Shared Background Knowledge

The identity of the referent marked by he ‘that’ can also be established based on the shared knowledge between the members of the same speech community toward the physical or the linguistic environments (Chen 2004:1137). Observe example (3.20).

(3.20)

((In this excerpt, a grandmother (A) is sharing her experience of her bitten by a sanke with her granddaughter (B) ))

137 A: [[2 我 一 改-- gua tsit kai-- I one time

138 A: 一 改 毋]] 才 去 予 咬 著.

tsit kai m tsiah khi hoo ka tioh one time NEG just go give bite ASP 139 B: 咬 著.

ka tioh.

bite ASP

140 B: 啊 有 [1 腫 起來 <M 嗎 M>]?

ah u [1 tsing khi-lai <M ma M>]?

DM have swell become PART

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141 C: ‘Trimeresurus Mucrosquamatus is (a kind of) snake.’

142-143 A: ‘(Because of the snakebite) I had been in the hospital for more than ten days.’

144 B: ‘Is Trimeresurus Mucrosquamatus (a kind of) snake?’

145 A: ‘(Yes, it’s a kind of) snake.’

146 A: ‘ Or what would it be?’

147 B: ‘I am not sure.’

148 A: ‘Once you get bitten, (your wound will be) swollen (immediately).’

149-151 A: ‘I told my father that I was bitten by a snake after I went back to the rice-drying field. It was Trimeresurus Mucrosquamatus.’

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152 A: ‘(My father thought) I was lying about being bitten by Trimeresurus Mucrosquamatus .’

153-157 A: ‘I said (to him) it was a truth. It was just a small snake. I trod the snake to death (after it bit me).’

This excerpt concerns a grandmother’s childhood experience. The grandmother A reveals to her father that she was bitten by a snake. The intended referent (the snake) is a first mention at the moment when A tells her father the situation. The snake is marked by the recognitional demonstrative. On one hand, the speaker presupposes that the listener, her father, surely knows what a snake is; that is, the father has a corresponding image of a snake in mind prior to this conversation. On the other hand, the snake plays an important role in this story. The speaker utilizes the recognitional demonstrative to attract the hearer’s attention to the focal referent. She then engages herself in a long narrative about the conversation with her father about the snake biting. In English, the snake in this case would be marked by an indefinite article (I was bitten by “a” snake) since it is a first-mentioned general noun. Nevertheless, it is marked by a demonstrative in TSM; the purpose is to signify the topical status of the referent. By contrast, when the general noun is non-referential, it does not marked by any determiner in TSM, though in English it does, as indicated in line 144: ‘Is

Trimeresurus mucrosquamatus a (kind of) snake?’. One more similar example is provided in (3.21), in which the distal demonstrative is optional but its occurance serves to indicate the importance of the indicated noun.

(3.21)

((M is telling F that her sons mistook a piece of dried excretion from cows for Frisbee when they took a trip to Qing Tian Gang))

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130

234 M: <F 啊 結 F>--

<F ah kiat F>-- DM result--

235 M: <F 一下仔 久 爾 講 人 怹 F>-- <F tsit-e-a ku nia 講 lang in F>-- in a short time while just COMP people 3PL

236 M: <F 捎 彼 <M 飛盤 M> 踮 彼 射 來 射 去 F>.\

<F sa he <M fei-pan M> tiam hia sia lai sia khi F>.\

take that Frisbee at there throw here throw there 237 M: <F 我 講 奇怪 F>,_

<F gua kong ki-kuai F>,_

1SG say surprised 238 M: 阮 就 無 紮=-- guan tioh bo tsah=-- 1PLE just NEG bring 239 M: <F 無 啊 F>--

<F bo ah F>-- NEG PART

240 M: <M 飛=盤= M> 啦.\

<M fei=-pan= M> lah.\

Frisbee PART 241 F: @@

242 M: <M ^飛盤 M>,_

<M ^fei-pan M>,_

Frisbee

243 M: 我 講 奇怪,_

gua kong ki-kuai,_

1SG say surprised

244 M: 阮 就 無 紮 <M 飛盤 M>,_

guan tioh bo tsah fei-pan 1PLE just NEG bring Frisbee

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132

255 M: <M 土 黃色 M> e.\

<M tu huang-se M> e.\

muddy yello NOM

224-227 M: ‘ Around the time when my child studied at the kindergarten.’

228 F: ‘Yes?’

229 M: ‘We used to go to the grassland in Qing Tian Gang when my child went to the kindergarten’

230 F: ‘Yes ?’

231-233 M: ‘(At one time when we visited there,) I let them play on the grassland (without my company) as long as I could see them.’

234-245 M: ‘Then in a short while, I found them playing Frisbee. I felt surprised since we didn’t bring Frisbee. How come they were playing Frisbee.’

246 F: ‘Right!’

247-250 M: ‘(I thought) the color of Frisbee is usually bright, isn’t it?’

251 F: ‘Right.’

252-255 M: ‘However, that one (they were playing) was not; it was yellowish brown.’

In this excerpt, speaker M narrates an anecdote that her son played with a flying disc which he found during their trip to the mountain; however it turned out that the flying disc was actually a piece of dried excretion from cows. The recognitional demonstrative marks the entity flying disc, which is known to be a plate-shaped object that can be thrown for play. That is, identifiability of the referent relies on the

background knowledge or general lexical knowledge shared by the interlocutors; thus, it is marked by the recognitional demonstrative even when it is a first mention. In general, a first-mentioned general noun is not p receded by a demonstrative in English, i.e. “I found them playing Frisbee there.” However, it is common in TSM for a general noun to take a demonstrative. Here the use of a demonstrative before a general noun serves to signify that the NP flying disc is a prominent referent in this event; it can be seen that the following exchange elaborates on further details of the event that her on mistook excretion for a flying disc. In other words, he ‘that’ prefaces

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a noun that is shared in the lexical repertoire of the interlocutors. With the preface, the generality of the noun is established as a particularized and topicalized element whose details are developed in the upcoming talk.

This section focuses on the use of a demonstrative to mark a referent whose identifiability is based in the general lexical knowledge. In TSM, it is a norm that a generic noun is usually left unmarked when it is non-referential. Nevertheless, when a general noun is referential and when the speaker would like to highlight the referent as a topical referent, it is marked by a demonstrative.