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HistoryOfEnglish » FocusAndContent » IdentifyingCentralProblems » Pragmatics » Deixis-AnIntroduction » DifferentFormsOfDeixis » TemporalDeixis » ExercisesToTemporalDeixis

Exercises to temporal deixis

1) Look at the following utterances considering the context by clicking on the particular scene. Decide then whether the time indexicals in bold type refer to future, present or past. Click on the right answer.

a) Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3 :

“I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now:

Is that the chain you promised me to-day?”

future
present
past

b) All´s Well That Ends Well, Act I, Scene 3 :

“ Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.”

future
present
past

c) All´s Well That Ends Well, Act III, Scene 5 :

“So, now they come”

future
present
past

2) Look at the following utterances. Can you say whether the event is moving towards or away from the speaker? Click on the right answer.

a) King Lear, Act I, Scene 2

Edmund. Come, come! When saw you my father last?

Edgar. The night gone by.

the event is moving towards the speaker
the event is moving away from the speaker

b) All´s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 4

Parolles. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed. 1240

Madam, my lord will go away to-night;

A very serious business calls on him.

The great prerogative and rite of love,

Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;

But puts it off to a compell'd restraint; 1245

Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets,

Which they distil now in the curbed time,

To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy

And pleasure drown the brim.

the event is moving towards the speaker
the event is moving away from the speaker