Gestural demonstratives in English: an experiment

This paper examines various hypotheses regarding the choice of English proximal and distal gestural demonstratives in an experimental framework. Using the so called scripted dialogue technique it is shown that there is a significant difference between the choice of demonstratives depending on the nature of context (noncontrastive vs. contrastive). In non-contrastive contexts distance plays a crucial role, but in contrastive contexts the pattern of demonstratives changes, i.e. in contrastive contexts distance as a factor competes with some other factor