Leiden University Student Repository

Kranenburg, Nelly van (2016)

A Sketch of the Demonstrative System of Amarasi

Master thesis | Linguistics (MA)

Amarasi nominal demonstratives ia, naan and ne are used both pro- and adnominally to refer to objects and entities in the speech situation, with ia being used for near-speaker reference, naan being the near-addressee term for visible referents and ne being used for distal reference. The terms ia and ne are visibility-neutral. The nominal demonstratives can be used pronominally in copular clauses to identify referents in the speech situation. In adnominal form, they can co-occur with other determiners in a noun phrase. The corresponding local adverbs are ia, naa and nee respectively. Both ia and naan can be used for endophoric reference. Addressee-based naan is used anaphorically to refer back to preceding noun phrases and preceding chunks of discourse. The cataphoric demonstrative is ia, used to introduce direct speech. Speaker-based ia can only be used for anaphoric reference when the referent has high topicality.

Demonstratives

deixis

Amarasi

Austronesian

Author

Kranenburg, Nelly van

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Language Diversity of Africa, Asia and Native America

Supervisors

Klamer, M.A.F.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en