Look at This 'Here'. From Physical to Pragmatic Proximity in English, German and Croatian

Abstract

Departing from the well-known ontological parallel between the pointing gesture on the one hand, and linguistic deixis on the other, in this paper we analyse the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of the deictic terms ‘here’ in English, ‘hier’ in German and ‘ovdje’ in Croatian. We systematize the different usages of these terms – both intra- and cross-linguistically – and propose a reading of the semantics of the proximal deictic element for 'linguistic spatial location', which – as our analysis shows – ranges from the pure spatial locational function, via a temporal – more generally metaphorical segment - all the way to a series of discourse functions. We observe that the universality of usage patterns that is found at the spatial, and even spatio-temporal level, can still be found – albeit to a lesser degree – at the discourse level. What seems to be maintained at all levels is the primacy of the proximal segment in terms of referential prominence. We thus conclude that what physical proximity is in the spatial sense, can largely be understood as pragmatic proximity in the linguistic sense.

Keywords

• Deixis
• deictic functions
• pointing gesture
• spatial language
• English
• German