Expanding the Traditional Category of Deictic Elements: Interjections as Deictics

The bulk of this chapter is an abridged and re-edited version of an earlier paper (Wilkins, 1992). ¹ The primary purpose of that paper and, hence, this chapter is to argue that the traditional American linguistic view of deictic elements must be expanded to embrace interjections alongside the more standard members such as pronouns and demonstratives. To rescue interjections from the periphery of linguistic concerns requires a demonstration of two points: (a) that interjections share specific linguistic and communicative properties with more standard deictic elements, and (b) that it is possible to render a convincing account of the semantic structure and pragmatic usage of interjections. Through this prologue and the epilogue, I attempt to expand this argument, and extend the demonstration of the two forementioned points by tying interjections in with the narrative and deictic center concerns that form the focus of this book, but that were not explicitly covered in the original paper.