Analogical Levelling in the Majorcan Catalan Demonstrative System

Abstract Demonstratives are cross-linguistically widespread expressions. The use of demonstratives is flexible due to their semantic elasticity, which allows them describe more or less extensive regions referents in a communicative scenario. constant remapping between and might lead restructuring the deictic system itself accordance with parameters affecting its use. To that end, we analyzed structural changes Majorcan Catalan by analysing whether speakers three two terms ( aquest/aqueix/aquell vs. aquest/aquell ) convey spatial information. We also assessed any change adnominal/pronominal forms mirrored locative adverbs reduction. elicited production 36 simultaneous Majorcan/Spanish bilinguals via psycholinguistic experiment found main results. First, bilingual do not extensively term aqueix information related physical distance. Second, pronominal/adnominal reduction from three- two-terms differs adverbial In first case, dropping out system, while present shift substitution açí for aquí . Overall, our results shed new light on how demonstrative structured explain ‘analogical levelling’ paradigmatic relations.