DEIXIS AND DEICTIC OPPOSITIONS IN DISCOURSE - EVIDENCE FROM ROMANI

Studies of indexical devices differ in their analysis of 'textual' dei xis, some advocating an overlap of deictic and anaphoric functions, wh ile others argue in favor of a consistent farm-function correlation. T his 'grey area' of deixis is conventionalized in Romani, which has a c omplex four-term opposition system of demonstratives and place adverbs . Drawing on examples of natural discourse in the Kelderas/Lovari dial ect, I argue that deixis in Romani identifies the source of knowledge about the object of reference, distinguishing between extra-linguistic , perceptual reality of the speech situation, and intra-linguistic or conceptual reality established via the discourse context. A second opp osition line is drawn between general and discrete objects of referenc e. The fact that situation and context-based mental representations ar e kept apart grammatically, strengthens the argument in favor of their analytical separation, as suggested in Functional Pragmatics, while t he overall arrangement in Romani suggests that the distal/proximate op position cannot always be considered as basic in a typological classif ication of deictic systems.