U N I T 7
Deixis and definiteness
71
Comment The point about an example like this is to show that there are good reasons for
all languages to have deictic terms. A language without such terms could not
serve the communicative needs of its users anything
like as well as a real
human language. (Of course, all real human languages do have deictic terms.)
Deictic expressions bring home very clearly that when we consider individual
sentences from the point of view of their truth, we cannot in many cases
consider them purely abstractly, i.e. simply as strings of words made available
by the language system. The truth of a sentence containing a deictic expression
can only be considered in relation to some hypothetical situation of utterance.
Practice (1) Can you tell by itself whether
the sentence You are standing
on my toe is true or false?
Yes / No
(2) What would you need to know in order to be able to tell whether
the sentence just mentioned is true or false?
..........................................................................................................................
(3) Can one tell whether the sentence
There are lions in Africa, not
considered in relation to any particular time, is true or false?
Yes / No
Feedback
(1) No (2) You would need to know who said it to whom and whether the
hearer was in fact standing on the speaker’s toe at the time of utterance.
(3) No
Comment The relationship of the truth of sentences
to hypothetical times and
situations of utterance is brought out most vividly by deictic terms.
The is traditionally called the de
finite article, and
a the indefinite article.
But what exactly is de
finiteness? An answer can be given in terms of several
notions already discussed, in particular the notion of referring expression,
identifying the referent of a referring expression, and universe of discourse.
A new
notion is also needed, that of context.
Definition The CONTEXT of an utterance is a small subpart of the universe of discourse
shared by speaker and hearer, and includes facts about the topic of the
conversation in which the utterance occurs, and also facts about the situation
in which the conversation itself takes place.
Example If I meet a stranger on a bus and we begin to talk about the weather (and not
about anything else), then facts about the weather (e.g. that it is raining, that it
is
warmer than yesterday, etc.), facts about the bus (e.g. that it is crowded), and
also obvious facts about the two speakers (e.g. their sex) are part of the context
of utterances in this conversation. Facts not associated with the topic of the
conversation or the situation on the bus (e.g. that England won the World Cup
in 1966, or that kangaroos live in Australia) are not part of the context of this
conversation, even though they may happen to be known to both speakers.