TY - BOOK ID - 1489089 TI - Spatial demonstratives in English and Chinese PY - 2004 SN - 9027253692 1588115453 9786612160271 1282160273 9027295190 9789027295194 9781282160279 PB - Amsterdam Philadelphia, Pa. John Benjamins Pub. DB - UniCat KW - English language KW - Chinese language KW - Demonstratives. KW - Grammar, Comparative KW - Chinese. KW - English. KW - Article. KW - Chinese languages KW - Comparative linguistics KW - Grammar KW - Pragmatics KW - 809.51 KW - 802.0-56 KW - 802.0-56 Engels: syntaxis; semantiek KW - Engels: syntaxis; semantiek KW - 809.51 Chinees KW - Chinees KW - FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY KW - Chinese KW - English Language KW - English KW - Languages & Literatures KW - Sino-Tibetan languages KW - Demonstratives KW - Article KW - Deixis KW - Determiners KW - Germanic languages UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:1489089 AB - As a subject of universal appeal, spatial demonstratives have been studied extensively from a variety of disciplines. What marks the present study as distinct is that it is an English-Chinese comparative study set in a cognitive-linguistic framework and that the methodology features a parallel corpora-based, discourse analysis approach. The framework illuminates the nature of the demonstratives' basic and extended meaning and use, the connections between them, and the mechanisms that govern and constrain their trends of extension. The corpora place the English and Chinese demonstratives in comparable discourse contexts and processes, providing an "ecological" environment for the observation of how their behavior fits into the respective structural and discourse systems of the two languages. The study also illuminates important issues such as the subjectivity of language, language as a representational system and a vehicle of communication, the interface between form and function, and the role of context in discourse comprehension. ER -