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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2016
This paper is concerned with so-called demonstratives. Languages use various devices to point out or indicate things; the demonstratives are but one of these devices. Much that has been written on this problem of deixis is confused and misleading because the criteria traditionally used in describing the different devices for pointing out or indicating have been for the most part notional or mentalistic; it behoves the theoretical linguist to seek for formal linguistic criteria to describe this feature, and these notes seek to outline some of the problems which are concerned with a satisfactory linguistic explanation of the grammatical category known as the “demonstratives.” In view of the title of this article, it might also be pointed out en passant (though the author has no wish to involve himself here in a terminological wrangle) that “deixis” may well be a more suitable term for this feature in view of the fact that languages possess other demonstrative devices or indicators in addition to those referred to traditionally as “demonstratives,” not to mention the quasi-linguistic feature of gesture.
The author would like to express his thanks to his colleague, Professor J. O. St. Clair-Sobell of the University of British Columbia, who originally suggested this topic during his seminar on Comparative Slavonic Philology and for the many fruitful suggestions in the course of frequent informal discussions on the subject. He would also like to thank Professor C. E. Bazell of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, who read an earlier draft of the article and made many valuable suggestions.
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