Let's talk about you and me
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: A recent development in Dutch concerns the deictic interpretation of the second-person singular pronounje, which may refer to the speaker only. In such examples the subject refers to the speaker – not the hearer – but at the same time, these examples come along with an implicature stating that the hearer would have done the same thing if s/he were in the speaker's situation. Why is it the case that a second-person singular pronoun may refer to the speaker only? And why is it that when speaker-referringjeis used, it always comes along with an implicature of the kind described above? In this article I argue that this behavior of Dutchjeis a consequence of its semantically unmarked status with respect to the first-person singular pronounik. Along the lines of Sauerland (2008), I propose that Dutchjeonly carries one feature, [PARTICIPANT], whereasikcarries two features: [SPEAKER] and [PARTICIPANT]. Consequently,jemay in principle refer to all participants in the conversation, enablingjeto refer to the speaker as well. The fact thatjedoes not normally refer to the speaker but to the hearer only then follows as some kind of blocking effect resulting from application of the principle of Maximize Presupposition. The paper concludes by spelling out the predictions that this analysis makes for the cross-linguistic variation with respect to the readings that participant and other pronouns may yield.
Source: Journal of Linguistics
Author: HEDDE ZEIJLSTRA
Institution: University of Göttingen
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2066074648