and there [L] is not [pp
1, near]
6
A more fine grained analysis, including also the nonstandard cases, should shed more light on the role of
saliency in relation to distance. It is clear that some
predefined salient differences really worked well:
participants noticed them relatively early in the course of
the task, and they referred first to the deviant version
much more often than to the normal version. Other
predefined salient objects apparently were less salient as
expected. This certainly has weakened the effect of
saliency in this experiment.
(11) Here this one [R] and here [F] not.
:KDWGLG\RXVD\"
Here [R] that window and here [F] not. [pp 19, near]
As it was the purpose of the study to collect as much
cases of comparable standard verbal contrastive
demonstratives as possible, these minimal strategies were
discouraged by interventions of the experimenter, as is
shown in (9) to (11). These interventions resulted in
participants gradually aligning their contributions more to
the 'standard' needs of the experimenter. But in fact, these
minimal strategies fitted perfectly in the experimental
setting. By using these strategies, children exploited the
situation of sharing their perspective with the
experimenter, who was standing right behind them. Many
children (n=17, 40,5%) opted for one or both of these
minimal strategies as their first demonstrative act. They
only identified one of the two objects (n=15, 35.7%),
and/or referred to the two objects by using empty
demonstratives only (n=8, 19%).
3RLQWLQJDQGGLVWDQFHThe strong tendency of children
to minimize their linguistic effort implies the use of
pointing gestures. Examples like (10) and (11) require
accompanying pointing gestures to result in adequate
referential acts. But also in standard cases of
demonstrative contrast, where pointing is not really
needed to identify objects, pointing is almost omnipresent.
Table 3 shows the pointing behaviour of participants on
the basis of a partial analysis of the data (i.e. the first pair
of visuals of the first 16 participants including 151
chunks). In most cases, participants point spontaneously
to the two contrastive objects with one hand. Pointing
with two hands, simultaneously (n=12) or nonsimultaneously (n=5) is rare. And pointing to the frontal
object only, either spontaneously or after intervention of
the experimenter, is restricted almost exclusively to the IDU
condition. Small as the sample may be, the results suggest
that putting objects outside the arm reach results in a less
abundant use of pointing gestures. Furthermore, the
overall high number of pointing gestures suggests that
pointing behaviour is not affected by the four types of
demonstrative contrasts or vice versa. But a larger scale
analysis of the data will have to (dis)confirm these
suggestions and trends.
Table 3. Number (percentage) of different types of
pointing related to condition (near vs. far) in a subset of
the data, 16 participants, pair one of visuals (n=151).
1HDU
Q
6SRQWDQHRXVSRLQWLQJ
)DU
Q
at both objects with same hand
58 (76,3)
50 (66,7)
at both objects with two hands
14 (18,4)
3(4)
0 (0)
11 (14,7)
1 (1,3)
1 (1,3)
1 (1,3)
10 (13,3)
at the frontal object only
at the left/right object only
3RLQWLQJDIWHULQWHUYHQWLRQ
to the frontal object only
1RSRLQWLQJ
Analyses of individual participants make clear that
children can use different strategies to set the scene in the
experiment. For most of the QHDU children gaze and
pointing makes clear that their engagement space includes
the region of the two visuals together, which explains their
frequent use of double proximal demonstratives. Some of
the IDU children also extend their engagement space to
encompass the far away visual by leaning a bit left or right
in the direction of the further away visual and using wide
gestures. Other IDU children focus on the frontal visual,
and display subdued pointing behaviour with respect to
the far away visual.
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The data presented in Table 1 show a pervasive
influence of peri-personal distance in using contrastive
demonstratives. Thus far, it is unclear whether peripersonal distance or relative distance of objects is the most
determining factor. But the results enable us to draw a
number of provisional conclusions.
First, the distribution in the QHDU condition suggests
that, in a standard contrastive situation, with two objects
located near to the speaker and near to each other, and
with two clear suggestions for a contrastive treatment of
the two objects, i.e. the difference in position (frontal vs.
left/right), and the difference in distance with respect to
the speaker (35 vs. 45 cm.) the standard demonstrative
contrast (this vs. that) is less standard than what we would
have expected. This may be strange as intuition tells us to
use the standard this-that format, even for equidistant
objects.
Second, the distribution in the IDU condition makes
clear that the standard and congruent contrastive scheme
is triggered by a larger distance (from the speaker and
from the other object). It is striking that in this condition
not a single incongruent case of demonstrative contrast is
produced.
In sum, if we only consider the use of demonstrative
variants, an insignificant 100 cm difference in distance
seems to cause an identical task space (i.e. the two visual
fields relevant in the task) to be conceived of as one
region (in the near condition) or as a dichotomic space (in
the far condition). However, the inclusion of the
multimodal behaviour of speakers as well as a more
refined analysis of the saliency of objects referred to may
well make this conclusion less finished.
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