this weekend

[Arnold Zwicky]

lynne murphy:
 >I'm not altogether convinced this is a dialectal feature--I have the
 >same problems in the States.  I think the this/next distinction is
 >almost idiosyncratic.

fillmore has a good discussion of this/next/last in his Lectures of
Deixis.  (i'm away from my library, so i can't give you the exact
reference.)  while there might be some regional/class dimension to
the variation, a lot of it is clearly idiosyncratic/individual/
idiolectal; it's not hard to find neighbors, lifelong friends, etc.
with conflicting usages.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)