“Zdes'” is not “Tut”: Some Remarks on the Deixis of Oral Mythological Stories

Abstract

The article examines the functioning of two spatial deictics “zdes'” and “tut” in the system of mythological story based on the material of the Northern Russian tradition. The analysis made it possible to reveal the composition of the meanings they represent, the quantitative ratio of these units, and the modes of use. The presence of specialization of these deictic units in the oral narrative has been established: “zdes'”, in all spatial meanings, it is used exclusively as a deictic of the speech mode and it is indicating of the speaker's location in the actual situation of speech. The lexeme “tut” is used both in the speech mode and in the narrative mode – as a means images of the situation of the text relative to the character or the observer (this feature is observed only if a specific limited area of space is designated by this word), which allows us to conclude that this lexeme performs the function of a means of narrating and modeling the chronotope of the text, separated from the actual situation of speech.