Published: 2023-12-29

Semiotics of cataphoric demonstratives

Georges Kleiber Logo ORCID

Abstract

The studies of anaphoric expressions have shown that we can and must link the stable results acquired over the last forty years on their functioning to more recent socio-cognitive, taxonomic, multimodal, etc. perspectives and examine and explain two aspects of cataphoric demonstratives (CDs): on the one hand, their constructional scheme and, on the other, the formal and semantic nature of their subsequent or postcedent.

We propose here to continue this analysis of CDs, this time looking at their referential operation as such and asking the question: how do CDs make us reach the intended referent? What precisely is the interpretative procedure involved?

Our analyses show that rather than directly contrasting CDs with anaphoric demonstratives, it is more relevant and, therefore, more fruitful to compare them directly with gestural demonstratives. As we have seen, the two uses of demonstratives correspond to the same cognitive situation, that of introducing a new referent into discourse memory. This cognitive kinship gives rise to a common semiotic hybridity and, consequently, a referential operation, which we have detailed in nine points, that turns out to be largely identical, the differences observed being directly due to the difference in the nature of the index.

Citation rules

Kleiber, G. (2023). Semiotics of cataphoric demonstratives. Neophilologica, 35, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.31261/NEO.2023.35.11

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Vol. 35 (2023)
Published: 2023-12-31


ISSN: 0208-5550
eISSN: 2353-088X
Ikona DOI 10.31261/NEO

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

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