A study on the deixis in the Germanic languages

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The purpose of this project was to analyze the deictic phenomena in English, German and Dutch. The following objectives were set ; 1) analysis of deixis of each language, 2) contrastive study of the three languages in terms of deixis, 3) development of the theoretical background of deixis.For 1) and 2); the go-type and come-type deictic verbs were examined and contrasted. As for the usage it was shown that Dutch gaan is more similar to English go than German gehen whereas Dutch komen is more similar to German kommen than English come. As for English come and German kommen other minute deictic conditions were examined. Moreover the problem of reported speech was analyzed for German and Japanese in terms of deixis.For 3); mainly the notion of deixis itself and the problem of the projection of-the origo were examined. Deixis was defined as verbal pointing with the setting of origo. As for the projection of the origo it was demonstrated that not only the location of the origo but also who sets the origo is essential to fully illustrate the projection of the origo. Moreover the relationship between the notion of time and the time expressions, and the problem of free indirect speech in Japanese was discussed.