A production study on the choice of Hungarian demonstratives

In the case of languages which make a two-way distinction between demonstrative terms the choice between spatial demonstratives has traditionally been assumed to depend on the referent's physical proximity to the speaker. However, recently this egocentric and speaker-anchored view has been challenged, and the addressee's role in demonstrative reference has been emphasized (Peeters & Özyürek 2016). This paper reports the results of a production study on the use of Hungarian demonstrative determiners. It is argued that though the traditional view cannot be rejected, it is not satisfactory in itself, i.e. besides relative distance from the speaker the establishment or lack of joint attention between speaker and hearer to the referent and the presence or absence of a pointing gesture are also decisive factors.