Words like ‘this’ and ‘that’ act as attention tools across languages, research shows

Words like ‘this’ and ‘that’ or ‘here’ and ‘there’ occur in all languages. In a study published in PNAS, researchers from Yale University and the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics (MPI) in Nijmegen show that such ‘demonstrative’ words are used to direct listeners’ focus of attention and to establish joint attention.

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