Lakota demonstratives

[ROOD DAVID S]

David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
Campus Box 295
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Tue, 3 Apr 2001 Zylogy at aol.com wrote:

> I've been interested in the structure and function of elaborated
> demonstrative systems for some time- English used to have a much fuller
> system which included:
>
> whither hither thither
> whence hence thence
> what     ?       that
> which    ?       this
> when    ?        then
> where   here   there


	I think this English system is not of demonstratives (which have
only two positions in English, this and that), but of  locatives -- the
contrast you show in the others is of interrogative/assertive, not of
distance (and I'm curious about the equasion of which and this -- is that
historically accurate???).  Germanic  languages have  always been hung up
on the difference between location in and motion  toward; note that we've
replaced "whence" with "where from", "whither" with "where (to)" and
"where"  with "where at" colloquially, maintaining the semantic
differences of the older system with new forms.

	I'm told that both Japanese and Spanish have a 3-way distinction
in demonstratives like the Lakhota one -- is the "furthest" form in those
languages distributed equally with the other two?

	DAvid


 >
> etc.   was yonder part of the first series?  But then the lexicalized be-yond
> still finds use.  Perhaps the establishment of systems of roads and increase
> in less landmark-based navigation strategies are part of what drives such
> elaborated spatial/temporal demonstrative systems to simpler series- just as
> elaborated sets of pronominal or address terms can become reduced once rank
> and face become less important in social intercourse.
>
> Jess Tauber
> zylogy at aol.com
>