Deixis of oral mythological narratives: What are first person forms talking about?

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the deixis of the oral mythological narrative. The subject of study are the first person grammatical forms, in which the narrator is represented. Study of deictic units shows that a first person narrative is the dominant form of subject organization of the mythological story. First person grammatical forms are used not only in memorates, where the speaker is both a participant in and a witness of events, but also in stories about someone else's experience of contact with a mythological phenomenon. In particular, the article discusses the specific narrative form of the “double 1st person”, in which the speaker uses first person forms in relation to himself and to his personage, spontaneously switching, while telling the story, to a narrative from the latter's point of view. The author of the paper concludes that the expansion of first person forms in mythological texts is due to the features of the communicative situation in which they arise, namely, the canonical situation of direct oral communication. The speaker prefers to convey the story in the form of direct speech, which describes the perception of a mythological phenomenon and contact with it. Obviously, this is due to the fact that in the canonical situation of speech the speaker is the subject of speech, consciousness, perception, deixis. Therefore, in the mythological story an active character who sees, hears, feels, and interprets is presented by forms relevant for such a subject in the canonical context of the speech situation.