Anaphoric demonstratives occur with fewer and different pointing gestures than exophoric demonstratives

Abstract

This study investigates the co-organization of place-referring demonstratives (e.g. here/there) and pointing gestures by speakers of Ticuna. Ticuna is an Indigenous Amazonian language with a six-term demonstrative system which lexically distinguishes exophoric demonstratives (equivalent to there far from me) from anaphoric demonstratives (equivalent to there where I mentioned). This lexical contrast overlaps with, but is distinct from, the pragmatic contrast between new and previously mentioned referents. Drawing on a dataset of 742 demonstrative place references, I examine how both contrasts affect the rate and form of pointing gestures accompanying demonstratives. Pointing gestures were ubiquitous, occurring with 66.5% of demonstrative tokens. Ticuna participants pointed more often with exophoric demonstratives and with demonstratives that introduced new referents, but still pointed with a substantial minority of anaphoric demonstratives. Participants were also more likely to use index-finger handshapes with exophoric demonstratives, and to use full arm extension with demonstratives introducing new referents. These findings indicate that both lexical and information-structural factors affect the co-organization of pointing and demonstratives.