Deixis and definiteness in Estonian (and Finnish)

Renate Pajusalu

University of Tartu

renate.pajusalu@ut.ee

Introduction– deixis and demonstratives– some relevant classifications of demonstratives/deixis– methods and dataCategories that influence the choice of a pronoun:- activation status and animacy of the referent, - pragmatic contrast, - type of syntactic construction,- the status of the person referred to in the ongoing

narrative, - definiteness/indefiniteness of the noun phrase,- pragmatic plenitude in the case of the pronoun kõik

‘all’.

Deixis and anaphora

two basic ways of using the term deictic 1) deictic reference:

- exophoric or situational - endophoric or textual

2) pronominal reference (and reference of other pro-forms): - deictic - anaphoric

Short and long forms of personal pronouns

Finnish Estonian

Standard Spoken

minä me mää me mina/ma meie/mesinä te sää te sina/sa teie/tehän he se ne tema/ta nemad/nad

The alternation between short and long forms of personal pronouns has been described at least for some personal pronouns and at least for nominative case in Standard Estonian, South Estonian, Livonian (Laanest 1982) and South Veps (Ojansuu 1922). It also occurs in Spoken Finnish but not in Standard Finnish (for an overview see Pool 1999). Demonstrative pronouns can also have short and long forms.

Short and long forms of (personal) pronouns in Estonian

The choice between long and short forms in Estonian is pragmatic by nature, and hence there are no grammatical rules for this alternation.

In different case forms and syntactic roles pragmatic principles are slightly different, but the main tendency is to use long forms in the case of pragmatic contrast with some other referent (Pool 1999; Kaiser, Hiietam 2003; Pajusalu 2005).

Example: pragmatic contrast

hja:=muidugi: ´Tõnu H. oli pärast nii ´vihane olnud et et enamus rahvast oli ´ära läinud. (0.5) et ´tema pidi seal korja- koristama. (0.5)

M: ahah (0.5)L: aga noh? (.) ei:, õutselt õutselt tore oli. (.) aga ee=noh, ´mina ei saa

sellest ´Nimmekast ´tõesti aru, > ma=ei=saa=aru mida ta ´mõtleb < ja ültse mida ta ´tahab ültse ja (0.5) jaa=ma=i=tea. (.)

‘Tõnu H was reported to have been really angry later because most people had left, and he had to clean thereM: L: ‘well, I really don’t get that Nimmekas >I don’t understand what he thinks< and what he wants in the first place, and’ I don’t know

Some syntactic features of short and long forms of pronouns

- in some specific constructions the short form is preferred, as in a) the elative mis-construction

(Example next slide, Pajusalu 2006b);b) the possessive perfect construction

Mul on auto pestud.‘I have my car washed’ (Lindström & Tragel 2007)

- there are some syntactic contexts that prefer long forms, for example, verb-initial clauses used in spoken narrativesläksin mina üle Raekoja platsi ‘lit. went I over Town Hall square’ (Lindström 2001).

Example: mis-construction

Mis sa se-st kirjuta-d?what2sg dem-elat write-2sg‘Don’t write it!’ or ‘There is no sense in writing it’

Mis sa ta-st kiusa-d?what2sg 3sg-elat bully-2sg‘Don’t bully him!’ or ‘There is no sense in bullying

him’

Finnic demonstratives

In Finnic languages the number of (locative) demonstrative pronouns can vary from three

Finnish tämä, tuo, se,

and tässä, tuossa, siinä

täällä, tuolla

tällä, sillä

Karelian tämä, tua, še,

South Estonian seo, taa, tuu

to one

Livonian sie

(Laanest 1982: 197-199)

Locative adverbs in Finnish

Interior local cases

tässä, tästä, tähän

t(u)ossa, t(u)osta, t(u)ohon

siinä, siitä, siihen

Exterior local cases

tällä, tältä, tälle

t(u)olla, t(u)olta, t(u)olle

sillä, siltä, sille

Locative adverbs

täällä, täältä, tänne

tuolla, tuolta,t(u)onne

siellä, sieltä, sinne

Figure and Groundin conceptualization of demonstratives

Laury 1996, 1997:

The forms in local case are used when the referent is conceptualized as a Figure.

The adverbial forms are used when the referent is conceptualized as a Ground.

Spatiality in the study of demonstratives

• Traditionally, the study of demonstratives begins with their spatial features.

• The further we go in the history of studies of demonstratives, the less space we can find in the descriptions.

The case of Finnish demonstratives: Matti Larjavaara 1986, 1990 MORE SPATIAL

Ritva Laury 1996 ↑ Eeva-Leena Seppänen 1999 ↓ Marja Etelämäki 2006 LESS SPATIAL

(North) Estonian demonstratives

Demonstrative pronouns: see (too)Demonstrative adverbs: siia – siin – siit

sinna - seal – sealtThe demonstrative pronoun see functions as

- a proximal or neutral demonstrative- an anaphoric pronoun - a definite determiner, - and sometimes expresses hesitation.

The demonstrative pronoun too functions as- a distal demonstrative (in some varieties at least)- an anaphoric pronoun (for personal or temporal reference)It is not used as a definite determiner in Standard Estonian

Finnish personal pronouns and demonstratives

• Standard: hän human

se, tuo, tämä non-human

• Colloquial: se, (tuo) toi, tämä

for all referents

+ logophoric hän

ni se äijä tuli hakee sit se vaa >tällee niiku et< (0.3) .h et saaks hä: sit palauttaa. >eiku et< hä saa varmaa sit palauttaa tän et sie [et ]saa rahat takasi (example from R.Laury)

then this man come to get. then he just like that could he return. no, he definitely can return this that he will get money back

Estonian tema, ta and see: animateness

Native speakers’ intuitions:an animate entity is referred to by a personal

pronoun (ta or tema), an inanimate entity by a demonstrative pronoun

(see).

tema, ta, and see may take either an animate or an inanimate referent although see most frequently refers to an inanimate referent (especially abstract), whereas tema and ta most frequently refer to animate referents.

Person: usually ta

[a bookshop assistant tells how she treats the buyers]inimene noh hea küll ma ei lähe teda segama sis kui ta juba loeb ega ma ei saa teda aidata lugeda eks. aga noh nii alguses kui ta nagu otsib või (.) ta on ise segaduses alles ta ei tea ka täpselt mida ta nagu tahab. ja ta tahab alles pilti luua.

‘a person, well I won’t disturb him when he’s already reading; I can’t help him read, but when he’s looking around at first, or he is still confused, and he doesn’t know exactly what he wants, and he wants to put together the picture’

Inanimate object in focus: frequently ta.

((a sweater was discussed that the speaker has seen in the shop and wants to buy but cannot afford))saaks omale ühe riide asja siis=ta on üle viiesaja krooni, no ma ei saa osta siukse palgaga mitte ühtegi asja (0.5) no mingi isegi väike asigi, oleks ta mingi jope või sihuke aga noh kõige väiksem niuke pisike kampsun. hästi armas. no kampsun ta ka ei ole ta on nagu jakike selline.

‘I would get a piece of clothing then = it costs over five hundred kroons. Well, I can’t afford anything with this kind of salary. A small piece of clothing; if it were some kind of a coat or something, but such a small sweater. Very cute. Well, it’s not a sweater; it’s more like a small jacket’

tema, ta and see: crossing paradigms

ANIMATE INANIMATE INANIMATE

physical abstractnominative ta ~ tema ta ~ see see

genitive tema selle selle

locatives temasse, temas, sinna, sellele/sse, temast seal, sellel/s,

talle, tal, talt sealt sellelt/st

plural nom. nemad ~ nad nad ~ need need

Demonstratives see and too for 3rd person reference

The demonstrative see and in written Estonian, too can be used as forms of minimal reference for animate referents in the case of a referent that is not in focus. This is similar to the Finnish demonstrative tämä “this” (Kaiser & Hiietam 2003).

The function of tämä in Standard Finnish is to highlight the person in the background for a moment, so that the person can become the subject of the discourse (Varteva 1998).

The same applies to the Estonian demonstratives see and too.

Estonian: see for a person

ma läksin ühe korra läksin noh kui ma nüüd läksin viimane kord eks. läksin kolmandalt lifti ilusti eks. ja mingi neiu tuli veel minuga koos. nii umbes minuvanune. ja siis see tahtis minna kas mingi seitsmendale või kuskil niiviisi. vajutas eks. aga ta vist ei vajutand korralikult. lift läks nagu tegi nagu noh kaks mingit nihukest tõuset ja siis jäi lihtsalt seisma. ja see tüdruk see täiesti @ issand kas ma olen nüüd liftis kinni vä?

I took the lift on the third. And some girl came with me. Approximately of my age and she wanted to get off on the seventh or something like that well, she pushed, but probably not correctly. The lift jerked twice and just stopped, and the girl, she Oh my God, am I trapped in the lift now

See and too in fiction

Data from the corpus of fiction texts of the 1980s of the Tartu University Corpus of Standard Written Estonian (250,000 words): all occurrences of the demonstrative too (86) and each fifteenth occurrence of the demonstrative see (102)animate inanimate abstract

NP adnominal NP adnominal NP adnominalsee 7 6 7 9 55 18 too 40 27 0 7 1 11

too for a person

Ta jäi rahumeeli oma kohale istuma ja imestas, et ei tahagi Ivikalt küsida, mida too uute külaliste tulekust arvab.

‘He remained seated calmly and was surprised that he didn’t want to ask Ivika what she thought about the arrival of the new guests’

see and too in temporal adverbials

(Data from the Corpus of Written Estonian, University of Tartu)

1) adessive forms sel and tol, e.g. sel suvel ‘this summer’; tol suvel ‘that summer’

tol X-l ‘on that X’ 23, all in the pastsel X-l ‘on this X’ 46 past, 18 present or future

2) seekord and tookord

tookord ‘that time’ 38, all in the pastseekord ‘this time’ 29 past, 7 present or future

NB! see is not closer to “now” than too

Categories that influence the choice of tema, ta, see, too in Estonian

- activation status

- existence of competing referents

- pragmatic contrast

- syntactic construction

- animacy of the referent

- past/future

Demonstratives as definite determiners

Finnish and Estonian demonstratives can function as definite determiners similarly to many other languages (cf. the grammaticalization chain of demonstratives > definite determiners in Heine&Kuteva 2002: 109-111). Finnish uses se (Laury 1997), Standard Estonian see (Pajusalu 1997) and South Estonian tuu or too, depending on the variant used in particular dialect (Pajusalu 1998). The phenomenon is probably motivated by a) influence of Swedish and German and b) by “independant” grammaticalization.

(Habicht, Laury, Nordlund, Pajusalu in press)

se/see as a definite determiner

se/see is most frequently used as a marker of definiteness in contexts in which the referent of seeNP has been mentioned in the previous discourse.

Usually the need for seeNP rises after some other referent has been introduced into discourse because in the other cases a pronominal NP would be enough.

ma läksin ühe korra läksin noh kui ma nüüd läksin viimane kord eks. läksin kolmandalt lifti ilusti eks. ja mingi neiu tuli veel minuga koos. nii umbes minuvanune. ja siis see tahtis minna kas mingi seitsmendale või kuskil niiviisi. vajutas eks. aga ta vist ei vajutand korralikult. lift läks nagu tegi nagu noh kaks mingit nihukest tõuset ja siis jäi lihtsalt seisma. ja see tüdruk see täiesti @ issand kas ma olen nüüd liftis kinni vä?

I took the lift on the third. And some girl came with me. Approximately of my agean d she wanted to get off on the seventh or something like that well, she pushed, but probably not correctly. The lift jerked twice and just stopped, and the girl, she Oh my God, am I trapped in the lift now

Ka: kaua sellised karpmajad vastu peavad. (.)Kä: majad ise peavad üsna kaua ma=arvan. (1.0) see on

päris kõva [see plokk]E: [tead=sa] majadel pole häda muud midagi kui see

raudkonstruktsioon ei saa niiskust, kui see hakkab vahelt roostetama=siis (2.5)

Ka: how long do such apartment blocks last Kä: the buildings themselves last quite long I guess. It’s

quite solid this block E: you know, the buildings have nothing wrong when the

iron construction. is not damp, then it will start to rust

Discussion of Finnish se

Ritva Laury (1997) suggested that the Finnish se is a Stage 1 article according to the diachronic typology of Greenberg (1978), though it is not fully grammaticalized. Päivi Juvonen (2000) argues the contrary—that se is a demonstrative that can be used as a definite determiner among its other functions. Matti Larjavaara (2001) supports Juvonen’s view. He is resolutely against importing categories from Indo-European linguistics for describing languages characterised by different structures and pragmatics.

üks and mingi as indefinite determiners

A: mõtle meil üks=ee õde käis suvel Taanis. olitööl seal.

‘A: imagine, a nurse of our hospital visited Denmark this summer. She worked there’

ja mingi neiu tuli veel minuga koos.‘And some girl came with me.’

Indefinite determiners

• Finnish yks(i) and Estonian üks can be used as indefinite determiners.

• Some other indefinite pronouns have this function as well, for example Finnish joku and Estonian mingi.

Scalarity of definiteness

• Chesterman (1991: 182–183) has depicted definiteness as a scalar phenomenon rather than a binary opposition between the definite and the indefinite article. Thus, it is not surprising that Estonian has two indefinite determiners that are not indefinite in the same way. The determiner mingi ‘some’ is more indefinite than üks ‘one, a’ because üks refers to a more concrete entity that is at least specific for the speaker.

• In addition, determiners see, üks, and mingi can occur adnominally in different combinations in the same NP. The data included NPs like see üks poiss ‘lit. this one boy’ and üks mingi mutt ‘lit. one some woman’ (see Example 11), which indicate that definiteness and indefiniteness are not completely exclusive in the same NP.

S: [üks mingi mutt tuleb, (.) kõik kõigutavad bussi=jaP: ähähS: @ TÄITSA HULLUD LAPSED, (.) SEAL BUSSIS ON JU VÄIKSED LAPSED. @ tead nii naljaks oli kuulda, (.) ja sis üks meesütleb @ vaadake buss tuleb. @ he-hehP: @ kõik tormavad @ he he heh

S: there’s a crone coming, everybody’s shaking the bus andP:S: TOTALLY CRAZY CHILDREN, (.) THERE ARE SMALL CHILDREN

ON THE BUS. you know, it is so funny to listen to, (.) and then a man says (.) look the bus is coming.

P: and everybody starts running.

kõik ‘all’ as a pronoun

Kõik can function as a deictic demonstrative pronoun and as an anaphoric pronoun, but most frequently it functions as a pronoun of first mention, whether as an independent NP or as an adnominal determiner (Pajusalu 2008).

Kõik introduces a new referent − a group of people shaking the bus − the previous slide.

kõik sometimes conveys the meaning of pragmatic plenitude, which means that the number of referents is bigger than expected in the particular context.

We can say that the independent kõik functions as a pronoun of first mention and characterizes the referent as a group or (in some other contexts) as a complex entity.

Conclusions for Estonian

To sum up, the list of most important categories that influence the choice of a tracking pronoun in Estonian are the following:

1. activation status and animacy – for choosing between a personal pronoun and the demonstrative see;

2. contrast and type of syntactic construction – for choosing between short and long forms of (personal) pronouns;

3. case form of the pronoun – for choosing between the short and the long form;

4. definiteness/indefiniteness (treated as a scalar category) – for choosing a determiner (demonstrative see or/and indefinite pronouns üks and mingi) for a NP;

5. the status of the person referred to in the ongoing narrative – for choosing between a personal pronoun and the demonstrative too or see;

6. whether the referent is spatial or not – for choosing between the demonstrative pronoun see and an adverb (sinna, seal, sealt);

7. pragmatic plenitude – for choosing a quantificational pronoun kõik instead of the 3rd person pronoun or a demonstrative.