Who Is to Believe When You Bet: on Non-Referential Indexical Functions of the Pronoun You in English

Using English-language material this paper presents an account of a number of functions of the pronoun you that are not directly related to reference. The analysis focuses on occurrences of the second-person pronoun in utterances of prediction, judgment and generalization. The possibility of non-referential uses of the pronoun you stems from double indexicality as an inherent property of personal pronouns. As a non-referential item the pronoun you is shown to be indexed to the speaker’s internal experiences and/or communicative activities.Con material en lengua inglesa, este artículo presenta una explicación de una serie de funciones del pronombre you que no están directamente relacionadas con la referencia. El análisis se centra en ejemplos del pronombre de segunda persona en enunciados de predicción, juicio y generalización. Se demuestra que la posibilidad de usos no referenciales del pronombre you surgen de la doble indexicalización como propiedad inherente de los pronombres personales. Como elemento no referencial, el pronombre you indica las experiencias internas y/o las actividades comunicativas del hablante

The interactive dimension of mental construal an the participant-setting distinction in the expression of stance

This paper presents an account of the phenomenon of mental construal manifested in English expressions of stance through the distinction of clauses that are headed by subjects associated with two conceptual archetypes: participant (P) invoked by the first-person pronoun (‘I am certain that’) and abstract setting (S) conveyed by anticipatory ‘it’ (‘It is certain that’). With recourse to the main theoretical points on the anchoring of linguistic meaning in the acts of mental construal and interactive coordination, the conducted analysis focuses on a corpus of about 350 examples that represent narrative and dialogic discourse in English-language fiction. It shown that the choice of stance expressions with P- and S-subjects is motivated by the distinctions that arise in discourse between actual and mentally represented types of reality, the contrast between reference-making and viewing as types of cognitive operations and the associated narrative and dialogic strategies. This paper presents an account of the phenomenon of mental construal manifested in English expressions of stance through the distinction of clauses that are headed by subjects associated with two conceptual archetypes: participant (P) invoked by the first-person pronoun (‘I am certain that’) and abstract setting (S) conveyed by anticipatory ‘it’ (‘It is certain that’). With recourse to the main theoretical points on the anchoring of linguistic meaning in the acts of mental construal and interactive coordination, the conducted analysis focuses on a corpus of about 350 examples that represent narrative and dialogic discourse in English-language fiction. It shown that the choice of stance expressions with P- and S-subjects is motivated by the distinctions that arise in discourse between actual and mentally represented types of reality, the contrast between reference-making and viewing as types of cognitive operations and the associated narrative and dialogic strategies