Este hombre or el hombre este? Semantic factors defining pre- or postnominal demonstrative constructions
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.This study focuses on the relationship between the semantic features of nouns and the pre-nominal vs. post-nominal demonstrative construction in European Spanish. Saying “este hombre” or “el hombre este” may convey different meanings, with the latter hypothesised to reflect negative emotional valence and derogatory information. Here, we used the Demonstrative Choice Task (DCT) to investigate which semantic features promote post-nominal choice and whether it increases for referents with negative valence. 106 European-Spanish speakers matched 150 nouns with one of the 6 demonstrative options provided (3 pre-nominal and 3 post-nominal). We replicated previously observed semantic features influencing the choice of demonstratives in the DCT, including emotional valence and manipulability. Pre-nominal constructions were preferred to post-nominal, but an interaction was observed with proximal demonstratives being relatively dispreferred in post-nominal position while the distal demonstrative was dispreferred in the pre-nominal position. Words relating to time and the self/body increased the choice of post-nominal position, while words denoting vision, loudness and manipulability decreased the choice of post-nominal demonstratives. We did not observe the expected effect of emotional valence. We discuss these finding in the light of qualitative follow-up interviews of native speakers’ own intuitions about their use of the post-nominal construction.
Authors: Emanuela Todisco, Mikkel Wallentin
Institutions: Universidad de Sevilla, Aarhus University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $551
OpenAlex ID: W4416504856