Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 07:49:26 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: "this Thursday" See Chuck Fillmore's 'Santa Cruz Lectures on Deixis' for a discussion of different 'dialacts' regarding the boundaries of 'next' and 'last.' My wife and I belong to different ones, resulting in much confusion (and, after we discovered our problem, interesting clarification routines). For example, it's Monday and you say you are leaving 'next Thursday.' Which Thursday is that? We have a marked family difference (mine is the Thursday of the following week; my wife's is the 'very next' Thursday of the same week). I am sure this variation is widespread, but, I suspect, it does not have geographical significance. >Never had a prpoblem w/ "this Thursday", like Alice. But when the >period is much longer, ambiguity arises. Eg, in October, Nov, even >Dec. one might still want to refer to the just-passed summer as "this >summer", though logically it should be "last summer"-- that tendency >to stress nearness on the proximal deictic, rather than future-ness, >actually seems entirely logical too, though it's a different logic! > --peter patrick > georgetown u. lx. Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)432-1235 Fax: (517)432-2736