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Free indirect discourse as logophoric context
1Linguistics Department, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Linguistics and Philosophy
|December 11, 2025
Summary
This study proposes a new logophoric analysis for Free Indirect Discourse (FID), challenging the prevalent direct discourse-based views. It argues FID is better understood as indirect discourse, offering novel linguistic evidence.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Semantics
- Discourse Analysis
Background:
- Free Indirect Discourse (FID) is often analyzed as a hybrid of Direct Discourse (DD) and Indirect Discourse (ID).
- Existing research predominantly favors DD-based analyses, utilizing concepts like bicontextual dependency or mixed quotation.
- However, certain linguistic properties of FID remain inadequately explained by these approaches.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and defend a novel Indirect Discourse (ID)-based, logophoric analysis of Free Indirect Discourse (FID).
- To re-evaluate existing arguments and introduce new evidence supporting an ID-based perspective.
- To establish FID as a member of the broader class of logophoric contexts.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of overlooked properties of FID, including (anti)licensing of logophoric elements and recursive embedding.
- Examination of de se/de te readings and sequence of tense phenomena within FID.
- Investigation of the anchoring of time and location adverbials in FID.
Main Results:
- FID exhibits properties, such as (anti)logophoric element licensing and recursive embedding, that support an ID-based analysis.
- Time and location adverbials in FID are not always anchored to the protagonist but can be anaphoric or speaker-anchored.
- A logophoric operator analysis accounts for FID's hybrid characteristics and its relation to other logophoric constructions.
Conclusions:
- The article concludes that an ID-based logophoric analysis provides a more comprehensive account of FID's linguistic behavior.
- This perspective unifies FID with other logophoric phenomena, offering a more principled linguistic classification.
- The findings challenge current DD-based models and suggest a re-evaluation of FID's semantic and syntactic properties.
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