[Lingtyp] Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm

[Sebastian Nordhoff]

Hi Adam,
not sure whether this is relevant, but the proximal demonstrative 
"diese(r/s)" is used in this function with proper names in German. There 
is a book series called "Immer dieser Michel", 'Always this Michel', 
which is about a boy called Michel who does mischievous/socially 
inappropriate things.
I think that with the right intonation, it would also work for common 
nouns like "Dieser Bürgermeister schon wieder!" 'What did the mayor do 
yet again!'
Best wishes
Sebastian


On 3/25/26 16:13, Adam James Ross Tallman via Lingtyp wrote:
> Sorry just to clarify ... I meant not just cases of "out of vision" 
> demonstratives, but cases where demonstratives mean something about 
> social inappropriateness or dissonance.
> 
> A.
> 
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 3:31 PM Adam James Ross Tallman 
> <ajrtallman at utexas.edu <mailto:ajrtallman at utexas.edu>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     Hi all,
> 
>     In Chacobo there seems to be a demonstrative that means "do
>     something) that deviates from socially normal expectations". This is
>     a pretty preliminary description, so I'm open to other ideas and
>     reconceptualizations. I call it 'more distal', as an adnominal
>     marker, it doesn't tend to have this meaning.
> 
>     	
> 
>     adnominal
> 
>     	
> 
>     adverbial
> 
>     	
> 
>     verb
> 
>     proximate
> 
>     	
> 
>     /naa/
> 
>     	
> 
>     /nɨa/
> 
>     	
> 
>     /nɨka/
> 
>     distal
> 
>     	
> 
>     /toa/
> 
>     	
> 
>     /toa/
> 
>     	
> 
>     /toka/
> 
>     more distal
> 
>     	
> 
>     /oa/
> 
>     	
> 
>     /oa~oka/
> 
>     	
> 
>     /oka/
> 
> 
>     At base the morpheme seems to mean "out of vision", but not always.
> 
>     I was wondering whether anyone had written about something similar
>     in another language? Let me know.
> 
>     best,
> 
>     Adam
>     --
>     Adam J.R. Tallman
>     CNRS, Sedyl
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Adam J.R. Tallman
> Post-doctoral Researcher
> Friedrich Schiller Universität
> Department of English Studies
> 
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