Demonstrative systems and spatial cognition in Old Chinese

Abstract: ost 20th century views on human spatial perception and conceptualization, including even those of such unrelenting proponents of linguistic relativism as Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941), have routinely stressed the universal, “hard-wired” aspects of orientation reckoning and the innateness of its corresponding linguistic categories. However, the assumption that human primates are genetically predisposed to construe space relativistically, in terms of pro­jections anchored in the deictic reference point of ego, has been challenged by recent cross­linguistic/-cultural research on spatial cognition, carried out by linguistic anthropologists and cognitive psychologists, notably members of the “Space Project” at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, The Netherlands (see Levinson 1996, Senft 2000 for overviews; cf. Fillmore 1997 for earlier work). One well-researched linguistic subsystem, in which generalizations on the interrelationship between language and spatial orientation, stemming from experimental and fieldwork data, can increasingly be used to encroach upon presumed ancient “modes of spatial cognition”, is that of the demonstratives. Proceeding from recent observations on the morphology and syn­tax of the relevant deictic pronouns in pre-Qin Chinese by Hong (1986) and Pulleyblank (1999), I will try to situate the language of its speakers along the typological parameters (+/- speaker and/or adressee/other-anchored; distance from deictic reference center; +/- visibility) developed by the Nijmegen project. Possible implications for the conceptualization of terre­strial space in ancient texts, as studied by other contributions to this panel, will be outlined, and, if time permits, the areal embeddedness (cf. Ratliff 1997) of the described Old Chinese system and the reasons for its diachronic instability and will be sketched. References: C.J. Fillmore (1997 [1971]), Lectures on deixis (CSLI lecture notes; 65), Stanford: CSLI Publications. Hong Bo (1996), Xian-Qin zhidaici yanjiu, Ms., Tianjin: Nankai Daxue. S.C. Levinson, “Language and space”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 25: 353-382. E.G. Pulleyblank (1999), “The morphology of demonstrative pronouns in Classical Chinese”, Selected Papers from the Fifth Int’l. Conf. on Chinese Linguistics: 1-25, Taipei: Crane. M. Ratliff (1997), “Hmong-Mien demonstratives and pattern persistence”, Mon-Khmer Studies 27: 317-328. G. Senft, “Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raumes in verschiedenen Sprachen und Kulturen – affiziert sprachliche Relativität die Philosophie?, in: L. Salwiczek et al. eds., Wie wir die Welt erkennen. Zur Evolution von Erkenntnis. Grenzfragen: 203-242, Freiburg & München: K. Alber.