Parallels between Deixis and Tense

Alexander MurzakuCollege of St. Elizabeth

Morristown, NJ

Bühler’s Origo

“I maintain that three deictic words must be put at the place of O, if this scheme is to represent the deictic field of human language, namely the deictic words here, now and I.”

[Bühler, Karl. 1982. The deictic field of language and deictic words. In Jarwella, R. and W. Klein (eds.) Speech, Place, and

Action. New York: John Wiley and Sons.]

Origo in 3-D

past present future

I – unë

you – ti

he/she – ai/ajo

herekëtu

thereaty

yonderatje

unë ne këtu hicti ju aty isticai ata atje illic

starting hypothesis:

1.këtu ‘hic’ should co-occur often with first person expressions2.aty ‘istic’ should co-occur often with second person expressions 3.atje ‘illic’ should co-occur often with third person expressions

Person-based deictic systems

English Grammatical Tag MI-score t-score z-score

përfshirë include participle 8.11 17.23 101.29

përfshi include participle (Gheg) 9.21 9.15 78.84

erdha come 1st simple perfect singular 8.89 6.06 46.79

mbaron end 3rd present singular 8.31 6.01 37.91

jam be 1st present singular 6.30 12.32 38.66

vij come 1st present singular 8.02 4.94 28.16

kujtojmë remember 1st present plural 7.86 4.92 26.58

jemi be 1st present plural 6.11 11.25 33.05

përmendur mention participle 6.92 6.13 23.86

pikërisht exactly adverb 6.05 10.63 30.70

Top collocates for këtu

English Grammatical Tag MI-score T-score Z-score

aty there (istic) adverb 7.37 18.28 83.02

ndodheshin be situated 3rd imperfect plural 7.41 7.07 32.63

ndodhej be situated 3rd imperfect singular 6.93 7.59 29.70

diku somewhere adverb 6.76 5.93 21.80

mesi middle noun nominative 8.27 4.36 27.07

orës hour noun genitive 6.14 6.75 20.05

rri stay 1st/2nd/3rd present singular 6.82 4.15 15.59

pikërisht exactly adverb 5.82 8.88 23.65

jetojnë live 3rd present plural 6.08 5.29 15.38

mbërritur arrive participle 5.90 5.68 15.51

Top collocates for aty

English Grammatical Tag MI-score T-score Z-score

shkova go 1st simple perfect singular 8.10 5.83 34.12

shkuam go 1st simple perfect plural 8.34 4.57 29.14

shkuar go participle 6.47 8.63 28.68

shkonte go 3rd imperfect singular 6.86 5.89 22.48

shkoja go 1st imperfect singular 7.56 4.17 20.31

shkojë go 3rd present singular subjunctive 6.75 4.90 17.95

jetojnë live 3rd present plural 6.38 5.35 17.27

priste wait 3rd imperfect singular 6.86 4.27 16.24

atje there (illic) adverb 5.74 7.07 18.30

shkojmë go 1st present plural 7.23 3.79 16.40

Top collocates for atje

1st person 2nd person 3rd person

këtu 39 10 17

aty 8 2 46

atje 27 6 34

Distribution of collocations

distal proximalatë/këtë 11,228 62,972atij/këtij 4,219 22,809asaj/kësaj 4,604 20,048atyre/këtyre 5,319 9,686ato/këto 15,865 21,508ajo/kjo 19,890 26,399ai/ky 43,310 17,502ata/këta 22,803 4,610

ai ata ajo atyre ato atë atij asaj kjo ky këta këtë këto kësaj këtij këtyre

determinative 866 912 1,591 1,170 4,284 3,256 1,350 1,842 13,727 12,426 3,319 54,156 18,927 18,444 21,897 9,492

pronoun 42,444 21,891 18,299 4,149 11,581 7,972 2,869 2,762 12,672 5,076 1,291 8,816 2,581 1,604 912 194

ai atij atë asaj ajo këtë kësaj ata kjo ky këta atyre ato këtij këtyre këto

present 0.10 0.11 0.18 0.10 0.17 0.31 0.06 0.48 0.24 0.26 0.29 0.35 0.38 0.03 0.06 0.41

past 0.38 0.32 0.50 0.23 0.29 0.29 0.05 0.36 0.18 0.15 0.17 0.19 0.19 0.02 0.02 0.12

atyre/ata anomaly

...ata të votojnë kundër atyre, të cilët e sollën shtetin…...i përshkojnë njerëzit, kur ata bashkohen dhe formojnë

turmën?

• atyre has large collocation scores with the word që ‘that’ (MI=3.57, T=10.39 and Z=12.78) and cilët ‘which’

• ata is used as an anaphora whose antecedent is a collective noun behaving like the generic they in English

Conclusions

• Highest correlations:– Pronoun -> Distal

• Distal -> Past– Determinant -> Proximal

• Proximal -> Present

• Functionality– Distal as anaphora in narrative style: low D– Distal as determinative: strong D– Proximal as pronoun in discursive style: strong D– Proximal as determinative same as article: low D