Grounding
Definition:
Grounding refers to establishing the time, location or actuality of a situation according to some reference point.
Discussion:
Certain morphosyntactic operations, such as inflection, ground the situation that the clause describes.
If the operation is… |
Then the reference point is normally … |
---|---|
Temporal |
Now (the time of utterance). |
Spatial |
Here (the place of utterance). |
Modal or evidential |
Actuality (the situation described by the clause did or will actually take place). |
Source:
This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library. Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003.