proto-southwestern-tai revised: a new reconstruction - seals 22

DEIXIS AND INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN MON
– THE MULTIFUNCTIONAL PARTICLE kɔ̀h
Mathias Jenny
University of Zurich
1. Abstract
The topic of this study is a multifunctional particle in Mon, viz. kɔ̀h. This morpheme is
found in all stages of Mon since the 11 th century, where it appears as a deictic noun phrase
marker indicating distal spatial and temporal deixis. The use and development of kɔ̀h
exhibits a number of semantic and pragmatic features that make it difficult to define its
actual function(s). The aim of this paper is to present data from Old, Middle and Modern
Mon and try to find explanations of the development paths and uses of this very frequent
particle.
In the next section, examples from all recorded stages of Mon will be presented,
followed by previous studies and definitions of the morpheme under discussion. Section 3
is concerned with demonstratives in general and the position of kɔ̀h in the system of
demonstratives in Mon. Section 4 considers the possibility of explaining kɔ̀h as a marker of
definiteness in Modern Mon. Section 5 takes a look at the pragmatic functions of kɔ̀h, i.e.
as a marker of topic or identifiable information.
2. History and previous studies
2.1 The development of deixis in Mon
Old Mon seems to have had a two way distinction in its deictic system. Proximal deixis
was expressed by woʔ, distal by goḥ. The exophoric use of woʔ is clearly present in
expressions like (1), describing the scene in an accompanying picture.
(1) Old Mon (Ananda plaques)
woʔ brumha ku ʔin.
this Brahma COM Indra
These are Brahma and Indra.
The originally probably distal deictic goḥ is used mainly anaphorically, either as noun
phrase marker or in adverbial expressions such as gun goḥ ‘therefore, by virtue of that’ and
blaḥ goḥ ‘afterwards, having finished that’. The different uses of woʔ and goḥ are seen
clearly in the frequent expression row woʔ ‘thus, like this’ to cataphorically introduce
direct speech, while row goḥ anaphorically follows the quotation. This use is illustrated in
sentence (2), where the first instance of woʔ is cataphoric, while it is exophoric in the
reported speech. This example of exophoric woʔ also shows that it is not primarily
speaker-centred, but rather spatial proximal.
Mathias Jenny. 2009. Deixis and Information Structure in Mon: The Multifunctional Partical kɔ̀h. Journal of
the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 2:53-72.
Copyright vested in the author.
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