Sémiotique des démonstratifs cataphoriques
Semiotics of cataphoric demonstratives

Summary/Abstract: The studies of anaphoric expressions have shown that we can and must link the stable resultsacquired over the last forty years on their functioning to more recent socio-cognitive, taxonomic,multimodal, etc. perspectives and examine and explain two aspects of cataphoric demonstratives(CDs): on the one hand, their constructional scheme and, on the other, the formal and semanticnature of their subsequent or postcedent.We propose here to continue this analysis of CDs, this time looking at their referential operationas such and asking the question: how do CDs make us reach the intended referent? What preciselyis the interpretative procedure involved?Our analyses show that rather than directly contrasting CDs with anaphoric demonstratives,it is more relevant and, therefore, more fruitful to compare them directly with gestural demonstratives.As we have seen, the two uses of demonstratives correspond to the same cognitive situation,that of introducing a new referent into discourse memory. This cognitive kinship gives rise toa common semiotic hybridity and, consequently, a referential operation, which we have detailed innine points, that turns out to be largely identical, the differences observed being directly due to thedifference in the nature of the index.

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