[Lingtyp] Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm

Fri Mar 27 11:59:06 UTC 2026

Dear all,

There is a growing research on fillers, interjective hesitators and
placeholders in languages of the world. Demonstratives (whether taken alone
or as a part of the verb complex) are one of the sources to be used as
placeholders in many languages partly to substitute for socially
inappropriate items.

See, for instance, the following works, to list only a few.

Best regards, Nino

Amiridze, N., Davis, B. H., and Maclagan, M., editors (2010). Fillers,
Pauses and Placeholders. (Typological Studies in Language 93). John
Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.

Döhler, C. (2025). `That' placeholder in Komnzo. In Pakendorf, B. and Rose,
F., editors, Fillers: Hesitatives and placeholders, pages 275–313. Language
Science Press.

[Hayashi and Yoon, 2006] Hayashi, M. and Yoon, K. (2006). A
cross-linguistic exploration of demonstratives in interaction: With
particular reference to the context of word-formulation trouble. Studies in
Language, 30:485–540.

Pakendorf, B. and Rose, F., editors (2025). Fillers: Hesitatives and
placeholders. Number 5 in Research on Comparative Grammar. Language Science
Press, Berlin.

Podlesskaya, V. I. (2010). Parameters for typological variation of
placeholders. In Amiridze, N., Davis, B. H., and Maclagan, M., editors,
Fillers, Pauses and Placeholders, volume 93 of Typological Studies in
Language, pages 11–32. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.

Seraku, T., Park, M.-Y., and Sakaguchi, S. (2021). A grammatical
description of the placeholder are in spontaneous Japanese. Cahiers de
Linguistique Asie Orientale, 50(1):65–93.

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 12:04 PM Volker Gast via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I think it's pretty clear that demonstratives may convey emotive meaning.
> I wonder to what extent that answers Adam's original question though.
>
> An additional element of those 'socially inappropriate' uses could be
> taboo -- 'he/they did that (thing)', or just 'he/they that-ed'.
>
> @Adam: Would you have an example for us?
>
> Best,
> Volker
>
>
> On 3/27/26 05:06, Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp wrote:
>
> Dear all — I suspect that some of the examples discussed in this thread
> are primarily recognitional rather than inherently negative.
>
> Take Sebastian’s example, *Immer dieser Michel*. What motivates
> recognitional deixis in this case is notoriety. Notoriety in turn is
> commonly associated with negative connotation. However, there are plenty of
> instances where *dies* is used recognitionally with positive connotation.
> To cite one example (begging all German speakers’ forgiveness preemptively
> for the groan factor) from a popular goofy, shlocky 1970’s song:
>
> *Dieser Wuchs, diese Kraft *
> *weckt in mir die Leidenschaft*
>
> (May I please not translate this? Thank you!)
>
> Now, this is not to say that there aren’t true examples of social
> distancing conveyed by deixis. In fact, one might hypothesize that the
> proximity/distance metaphor for (lack of) familiarity/solidarity/shared
> in-group membership is itself a universal.
>
> For instance, Hanks (2005: 206) notes that whenever a Yucatec adult scolds
> a child, they will use distal deixis, even if the addressee is spatially
> close enough to the speaker to warrant proximal use. Since this is
> exophoric reference, a recognitional analysis is out of the question.
>
> Best — Juergen
>
> Hanks, W. (2005). Explorations in the deictic field. *Current
> Anthropology * 46(2): 191-220.
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Annemarie
> Verkerk via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Date: *Thursday, March 26, 2026 at 14:15
> *To: *lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] [EXTERN] Lingtyp Digest, Vol 138, Issue 11
>
> Thanks Adam for raising the question and Sebastian for writing about
> German.
> Dutch is like German but it seems, at least in the speech of some, to go
> further. I have been puzzled by this for years, that is, the use of
> 'die' in front of human proper nouns, to signal either social distance
> (almost something like kin/non-kin) and/or a 'very slight disapproval'
> of the person mentioned.
>
> I don't have further answers though!
>
> Cheers,
> Annemarie
>
> On 2026/03/26 13:00, lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org wrote:
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> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >     1. Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (Adam James Ross Tallman)
> >     2. Re: Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (Arnold Zwicky)
> >     3. Re: Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (Adam James Ross Tallman)
> >     4. Re: Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (Sebastian Nordhoff)
> >     5. Re: Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (Christoph Holz)
> >     6. Re: Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (PONSONNET Maia)
> >     7. Re: Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (Pier Marco Bertinetto)
> >     8. Re: Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> >        (Alex Francois)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:31:48 +0100
> > From: Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> > To: "LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
> <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> >        <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> > Subject: [Lingtyp] Demonstratives to mean deviation from social norm
> > Message-ID:
> >
> <CAK0T6OihWPgP8BWUYbb745wD0QAn6XKHgkTrXGijfAdBADummg at mail.gmail.com>
> <CAK0T6OihWPgP8BWUYbb745wD0QAn6XKHgkTrXGijfAdBADummg at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> > 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*
> >
> > *n?a*
> >
> > *n?ka*
> >
> > 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
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2026 07:54:11 -0700
> > From: Arnold Zwicky <arnold.zwicky at gmail.com> <arnold.zwicky at gmail.com>
> > To: Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> > Cc: Linguistic Typology <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> > Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Demonstratives to mean deviation from social
> >        norm
> > Message-ID: <733BC761-0BA2-4D63-8822-0DFCC3B4F13B at gmail.com>
> <733BC761-0BA2-4D63-8822-0DFCC3B4F13B at gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=us-ascii
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Mar 25, 2026, at 7:31 AM, Adam James Ross Tallman via Lingtyp
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> <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.
> > ..
> >> I was wondering whether anyone had written about something similar in
> another language? Let me know.
> > his isn't very helpful, but I have a recolletion of remote distal
> demonstratives being cited in several languages, though I can't now find
> atual citations. (I suffer from having lost all my files and also library
> access, so I have only my very aged and imperfect memory.)
> >
> > Arnold
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:13:40 +0100
> > From: Adam James Ross Tallman <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> > To: "LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
> <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> >        <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> > Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Demonstratives to mean deviation from social
> >        norm
> > Message-ID:
> >
> <CAK0T6OheH-EqwExzuzmL1L+5s+95zp6aLrGbzWdV_7TTLEya=Q at mail.gmail.com>
> <CAK0T6OheH-EqwExzuzmL1L+5s+95zp6aLrGbzWdV_7TTLEya=Q at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> > 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> 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*
> >>
> >> *n?a*
> >>
> >> *n?ka*
> >>
> >> 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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-- 
Dr. Nino Amiridze

E-mail: Nino.Amiridze at gmail.com
WWW: https://sites.google.com/site/ninoamiridze/
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