Indonesian "Locative" Pronouns: Deictic or Anaphoric?

Abstract

Indonesian distinguishes between three locative pronouns: sini 'here', situ 'there', and sana 'over there'. It has been argued that among these three pronouns, only sana can be used anaphorically. The middle category situ , although it cannot be used as an anaphor, has been argued to be the most neutral pronoun, in the sense that it has a wider distribution as a deictic: it can, for example, substitute for either of the other two pronouns where the reverse is not always plausible. Given the wide applicability of situ , this paper questions the basis for excluding this pronoun as an anaphor. It is demonstrated that the exclusion may be attributed to the way locative pronouns are categorized, how they relate to personal pronouns, and also how deixis and anaphora are defined. It is argued that all of the three locative pronouns can have deictic and anaphoric functions and that both functions can be simultaneously present in some contexts. In deictic use, the choice of one pronoun or the other is determined by the spatial location of the referent relative to the speech participants. Anaphoric use, on the other hand, can be seen to reflect such things as psychological proximity to or distance from the referent in question, and the positioning of the referent in relation to other referents in discourse.