6

The following speech is from a video game called ファイアーエムブレム 新・暗黒竜と光の剣:

  父上に万一の事があれば
  マルスは
  アリティア王家唯一の男子。
  世界でただ1人の
  神剣ファルシオン
  継承者となるのです。
  あの子
  アリティアの希望
  アリティアの未来。
  そのあの子を…マルスを
  私たちに代わって
  導いてやってください。

I'm confused about the combination of その with あの. I remember learning something like:

  • この - in the speaker domain
  • その - in the listener domain
  • あの - in neither domain

I don't see how 子 can be both "in the listener domain" and "in neither domain" at the same time, so I don't think that's the right way to interpret it. What's going on here?

(I think it's related to the earlier mention of あの子 somehow, so I highlighted that, too.)

2
  • 1
    To me it just seems to be explicitly referring the あの子 from before, as you say, like "I just said this thing so I'm using その to refer to it"
    – ssb
    Apr 12, 2013 at 5:33
  • 2
    「そんなあの子を」「(まさに)そういう立場にいるあの子を」みたいな感じでしょうか。ちょっと「強調」が含まれると思います、「まさにそのマルス」「他ならぬマルス」とか「そんな(重要な)マルスだからこそ」みたいな。この「その」は「王家唯一の男子で、後継者で、‌​未来で、希望である」を指します。(「あの子」の「あの」はここにいないからで、もし側にいれば「そのこの子」「そんなこの子」になると思います。)Edit: ・・・って、もう、この↓回答にそう書いてあるんだよね・・ あと、「あの子」って、母親とかが自分の子を言うときに使って、愛情が含まれてる感じがします。
    – user1016
    Apr 13, 2013 at 14:30

1 Answer 1

5

OK I posted this as a comment because I wasn't 100% sure of the correctness but to escape the "post answers as answers" problem I'll just say it here.

So here you've got a speaker referring to this fella マルス. He's quite far removed from the current setting, it seems, or perhaps metaphorically distant as in on a different level as the wielder of the falchion, so this speaker is referring to マルス as あの子.

Later on the speaker wants to repeat this reference and say "guide this (aforementioned) kid." The speaker just said あの子 so by saying そのあの子 he/she is referring to あの子 more as a linguistic thing, something that was just said, rather than as a person who is both in and out of certain contexts. I think this idea is supported by the fact that the speaker changes it to マルス midstream.

あの子=マルス (some mystical/legendary/whatever boy removed from the current context and therefore あの)

そのあの子=そのマルス (その emphasizing the description just given about legends and whatnot)

Weird way of saying it? Maybe. But I think that's why it changed in the text itself back to マルス.

You must log in to answer this question.