Demonstrative and anaphoric reference in Daakie (Ambrym, Vanuatu) with special focus on associative anaphors
Manfred Krifka
May 2025 

The article presents an overview over the demonstrative and anaphoric devices of Daakie, a language spoken in the South of the island Ambrym in Vanuatu. It is based on extensive field work. After an introduction into the basic grammatical properties, like the person/number features with a singular, dual, paucal and plural distinction and the complex mood marking based on a realis/irrealis distinction that also extends to negation, the paper discusses the following domains: Relational and transitive nouns, including alienable and inalienable possession, the system of demonstratives with four distinctions (far distal, distal, proximate, and anaphoric) and the establishment of an indefinite article from the number word for “one” and a definite article from a proximate demonstrative. It is shown that this distinction also appears with manner adverbs. It is argued that Daakie shows a three-level definiteness distinction: bare nouns for world-unique entities, the anaphoric demonstrative for entities mentioned in the preceding discourse, and an associative, or bridging, article for entities that are related to entities mentioned in the preceding discourse. The paper discusses a number of relations that support this marking of associative definiteness.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/009009 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Te Reo
keywords:	oceanic, demonstratives, deictics, manner, articles, bridging, anaphora, possession, relational nouns, semantics
Downloaded:	106 times

 

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