Accessibility vs. physical proximity: An analysis of exophoric demonstrative practice in Spoken Jordanian Arabic

The aim of this article is to discover the determining factors for the use of exophoric, nominal demonstratives in Spoken Jordanian Arabic (SJA). The focus is on demonstratives that are used to encode perceptible referents. Contrary to traditional view, it has been found here that physical distance between a speaker and a referent is not the decisive factor for the selection of ‘proximal’ or ‘distal’ demonstratives.Demonstrative practice in SJA is a multifunctional process that is governed by the degree of perceived ‘accessibility’ which the addressee, in particular, has in relation to referents. Within the perceptibility domain, ‘accessibility’ is determined on basis of the addressee's ability, as perceived by the speaker, to identify referents in relation to one of two possible modes of access: high or low perceptibility of the intended referent. Degree of perceptibility is calculated based on the availability of prominent sensory features related to the referent. ‘Proximals’ are used when referents have high perceptibility while ‘distals’ are used when referents have low perceptibility in context. Since demonstrative practice in SJA is context-dependent, exophoric nominal demonstratives do not have a permanent ‘distance’ feature fixedly correlated with the two specific degrees of proximity or distance as part of their semantic repertoire.