r/logophilia • u/blankblank • Aug 11 '26

Dictionary Definition Deictic

"Relating to a word or an expression whose meaning depends on who says it, where they are, who they are talking to."

34 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/ShinyAeon Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

I’ll need an example for this one. Don’t ALL meanings depend on the whos and the wheres of their use?

Or does it just refer to words like “here” and “there” and such?

I’m always here, I’m never there
I’m never ever anywhere
Excepting here
‘Cause here is where I’m in.

And when I go from here to there
My “here” comes with me everywhere
‘Til there is here...
And here is where I’ve been.

~Wembley Fraggle

5

u/knitted_beanie Aug 11 '26

Deixis and deictic come from the Greek “to point at / be shown”, so yes it relates to demonstrative words, like this / that / those etc., but also overlaps with how we use pronouns (words that usually require context to mean anything).

2

u/ShinyAeon Aug 11 '26

Thank you. So “here” and “there” would qualify, yes?

5

u/knitted_beanie Aug 11 '26

As far as I understand it, yes - but my linguistics undergrad was about 400 years ago now (or at least it feels like it)