Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-5bvrz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T13:01:01.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Normal States and Evaluative Viewpoints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Eve V. Clark
Eve V. Clark*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The deictic verbs come and go, as well as bring and send, may be used in idioms to refer to change of state rather than to motion. In such idiomatic uses, it is proposed, the deictic center, corresponding to the goal of come, is provided by some NORMAL STATE of being, e.g. consciousness or realism as in He came round and He came down to earth. In contrast, go marks departure from a normal state, as in He went mad and He went into a daze. Come is never used to denote departure from, nor go entry into, a normal state. Besides normal-state deixis, come may be used in evaluative deixis to indicate approval of some end state, as in He came through a lot, while evaluative go is used with a non-positive meaning, as in He went through a lot. It is suggested that both classes of idioms are related to other forms of deixis, all of which derive from the basic deictic contrast between EGO and NON-EGO.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 316 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Binnick, Robert I. 1968. On the nature of the lexical item. Papers from the 4th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 1–13.Google Scholar
Binnick, Robert I. 1971. Bring and come. Linguistic Inquiry 2. 260–65.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1966. Deictic categories in the semantics of come. Foundations of Language 2. 219–27.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1969. Types of lexical information. Studies in syntax and semantics, ed. by Kiefer, F., 109–37. Amsterdam: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1970. Subjects, speakers and roles. Synthèse 21. 251–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1971. Coming and going. From Lectures on Deixis, University of California Summer Program in Linguistics, Santa Cruz. Unpublished.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1972. How to know whether you're coming or going. Studies in descriptive and applied linguistics (International Christian University, Tokyo), 5. 3–17.Google Scholar
Frei, Henri. 1944. Systèmes de deictiques. Acta Linguistica 4. 111–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Language universals. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Kurylowicz, Jerzy. 1964. The inflectional categories of Indo-European. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Kurylowicz, Jerzy. 1972. The role of deictic elements in linguistic evolution. Semiotica 5. 174–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1970. Linguistics and natural logic. Synthèse 22. 151–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1971. Prelexical syntax. Monograph series in languages and linguistics, Georgetown University, 24. 19–33.Google Scholar
Sinha, Anjani K. 1972. On the deictic use of coming and going in Hindi. Papers from the 8th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 351–8.Google Scholar