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The convergent evolution of radial constructions:

French and English deictics and existentials

Benjamin K. Bergen*

Madelaine C. Plauché#

0. Abstract

English deictic and existential there constructions have been analyzed as constituting a single radial category of form-meaning pairings, related through motivated links, such as metaphor (Lakoff 1987). By comparison, existentials and deictic demonstratives in French make use of two distinct radial categories. The current study analyzes the varied senses of French deictic demonstratives (voilà “there is” and voici “here is”) and the existential (il y a “there is”). We argue that the syntactic behavior of each of their senses is best explained by the semantic and pragmatic function of that sense, in combination with constraints imposed by their relation to other senses. A cross-linguistic comparison of the deictic demonstrative and existential constructions in French and English supports this claim: despite the different historical origins of these forms in the two languages, they display a strikingly similar array of uses and formal constraints. The parallel evolution of deictics and existentials in these two languages is interpreted as a case of convergent evolution of linguistic forms, much like convergent evolution in biological species.

Keywords: French, deictic, existential, extension, construction, radial category

1. Introduction

This paper is a study of the varied forms and meanings of French deictic demonstrative constructions (Diessel 1999) that use voilà “there is” and voici “here is,” as well as of the French existential il y a “there is” construction (1).

(1) (a) Voilà/Voici les clés que tu cherchais.

There/here are the keys you were looking for.

(b) Il y a un chien dans la cuisine.

There’s a dog in the kitchen.

French deictic demonstratives and existentials superficially appear to differ radically from their English equivalents. For example, while French uses entirely separate forms to express deixis and existence (i.e. voilà “there is [deictic]” and il y a “there is [existential]”), English has a single lexical form, there, in a radial category that includes both meanings (Lakoff 1987). In this paper, we argue that despite different historical origins, yielding surface differences, French and English deictic and existential constructions display convergent evolution

1.1. Constructional polysemy in Cognitive Linguistics

Studies grouped together under the rubric of Cognitive Linguistics ask a variety of questions about the mind and language. Many center on aspects of the following question:

How is the formal patterning of language a product of language use and of properties of the human cognitive system?

Two unique strands of research addressing this question have emerged, conscripting different sorts of data and different analysis tools.

The first strand has concentrated on words displaying polysemy; that is, words with multiple, related meanings. Related senses can be connected through any of a number of ubiquitous conceptual mechanisms, including metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), metonymy (Ibid), blending (Fauconnier and Turner, under review), and constructional grounding (Johnson 1998). Work on polysemy has focused primarily on closed-class items, especially prepositions, like over (Brugman 1981), and classifiers, like Dyirbal balan (Lakoff 1987).

A second strand of research has sought out explanations for morpho-syntactic patterning in the semantic correlates of this patterning. For example, Goldberg’s (1995) work on argument structure constructions provides evidence that the meanings of constructions, such as the Caused-Motion construction, place constraints on their use. Langacker’s work (e.g. Langacker 1991) provides evidence that at various levels of linguistic structure, such as part of speech and agreement, meaning plays a central role in linguistic patterning.

A particular set of linguistic constructions, such as English there (Lakoff 1987) and way (Goldberg 1995) constructions, are relevant to both strands of research. Not only do these constructions display multiple, related meanings, but they additionally exhibit different morpho-syntactic arrangements for each of these senses. Such constructions simultaneously raise the issues of how their senses are related and why the different senses display divergent form characteristics.

The current study aims first to document major senses of a particular set of such polysemous linguistic constructions, using evidence from the meaning and form differences among those senses. The results show that the form differences among the senses of each construction are a product of the extension mechanisms themselves, in combination with the expressive requirements of the domains to which senses are extended. We support this claim through a comparative study of constructional polysemy across languages, providing cross-linguistic evidence on deictic and existential constructions, focusing on a comparison of English and French.

1.2. Roadmap

In this paper, we address both the cognitive and the functional motivations for syntactic patterning and the polysemy structure of a set of constructions in French that we will call voilà, voici, and il y a constructions, exemplified in (1), above.

The central uses of French deictic demonstratives voilà “there is” and voici “here is” have morpho-syntactic characteristics that are not predictable on purely syntactic grounds. We demonstrate in Section 2 below that the function of the central senses of voilà and voici constrains their morphosyntactic behavior. In Section 3, we analyze extensions in the radial constructions voilà and voici. The results show that the morphosyntax of each extension is functionally constrained.

A comparison of French and English deictic demonstratives and existentials in Section 4 shows that similar mechanisms yield extensions of the radial category of there constructions in English. This provides evidence that expressive requirements of the domains of application, in combination with extension mechanisms, conspire to constrain the range of extensions of polysemous linguistic constructions.

Finally, Section 5 is dedicated to a comparison of the phenomenon of convergent evolution in biological systems with the results obtained from the current study. It is argued there that just as convergent biological evolution provides a window onto environmental factors that shape evolutionary paths of living beings, so the convergent evolution of linguistic units in different languages can help us to understand the environmental pressures (in this case, function and cognitive requirements) that shape linguistic form.

2. Functional constraints on the central deictic

Traditional accounts of voilà and voici constructions aim to classify these forms either in terms of existing parts of speech (“syntactic” categorization) or on the basis of their discourse function (“pragmatic” categorization). They have been syntactically classified as prepositions (Girault-Duvivier 1851), adverbs (Brunot and Bruneau 1969), and more convincingly, verbs (Moignet 1969; Bouchard 1988). Voilà and voici have been pragmatically labeled as presentatives (Grenoble and Riley, 1996; Lambrecht 1981), interjections (Nyrop 1914), and factives (Damourette and Pichon, 1927).

In this section, it will become clear that it is impossible to simply treat voilà and voici as belonging to a particular existing part of speech. Their behavior is most like verbs, but even in their central senses (without even considering their polysemy) they display numerous morphosyntactic restrictions. For example, unlike other French verbs, they lack a subject. They show indicative-like pronominalization, but they lack tense and aspect marking. Recognizing these aberrations, Moignet (1969), who classifies voilà and voici as verbs, is forced to submit that voici and voilà “form a sort of verb without morphological variation, [which are] impersonal, unimodal (indicative) and unitemporal (present)...which refuses nominal support” (ibid., 201). The data presented in this section reveal these and additional idiosyncracies to voilà and voici.

Purely pragmatic accounts also fail to capture the full range of linguistic behavior these forms display. Authors adopting a purely pragmatic approach, such as Grenoble and Riley (1996), propose functional labels for voilà and voici, such as presentative deictics, then demonstrate how such these linguistic units fulfill the function defined by the label. While they serve to elucidate the function of these forms, such accounts generally ignore syntactic behavior to a large extent. Indeed, they have to, since not all of the behavior of linguistic units is predictable on the basis of their function.

We build on both lines of previous work on these deictic demonstratives, by investigating the extent to which their particular pragmatics explains their aberrant syntax. In this section we examine the French central deictic and show that even the most basic senses of voilà and voici (2.1) cannot be classified as belonging to any existing grammatical class, since they share syntactic characteristics with declaratives (2.2) and imperatives (2.3), and demonstrate still other behavior that is unique (2.4). This descriptive analysis of the central sense of voilà and voici will serve as the basis for our analysis of other senses in Section 3 and for our comparison with English equivalents in Section 4.

2.1. Introduction to the central case

As in English there (Lakoff 1987), the central sense of deictic demonstratives voilà and voici in French is a spatial one, exemplified in (2).

(2) (a) Voilà/voici son sac.

There/here's his bag.

(b) Voilà/voici les clés que tu cherchais.

There/here are the keys you were looking for.

All other senses are derived either directly or indirectly from this sense. There are several reasons to believe that the central sense is this spatial one. First, when words or other constructions have multiple, related meanings, it is usually a spatial domain that serves as the basis for (metaphorical) extensions to discourse, time, and other conceptual domains. As we will see in Section 3, voilà and voici are metaphorically extended to these domains, which implies that the spatial sense is central. Second, the syntactic constraints on the spatial sense are the least restrictive – other senses apply additional limits on the syntactic range of voilà and voici. Finally, voilà and voici are historically composed of voi “see (imperative)” and the clitics là “there” and ci “here”, which belong to the domain of spatial perception. All this evidence points to the spatial sense as the primary or central sense of voilà and voici.

The semantics of central sense of the voilà construction can be described in terms of an idealized cognitive model (ICM) that involves “Pointing Out” (Lakoff 1987). ICMs are schematic-level knowledge structures with gestalt and prototype properties. The Pointing Out ICM is an experiential gestalt that is common and crucial in young children's linguistic and non-linguistic interaction. Lakoff describes the Pointing Out ICM as follows:

It is assumed as a background that some entity exists and is present at some location in the speaker's visual field, that the speaker is directing his attention at it, and that the hearer is interested in its whereabouts but does not have his attention focused on it and may not even know that it is present. The speaker then directs the hearer's attention to the location of the entity (perhaps accompanied by a pointing gesture) and brings it to the hearer's attention that the entity is at the specified location [...] (Lakoff 1987:490).

In this ICM, voilà and voici explicitly encode both a directive to focus attention (voi-) and the location of the entity (-ci or -la). The entity being pointed out is syntactically similar to a direct object.

In the remainder of this section, we will describe the central voilà construction, including the form and meaning properties it shares with the French declarative and imperative constructions, as well as those that are unique to the central senses of voilà and voici.

2.2. Voilà and voici as declaratives

The basic structure of the central deictic is a construction with the following minimal specification: (a) voilà or voici and (b) an optionally omittable noun phrase, which acts as a direct object in the construction. The noun phrase (NP) of the voilà construction can optionally include modifiers of all sorts and can be definite or indefinite (3). (From this point onward, we will refer to both voilà and voici constructions as “voilà” constructions. Unless noted otherwise, voilà and voici should be assumed to both be possible, contrasting only in that voici invokes proximal deixis and voilà distal deixis.)

(3) Mod + N Voilà ton petit frère.

There's your little brother.

indefinite determiner + N Voilà un oiseau. / Voilà des oiseaux.

There's a bird. / There are some birds.

definite determiner + N Voilà le roi.

There's the king.

N + relative clause Voilà la fille dont je t'avais parlé.

There's the girl that I talked to you about.

Voilà Paul qui pleure.

There's Paul crying.

N + gerundial phrase Voilà Marie travaillant.

There's Marie working.

Optionally, the direct object NP can be pronominalized (4). In this respect, the syntax of the central deictic is like that of a declarative clause. Pronominalization with the voilà construction places the direct object pronoun (bolded in (4)) before voilà (4a). We observe the same pattern in declaratives (4b), but not in affirmative imperatives, which place the pronoun after the verb (4c).

(4) (a) Voilà les clés que tu cherchais. Les voilà.

There are the keys you were looking for. There they are.

(b) Je vois les clés que tu cherchais. Je les vois.

I see the keys you were looking for. I see them.

Bring the keys I was looking for. Bring them.

In addition to pronominalizing like a declarative, the voilà construction shares with declaratives the function of expressing a proposition. Voilà is used to convey not only “look at that thing there,” as an imperative would, but additionally, “that thing is there.” We can evaluate whether the voilà construction has an implied proposition using the Oui, je sais “Yes, I know” test (Jones 1996:181). If a sentence can be easily answered with Oui, je sais, then a proposition has been expressed. This test works for both declarative (5a) and voilà constructions (5b), but fails for imperatives (5c). The first two express a proposition, while the third does not.

(5) (a) -Je lui ai parlé hier.

I talked to her yesterday.

-Oui, je sais.

Yes, I know.

(b) -Voilà tes clés.

There are your keys.

-Oui, je sais.

Yes, I know.

Look at the little cows!

-*Oui, je sais.

Yes, I know.[i]

Like declaratives and other clauses expressing propositions, voilà can also be embedded in a relative clause, thus modifying the subject (6a), direct object (6b), or indirect object (6c) of the main clause. This embedding results in a relativized NP, which serves to parenthetically pick out the referent in the current speech context.

(6) (a) L'homme que voilà est mon amant.

The man (who is) there is my lover.

(b) Mon frère a vu l'homme que voilà dans un quartier riche.

My brother saw that man (who is) there in a rich neighborhood.

I talked to that woman (who is) there.

Imperatives (7a) and other cases where the verb does not express a proposition, such as questions (7b) and exhortations (7c), however, defy relativization.

(7) (a) *J'ai vu l'homme que regarde!

I saw the man who look (imperative) at him!

(b) *J'ai vu l'homme que connais-tu?

I saw the man whom do you know?

I don't like his face that why doesn't he shut!

The central voilà construction thus shares the pragmatic function of expressing a proposition with declarative sentences. As a result, the central voilà case adopts similar patterns of pronominalization and embedding in which voilà acts like a verb with a direct object NP.

2.3. Voilà and voici as imperatives

The voilà construction differs from declarative constructions in some respects, however. Voilà constructions lack an explicit subject, a characteristic which is shared in French only by imperatives. In many pro-drop languages, such as Spanish, Italian, and Chinese (Matushansky 1998) a subject pronoun can be omitted when the subject is known to the speaker and interlocutor. In French, which is generally not pro-drop, imperatives take no explicit subject (as the subject is always the interlocutor). We hypothesize that voilà constructions have no subject because, like imperatives, the subject is understood; in both the Pointing Out ICM and imperatives, there is an implicit understanding that the interlocutor is asked to perform some action.

We may ask whether voilà’s lack of a subject is an innovation or a historical relic. After all, the central voilà construction was historically an imperative, which may also account for the origin of the lack of an explicit subject. Voilà and voici derive historically from imperative forms of the verb “to see”, which are vois (informal) or voyez (formal) in Modern French, followed by a deictic locative adverb, either ci “here” or là “there”, both of which still exist as clitics in Modern French. Very early attested forms maintained verbal inflection and permitted certain pronouns to come between the verbal form and the locative clitic, but there are few attested cases of expressed subjects with voilà, with the few exceptions described in Section 2.4 below.

These facts suggest that in addition to their syntactic similarities to declarative constructions, voilà constructions have retained their lack of an explicit subject due to the meaning they share with imperatives.

2.4. Properties unique to voilà and voici

We have seen ways in which the central voilà construction patterns with declaratives and imperatives. It also acts idiosyncratically, in it’s interactions with the benefactive/adversative construction and negativization.

In French, many verbal constructions can acquire indirect objects via the well-documented benefactive/adversative construction (Smith 1997), including declaratives (8a) and imperatives (8b). This construction adds an indirect object, which expresses an entity that is positively or negatively affected by the event described in the clause.

(8) (a) Il t’a piqué ton sac.

He stole (from you) your bag.

(b) Regarde-moi ce livre.

See (look at) this book for me.

As seen in (9a) and (9b), voilà rejects a benefactive or adversative indirect object, despite the fact shown in (8) that ts two major functional components, the statement of a proposition and the directive to the interlocutor to focus attention on that object, are both independently compatible with the benefactive/adversative.

(9) (a) *Voilà-moi ce livre.

There's that book for me.

(b) *Me voilà ce livre.

There's that book for me.

The semantics of indirect object-adding constructions is actually in conflict with one particular aspect of the propositional content of voilà. Voilà expresses not just any proposition, but more specifically a locational state. As opposed to an event or action, the use of voilà asserts an entity to be stably located in an indicated location. The semantics of describing a locational state conflicts with that of the benefactive/adversative construction in that the benefactive/adversative construction describes some action or event as occurring to the benefit or detriment of the indirect object. Similar constraints are found in declarative constructions that express locational states, including existentials (10a and b) and copular constructions (10c).

(10) (a) *Il m'y a ce livre.

There is this book for me.

(b) *Il t’existe un Père Noël.

There exists for you a Santa Claus.

The table is big for me.

A second way in which the central voilà construction is grammatically unique is in its rejection of simple negation (11b), usually formed by surrounding the verb with ne and pas (11a).

(11) (a) Il ne part pas.

He isn’t leaving.

(b) *Ne voilà pas ton frère.

There isn't your brother.

The impossibility of negating a voilà construction distinguishes voilà constructions from (to our knowledge) all other phrasal constructions in French. However, voilà does allow interronegativization. Interronegatives are negative questions to which a positive response may be expected (12a). When interronegativized, voilà also optionally surfaces with an inverted impersonal subject t-il appended to it (12b).

(12) (a) Ne voilà pas ton frère?

Isn't that your brother there?

(b) Ne voilà-t-il pas ton frère?

Isn't that your brother there?

The appearance of an impersonal subject in forms like (12b) is surprising when compared to all other the uses of voilà, none of which have an expressed subject. The form in (12b) is similar to interronegative forms of French verbs in general, which include a subject pronoun (for example, il “he” or elle “she”) and often the epenthetic -t, which, as seen in (13), is inserted between a verb form that is orthographically vowel-final and an inverted vowel-initial pronominal subject (c.f. Grévisse 1970).

(13) N'aime-t-elle pas se promener au jardin?

Doesn't she like to walk in the garden?

Grévisse (1970) claims that the subject in sentences like (12b) is a personal subject, much like the personal subject in (13). However, this claim is false: the suffixed –il in (12b) is an impersonal pronoun. As shown by (14), the pronoun is always realized as the masculine (and impersonal) il, even when the object or interlocutor (the only real candidates for subject) are of feminine gender.

(14) (a) Ne voilà-t-il pas un homme?

Isn't that a man there?

(b) Ne voilà-t-il pas une femme?

Isn't that a woman there?

The alternation between the absence of a subject in most uses of voilà and the use of an impersonal il in the interronegative form is a property unique to the voilà construction. Imperatives, the only other syntactically subjectless forms of the language, are not subject to interronegative inversion, most likely because they do not express a proposition. The use of the impersonal il in the voilà construction is instead reminiscent of a class of French verbs known as impersonal presentationals. Il y a “there is”, Il existe “there exists”, and Il faut “is needed” are examples of these “semantically subjectless” verbs that take the syntactically impersonal pronoun subject il in all verbal modes, including interronegativization (15).

(15) (a) N'y at-il pas un blond dans la salle d'attente?

Isn't there a blonde in the waiting room?

(b) Ne faut-il pas deux kilos de beurre?

Aren't two kilograms of butter needed?

Isn't the film about a tall blond man?

It may well be that the -t-il complex in voilà interronegatives (12b) is created by analogy or blending (Fauconnier and Turner 1996) with the interronegative forms of impersonal presentationals (15). There is a semantic core shared by the central voilà construction and these impersonal presentationals; all present a new element into some space, either the space of the present context (deixis) or of encyclopedic knowledge (existential) (Lambrecht 1981).

The central voilà construction differs from both declaratives and imperatives in that it cannot take on an indirect object and cannot be negated. It rejects the benefactive/adversative construction due to the voilà construction’s semantics, which describes a state of affairs. It is subject to interronegativization, where it in part adopts the form of impersonal presentationals, with which it shares the pragmatic function of presenting a new element into some space. In these aspects, the voilà construction is unique, patterning neither entirely like an imperative nor entirely like a declarative. We have shown above that the distribution of these aspects is not random; rather, it is based on the function of the Pointing Out ICM which motivates these syntactic properties. More such evidence can be found in Bergen and Plauché (2001).

In the next section, Section 3, we continue with our analysis of voilà constructions, now moving on to extensions from the central sense. In Section 4, we compare the characteristics of the central and extended deictic demonstratives in French with their English counterparts – there and here constructions.

3. Extensions: Mechanisms and expressive requirements

In the previous section, we saw that the central, spatial case of the voilà construction defies classification into existing grammatical categories and can only be successfully analyzed when both pragmatic and syntactic properties are considered. In this section, we examine the remaining, non-spatial uses of voilà and voici, each of which is semantically and syntactically unique.

Voilà and voici form a radial category (Lakoff 1987, Brugman 1981, Lindner 1981) in which the extended senses stem directly or indirectly from the central deictic sense and so, per the Invariance Hypothesis (Lakoff 1993), preserve or adapt most of the conceptual and linguistic structure we have discussed above. In particular, we will see that deictic structure is retained in metaphorical structure, as proposed by Moore (1998). Furthermore, the syntactic and semantic properties of extensions from the central, spatial senses of voilà and voici are governed by aspects of the extension mechanisms (i.e. metaphor, metonymy and blending) as well as by the expressive requirements of the target domains of the extensions. Similar dependencies and restrictions are also found in the equivalent extensions in English (Section 4).

In this section, we will make use of the notion of inheritance when comparing related constructions. For most formal theories that incorporate this notion (Construction Grammar, HPSG, etc.), inheritance is complete: one construction is said to inherit another when it includes the entirety of the latter construction plus additional particularities. In a partial view of inheritance (Goldberg 1995) however, an extension may inherit aspects of another construction, including structure and meaning. In the present work, we assume a partial view of inheritance.

3.1. The event deictic

Voilà is commonly used to point out an event, rather than an object. One way this is effected is through the following syntactic arrangement: voilà (or voici) followed by que (a complementizer) and a finite clause (16a and b).[ii] This pattern is common in French – most transitive verbs can take que plus a finite clause as their direct object (16c and d). In other words, voilà acts in this respect like any other transitive verb.

(16) (a) Voilà que Marie part.

There's Marie leaving.

(b) Voilà que Jean embrasse Marie.

There's Jean kissing Marie.

I know that Marie loves Paul.

(d) J’ai vue que Marie embrassait Paul.

I saw that Marie was kissing Paul.

Alternatively though, an event or action may be indicated by an infinitival phrase, which follows voilà (17a and b). This pattern is less prevalent than the one shown in (16) above, and is restricted to a particular class of French verbs. The only other verbs that may be followed by an infinitival phrase denoting an event are laisser “to let” (17c), faire “to make,” and verbs of perception like voir “to see” (17d).

(17) (a) Voilà partir Marie (Marie partir).

There's Marie leaving.

(b) Voici venir le temps des enfants.

Here's the children's hour coming.[iii]

Paul let/made the President speak.

(d) Paul a vu/entendu Marie partir (Marie partir).

Paul saw/heard Mary leaving.

What allows voilà to be used in this second permutation, along with laisser, faire, and verbs of perception is their shared meaning. Just like verbs of perception, central voilà takes as its direct object an entity that can be perceived. And like verbs of perception, voilà can also be used in a slightly more complex construction in which an event rather than an entity is perceived. We will see in Section 4.2 that English there constructions display similar behavior.

3.2. The discourse deictic

The central deictic is also extended to the domain of (meta-)discourse. In this use, as has been previously shown for other languages with binary deictics (Fillmore 1997), the proximal form, voici, refers cataphorically to discourse elements that will occur in the near future (18a), whereas the distal form, voilà, points anaphorically to discourse elements that were produced in the recent past (18b).

(18) (a) Tu m'as demandé de te donner deux exemples. Les voici...

You asked me to give you two examples. Here they are ...

... [examples follow]

(b) … Tu m'as demandé de te donner deux exemples. Les voilà.

[examples precede] ...You asked me to give you two examples. There they are.

In French, as in other languages, discourse elements are understood as physical entities, and the entirety of a discourse is understood as a space in which those entities are located, through the metaphors Discourse space is physical space and Discourse elements are entities (Lakoff 1987). What’s more, speaker and hearer are seen as experiencing motion relative to the discourse, through Discourse is motion along a path. As in other target domains in French that have a temporal component and that are understood in terms of relative motion, future discourse is seen as ahead of the speaker and hearer and past discourse is behind. These mappings are attested elsewhere in French (19), as well as in English (see Section 4.2). It should be noted that the use of these metaphors with the voilà construction are not unique to the domain of discourse. Voilà and voici can be used in a similar way with any domain involving sequences of events occurring over time, such as in sports narration or a written recipe.

(19) (a) Quand est-ce qu'on va arriver à la partie interessante de l'histoire?

When are we going to get to (arrive at) the interesting part of the story?

(b) Je n'ai pas pu suivre la discussion.

I couldn't follow the discussion.

The discourse deictic inherits the syntactic structure of the central deictic, along with restrictions that derive from its particular pragmatics. In particular, the central deictic allows a somewhat free exchange of the proximal and distal forms in that the same object in the same location could be indicated using either voilà or voici, depending on the speakers construal of its position relative to speaker and hearer. In the discourse deictic, however, the binary semantic distinction between voilà and voici is more strictly maintained – voici for example can never be used anaphorically. In other senses of voilà and voici, to be described below, the distinction between the proximal and distal disappears entirely or is made obsolete by the use of voilà only in those senses. The semantic distinction shown by the discourse deictic may have been preserved due to the requirement by the target domain, discourse, for a way to distinguish between past and future speech or by the character of the metaphor that maps to this target domain (Plauché and Bergen 1999).

An interjected version of the distal discourse deictic is a particularly frequent use of voilà in adult spoken French. A preliminary search for instances of voilà in the Barnes Corpus (Barnes 1985) shows that in a recorded conversation scenario, the most frequent cases of voilà are voilà by itself and voilà, c'est ça “There, that's it.” In both cases, voilà points to discourse elements in the recent past, just as it does in the examples above, and additionally serves as a turn-shift marker (20).

(20) E: ? [Tu as deux chambres?] Tu as deux chambres, une euh cuisine

[You have two rooms?] You have two rooms, one uh kitchen?

M: une grande salle à manger

one big dining room

E: une grande salle à manger une cuisine et une salle de bains.

one big dining room, one kitchen, and one bathroom.

M: Voilà c'est ça. Et puis la chambre d'invités est quand même grande notre chambre est immense à nous.

That's right. And the guest bedroom is actually pretty big our room is immense for us.

3.3. The central time deictic

French deictic demonstrative constructions can also be extended to the domain of time, where they pick out points in time, instead of objects in space (21)

(21) (a) Voilà l'instant que nous attendions tous.

Here's the moment we've all been waiting for.

(b) Voilà le moment de la journée que je préfère.

This is the time of day that I like the most.

Here's the day [unit] I've been waiting for.

Three restrictions are placed on this sense. First, the time referred to must be construed as a point in time, not as temporally extended. French distinguishes between certain punctual and extended units of time lexically, contrasting words like jour “day (punctual),” and soir “evening (punctual)” with journée “day (extended),” and soirée “evening (extended).” As can be seen in (22), the extended versions are not permissible in the central time deictic, while the punctual ones are perfectly felicitous..

(22) (a) *Voilà la journée que j'attendais.

Here's the day [extended] I've been waiting for.

(b) Voilà le jour que j’attendais.

Here’s the day [punctual] that I’ve been waiting for.