可见性对空间指示语选择的影响

The Influence of Visibility on the Choice of Spatial Demonstratives

本研究通过桌面引发任务实验,发现说话人使用空间指示语去指别真实情境中两个等距的所指物时,所指物的可见性特征对远近指示语的选择有很大影响,即说话人强烈地倾向于使用近指形式来指别看得见的所指物;但是,当指别看不见的所指物时,使用远指形式的可能性显著增加。传统的空间距离观不能完全解释这一实验结果,而指示语理想认知模式却能给以更好地解释。空间指示语的语义结构中所蕴含的远近距离对照是图式性质的,人类对外部世界的视觉感知体验是远近语义发生的基础。

Through the experiment of a table-top elicitation task, this study found that when the speakers indicated two equidistant referents in real situations using spatial demonstratives, the visibility of the referents strongly affected the choice of the proximal and distal forms. The speakers tended strongly to use the proximal form to refer to the visible referent. By contrast, when referring to the invisible referent, the number of speakers who employed the distal form increased significantly. The traditional spatial view of demonstratives cannot explain this result, but the result can properly be explained by the idealized cognitive model （ICM） of deixis. The proximal-distal contrast entailed by the spatial demonstratives is schematic. Human＇ s visual experience of the outer world lays the foundation of the semantic development of proximal-distal distinction.