SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis investigates deixis in Hausa. Specifically, it examines the deictic interpretation of Hausa demonstratives, adverbs and certain deictic particles within a systematic paradigm of referential interpretation. I show that the participant-based approach to Hausa deictic adverbials, first proposed by Jaggar and Buba (1994), can be extended to cover other (related) deictic elements. In that work, we demonstrated how the tripartite system of spatial, anaphoric and symbolic usage interacts with the speaker-proximal, speaker-distal and speaker/addressee-distal distinctions encoded by NAN- and CAN-adverbials. In this thesis, the same model is extended to explain the functional distribution of the related demonstratives WANNAN and WANCAN. Chapter 1 provides a general introduction to the notion of deixis, covering its definition and various manifestations in the referential subsystems of demonstratives, adverbs (and personal pronouns). Chapter 2 addresses the speaker-proximal demonstrative and adverbial deictics (e.g. nan 'here' [near me the speaker], wannan + NP, NP-n/r- nan/nan 'this NP [near me the speaker]'). Chapter 3 is concerned with the basically addressee-proximal deictics (e.g. nan 'there [near you the addressee]', wannan / wannan + NP, NP-n/r-nan 'that NP [near you the addressee]'). In Chapter 4, I look at the speaker/addressee-distal forms (e.g. can 'there [distant from speaker and addressee]', wancan + NP, NP-n/r-can/can 'that NP [distant from speaker and addressee]'), and their remote-distal counterparts (e.g. can 'over there [remote from speaker and addressee]', wancan / wancan -i- NP, NP-n/r-can 'that NP [remote from speaker and addressee]'). The functional distribution of the pre-head and post-head demonstratives is described and explained in terms of the semantic-pragmatic notion of presuppositionality. The core claims are summarised in Chapter 5, where I briefly address the implications of the findings for the Hausa system of deixis, and for cross-linguistic deictic theory in general.