Deixis

Deixis refers to words and phrases, such as "me" or "here", that cannot be fully understood without additional contextual information—in this case, the identity of the speaker ("me") and the speaker's location ("here"). Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place. Words or phrases that require contextual information to convey any meaning—for example, English pronouns—are deictic. Deixis is closely related to anaphora, as will be further explained below. Although this article deals primarily with deixis in spoken language, the concept is sometimes applied to written language, gestures, and communication media as well.

Personal Deixis

Personal deixis (person deixis) concerns itself with the grammatical persons involved in an utterance, (1) those directly involved (e.g. the speaker, the addressee), (2) those not directly involved (e.g. overhearers—those who hear the utterance but who are not being directly addressed), and (3) those mentioned in the utterance. In English, the distinctions are generally indicated by pronouns. The following examples show how. (The person deictic terms are in italics.)

• I am going to the movies.
• Would you like to have dinner?
• They tried to hurt me, but she came to the rescue.

In many languages with gendered pronouns, the third-person masculine pronoun has traditionally been used as a default when referring to a person, but the gender of its antecedent is unknown or inapplicable.

For example:

• To each his own.

In contrast, English used the neuter gender for gender ambiguous cases in the singular (with the use of the plural starting in around the fourteenth century), but many grammarians drew on Latin, to come to a preference for "he" in ambiguous cases in the singular. However it remains common to use the third-person plural even when the antecedent is singular:

• To each their own.

Spatial Deixis

Spatial deixis (place deixis) concerns itself with the spatial locations relevant to an utterance. Similarly to person deixis, the locations may be either those of the speaker and addressee or those of persons or objects being referred to. The most salient English examples are the adverbs "here" and "there" and the demonstratives "this" and "that"—although those are far from being the only deictic words.

Some examples:

• I enjoy living in this city.
• Here is where we will place the statue.
• She was sitting over there.

Unless otherwise specified, place deictic terms are generally understood to be relative to the location of the speaker, as in

• The shop is across the street.

where "across the street" is understood to mean "across the street from where I am right now. Although "here" and "there" are often used to refer to locations near to and far from the speaker, respectively, "there" can also refer to the location of the addressee, if they are not in the same location as the speaker. So, although

• Here is a good spot; it is too sunny over there.
  exemplifies the former usage,

• How is the weather there?
  is an example of the latter.

Deictic projection: In some contexts, spatial deixis is used metaphorically rather than physically, i.e. the speaker is not speaking as the deictic centre. For example:

• I am coming home now.
  The above utterance would generally be considered as the speaker's expression of his/her going home, yet it appears to be perfectly normal for one to project his physical presence to his home rather than away from home. Here is another common example:

• I am not here, please leave a message.
  Despite its common usage to address people who call with no one answering the phone, the here here is semantically contradictory to one's absence. Nevertheless, this is considered normal for most people as speakers have to project themselves as answering the phone when in fact they are not physically.

Languages usually show at least a two-way referential distinction in their deictic system: proximal, i.e. near or closer to the speaker; and distal, i.e. far from the speaker and/or closer to the addressee. English exemplifies this with such pairs as this and that, here and there, etc.

Temporal Deixis

Temporal deixis (time deixis) concerns itself with the various times involved in and referred to in an utterance. This includes time adverbs like "now", "then", "soon", and so forth, and also different tenses. A good example is the word tomorrow, which denotes the consecutive next day after every day. The "tomorrow" of a day last year is a different day from the "tomorrow" of a day next week. Time adverbs can be relative to the time when an utterance is made or when the utterance is heard. Although these are frequently the same time, they can differ, as in the case of prerecorded broadcasts or correspondence. For example, if one were to write

• It is raining now, but I hope when you read this it will be sunny.
  the ET and DT would be different, with the former deictic term concerning ET and the latter the DT.

Tenses are generally separated into absolute (deictic) and relative tenses. So, for example, simple English past tense is absolute, such as in

• He went.
  whereas the pluperfect is relative to some other deictically specified time, as in

• He had gone.

Discourse Deixis

Discourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse that contains the utterance — including the utterance itself. For example, in

• This is a great story.
  "this" refers to an upcoming portion of the discourse, and in

• That was an amazing account.
  "that" refers to a prior portion of the discourse.

Distinction must be made between discourse deixis and anaphora, which is when an expression makes reference to the same referent as a prior term, as in

• Matthew is an incredible athlete; he came in first in the race.
  Lyons points out that it is possible for an expression to be both deictic and anaphoric at the same time. In his example

• I was born in London and I have lived here/there all my life.
  "here" or "there" function anaphorically in their reference to London, and deictically in that the choice between "here" or "there" indicates whether the speaker is or is not currently in London.

The rule of thumb to distinguish the two phenomena is as follows: when an expression refers to another linguistic expression or a piece of discourse, it is discourse deictic. When that expression refers to the same item as a prior linguistic expression, it is anaphoric.

Social Deixis

Social deixis concerns the social information that is encoded within various expressions, such as relative social status and familiarity. Two major forms of it are the so-called T–V distinctions and honorifics.

Anaphora

Anaphora is the use of an expression whose interpretation depends upon another expression in context (its antecedent or postcedent). In a narrower sense, anaphora is the use of an expression that depends specifically upon an antecedent expression and thus is contrasted with cataphora, which is the use of an expression that depends upon a postcedent expression. The anaphoric (referring) term is called an anaphor. For example, in the sentence Sally arrived, but nobody saw her, the pronoun her is an anaphor, referring back to the antecedent Sally. In the sentence Before her arrival, nobody saw Sally, the pronoun her refers forward to the postcedent Sally, so her is now a cataphor. Both effects together are called either anaphora (broad sense) or less ambiguously, along with self-reference they comprise the category of endophora.

Examples of anaphora (in the narrow sense) and cataphora are given next. Anaphors and cataphors appear in bold, and their antecedents and postcedents are in italic:

Anaphora (in the narrow sense, species of endophora)

1. Susan dropped the plate. It shattered loudly. - The pronoun it is an anaphor; it points to the left toward its antecedent the plate.
2. The music stopped, and that upset everyone. - The demonstrative pronoun that is an anaphor; it points to the left toward its antecedent The music stopped.
3. Fred was angry, and so was I. - The adverb so is an anaphor; it points to the left toward its antecedent angry.
4. If Sam buys a new bike, I will do it as well. - The verb phrase do it is an anaphor; it points to the left toward its antecedent buys a new bike.

Cataphora (included in the broad sense of anaphora, species of endophora)

1. Because he was very cold, David put on his coat. - The pronoun he is a cataphor; it points to the right toward its postcedent David.
2. His friends have been criticizing Jim for exaggerating. - The possessive adjective his is a cataphor; it points to the right toward its postcedent Jim.
3. Although Sam might do so, I shall not buy a new bike. - The verb phrase do so is a cataphor; it points to the right toward its postcedent buy a new bike.
4. In their free time, the boys play video games. - The possessive adjective their is a cataphor; it points to the right toward its postcedent the boys.