Goal: Explore options for demonstratives
Note: You can have different levels and types of distinctions!
Tip: Connect the options to ideas for lexical sources.
Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try
Demonstrative forms are often distance-oriented or person-oriented, and, in the majority of natlangs, demonstratives have a two- or three-way distinction. (Some languages only have one demonstrative form without any distinction, and some languages have four or more, but they are much rarer systems than two- and three-way systems.)
Distance-oriented demonstratives indicate distance from the current speaker/speaking situation. In such systems, a proximal demonstrative indicates a noun is in closer proximity (e.g. “this/here”), and a distal demonstrative form indicates a noun is further away (e.g. “that/there”). A third level of distance marking is the medial distal form, which is between the proximal and distal. In such systems, something that is “there” is distinguished from the thing that is “way over there”.
Person-oriented demonstratives are more sensitive to proximity to particular participants in the conversation. Therefore, demonstratives in such a system can indicate whether something is “near me (the speaker)” versus “near you (the hearer)” or somewhere else (“near neither of us”).
Common lexical sources for demonstratives include adverbs like “here” and “there,” but you could also play with having full phrases reduce to a single grammatical element, such as a full adposition phrase meaning “under my foot” or “in front of me” reducing to a word meaning “this” when used as a demonstrative modifier.
If you wanted to distinguish different inflectional information on demonstrative forms, remember to include that in your brainstorming today. For instance, “under my foot” could be distinguished from “under our feet” for a singular versus a plural proximal demonstrative.