Demonstratives on the move: What translational shifts tell us about demonstrative determiners and definite articles in Spanish and Dutch

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to the contrastive and translational analysis of noun phrases introduced by a demonstrative determiner (DemNP) or a definite article (DefNP) in Spanish (ES) and Dutch (NL). The questions that will be addressed are which paradigmatic shifts between DemNP and DefNP can be observed in translations, and what can these shifts teach us about cross-linguistic differences. In other words, do DemNPs and DefNPs have the same constructional meaning in the two languages, and do the two paradigms relate to each other in a similar way? And if there are differences, what are they, and how can they best be described?Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in the study of demonstratives in translated texts, focusing especially on translational shifts (see e.g.