deixis

Deixis is the property by which the reference of a word depends on the context of the utterance in which it is used, most visibly in demonstratives and in third-person pronouns that pattern with them. Distance marks how far a referent sits from a reference point, typically distinguishing a form near that point from one at a middle distance and one far from it. A separate reference-point property can pick out the speaker, the addressee, neither, or a referent already established in the discourse as the point the distance is measured from. Beyond distance and reference point, a system may also mark whether the referent is visible to the participants and whether it sits above, below, or level with them on a vertical plane. These properties commonly combine within a single paradigm, so a given form can simultaneously encode distance, reference point, visibility, and verticality.