[Lingtyp] Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm

[PONSONNET Maia]

Hi Adam and all,


In my variety of oral French, I believe that 'c'teu' [stœ], a modification of 'cette', has negative connotations. I'm not sure about the 'out of the norm' trait though  - I think it's just derogatory.


'Cette' is feminine, but I think one could even imagine [stœ] used with a masculine noun, given the right context (e.g. putain c'teu temps de merde). I have no idea whether this has been studied, but I'd be curious to know.


Cheers!

Maïa


Maïa Ponsonnet

Chargée de Recherche HDR @ CNRS Dynamique Du Langage

14, avenue Berthelot, 69007 Lyon, FRANCE  -- +33 4 72 72 65 46

Adjunct @ University of Western Australia

+ + + + +

Membre du Comité d'Ethique de la Recherche, Université de Lyon

<https://www.universite-lyon.fr/recherche/comite-d-ethique-de-la-recherche/comite-d-ethique-de-la-recherche-245561.kjsp>

https://cer.universite-lyon.fr/





________________________________
De : Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> de la part de Christoph Holz via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Envoyé : jeudi 26 mars 2026 10:17
À : Adam James Ross Tallman
Cc : LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Objet : Re: [Lingtyp] Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm


Hi Adam,



In Tiang (Oceanic, Papua New Guinea), the proximal visible demonstrative (o)ro has negative overtones. In its emotional function, it indicates surprise or anger of the speaker towards the referent marked with (o)ro (Holz 2023: 197–200). This can include situations in which someone violates socially expected behaviours.



Holz, Christoph. 2023. Discourse functions of ‘visible’ and ‘nonvisible’ demonstratives in Tiang (New Ireland) and in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Robert L. Bradshaw, Luca Ciucci & Pema Wangdi (eds.), Celebrating indigenous voice: Legends and narratives in languages of the tropics and beyond, 181–217. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.



Best wishes

Christoph



--

Christoph Holz

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Naples L'Orientale

Adjunct Research Fellow, Jawun Research Institute, CQU



Website: https://tianglanguage.wordpress.com/

Orcid: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7997-4928



Recent publications:

A comprehensive grammar of Tiang<https://acquire.cqu.edu.au/articles/thesis/A_comprehensive_grammar_of_Tiang/25182350?file=44461052>

Documentation of Konomala<https://www.elararchive.org/dk0759>


On Wed, 25 Mar 2026 at 15:32, Adam James Ross Tallman via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>> 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

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