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In pragmatics (linguistics), deixis is a process whereby words or expressions rely absolutely on context. The Origo is the context from which the reference is made, in other words, the "point of view" that must be to be understood in order to interpret the statement. (If Tom is speaking and he says "I", he refers to himself, but if Tom is hearing Betty and she says "I", then the origo is with Betty and the reference is to Betty.) A word that depends on deictic clues is called a deictic or a deictic word.
Pronouns are generally considered to be deictics, but a finer distinction is often made between personal pronouns such as I, you, he, she, it and pronouns that refer to places and times such as now, then, here, there. In most texts, the word "deictic" implies the latter but not necessarily the former.
It is common for languages to show at least a two-way referential distinction in their deictic system: one category of deictics refers to things and places near or closer to the speaker, while the other refers to things and places far from the speaker and/or closer to the hearer. English exemplifies this with such pairs as this/that, here/there. In other languages the distinction is a three-way one: near the speaker vs. near the hearer vs. far from both. This is the case in Romances and Japanese.
Closer-to-speaker deictic references are often termed proximal, while the others are named distal.
Spatial deictics are often reused as anaphoric pronouns that stand for phrases or propositions (that is, items of discourse, not items of the outside reality). Consider the following statement:
"There may be ice hidden in unexplored places of the Moon. This ice could be useful for future lunar expeditions."
In the above example, this ice is not near the speaker in the physical sense, but the deictic doesn't refer to real ice. This refers to the phrase ice hidden in unexplored places, which is "near" the speaker in the discourse flow.
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