Blurb:

Chapter 2 offers a critical overview of previous accounts on demonstrative choice per se. After discussing Gundel et al.’s (1993) Givenness Hierarchy, Ariel’s (1990/2014) Accessibility Theory, Cornish’s (2001) cognitive-psychological theory, and Hanks’ (1990, 2009) interactional account, more recent approaches are presented, including the works of Diessel (2012), Diessel and Coventry (2021), Sidnell and Enfield (2017), and Tátrai 2017). The common denominator of these approaches, which mostly focus on the use of English demonstratives, is that they suggest that deictic reference is a collaborative process, where the speaker directs the attention of the addressee towards the intended referent. Also discussed is the proposed analysis of Scott (2013, 2020), who argues in a relevance-theoretic framework that English demonstratives encode procedural meaning, thereby bringing together previous insights about demonstrative reference.

Chapter 2 also provides a brief overview of recent experimental work aimed at challenging the traditional, speaker-centred view on demonstrative selection in general. More specifically, studies carried out by Coventry et al. (2014), and Stevens and Zhang (2013) regarding English, and experiments conducted by Peeters et al. (2014, 2015) focusing on Dutch demonstratives are discussed. Finally, previous experimental work on Hungarian demonstratives (carried out by the author) is presented (Tóth et al. 2014; Tóth & Csatár 2016).