The results of linguistic investigation often lead to the discovery of new aspects regarding the mentality of the native speakers. Such is the case with the research of deictic pronouns and adverbs in Romance languages, which allows us to classify them into two categories of languages, expressing a binary or ternary perception of space. Our paper aims at disclosing the two types of perceptions on space according to the existence of a two-way or three-way segmentation of the demonstrative paradigm in six Romance languages of the traditional classification (Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish), without lacking certain punctual references to the remaining ones (Sardinian, Dalmatian, Rhaeto-Romance or Occitan). As a conclusion, we find that the La Spezia-Rimini line can act as a switch, since when deixis is concerned, the Southern and Central Italian dialects form a linguistic continuum with the Western varieties, instead of the Eastern ones.
Key words:
Romance linguistics, space perception, deixis, demonstrative pronouns
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