From verb to anaphora

Abstract

In the existing literature on grammaticalization there is no mention of the change from verb to anaphora. Such a change is of interest because the usual explanations for grammaticalization through metaphorical extension do not seem to apply in this case. An internal reconstruction of the grammatical system of Mopun and comparative study of Chadic languages indicate that deictic and anaphoric demonstratives in Mopun derive from verbs of movement. The major components of this paper are as follows: hypothesis and evidence that there exist in Mopun two kinds of locative demonstratives: deictic and anaphoric; evidence that the anaphoric demonstrative derives from the old deictic remote demonstrative; evidence that both types of demonstratives derive from verbs, and in particular that the deictic demonstrative derives from the verb ‘to come’ and the anaphoric demonstrative derives ultimately from the verb ‘to go’. I have also considered the possibility that the logophoric pronouns of Mopun derive from the locative anaphora.