Timofey Mukhin (HSE University, University of Liège), Michael Daniel (University of Tübingen) From space to anaphora: there and back again

In this talk, we consider the anaphoric uses of demonstratives in Mehweb Dargwa. The main goal is to explore how the primary spatial deictic meaning of demonstratives is refracted in the textual - anaphoric - dimension.
We found that the choice of the demonstratives cannot be fully explained in terms of discourse dimensions such as anaphoric distance (Givón 1983). In narrative uses of elevational demonstratives, the center relative to which the referent's position is determined shifts as compared to its deictic uses. In deictic uses of the elevational demonstratives, the deictic center is primarily associated with the speaker. In their anaphoric uses, the elevation value is calculated wrt the most topical/activated referent. 
We suggest that the deictic uses of demonstratives defined by spatial relation with the deictic center do not fully convert into the textual dimension of anaphora when the same demonstratives are used in narratives. While this is easily seen with elevational demonstratives, the question remains whether the same factor is not present in elevation-neuter demonstratives in Mehweb and cross-linguistically, where researchers attempt to provide a full account of their use in purely anaphoric terms.