LINGUISTICS SEMINAR: Niklas Burenhult (Lund) -- Sensory encoding in demonstratives: typology and a case study (Jahai, Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula)

Demonstratives that encode sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing, are a family of distinctions reported infrequently in diverse languages and regions. Few such distinctions have been explored in depth, and little is known about their cross-linguistic differences and commonalities. In this talk, I chalk out an incipient typology of such distinctions against a backdrop of data from Jahai. This Austroasiatic language in the Malay Peninsula has a rich set of demonstrative distinctions, one of which encodes non-visual apprehension of its referent. I conclude with a discussion of the relevance of such distinctions to our general understanding of demonstratives as well as sensory language.

LU Zoom meeting: https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/67006790336?pwd=rRaKDZBnYM3MruCGUuQCZCSJIvgzLJ.1