Deictics make a statement whose understanding depends on the context.
In order to discover the meaning of the deictic term, it is necessary, first of all, to know its etymological origin. In this case, we can state that it is a word that derives from Greek, exactly from “deiktikós”, which can be translated as “demonstrative” or “proper to point out”.
The deictic adjective qualifies that which is linked to deixis : the indication of a linguistic expression, a time, a place or a person that is carried out using a grammatical element. This grammatical element that allows the deixis to be specified is also called deictic.
What are deictics
Deictics, therefore, are terms whose meaning depends on the context , since it can only be known based on the speaker. Deixis always develops from a point of reference that depends on who is expressing it.
The interpretation of deictics is related to the communicative situation . The speaker has to show in some way what they refer to so that the interlocutor is in a position to contextualize their content .
In this sense, it must also be taken into account that deixis can be of two types depending on its scope of marking. Thus, we come across the one that is outside the text, which establishes what is a reference to someone's spatial, temporal or personal context, and the one that is inside the text. In this case it refers to specific aspects of that aforementioned text.
"Yesterday" and "tomorrow" are indexicals of time.
An example
Take as an example the phrase “We went there yesterday” . The expression has three deictics: “we” , “there” and “yesterday” . To understand the content, we must first know who “we” refers to. We also have to know where “there” is and even if the expression appears in writing or we hear it in a recording, it is essential to find out when “yesterday” was.
On the other hand, other expressions without deictics present the information in such a way that no further references are needed for their meaning to be understandable: “Juan Pérez, Martín López and María González went to the San Jacinto Museum of Natural Sciences on January 3, 2015 ” .
Types of deictics
In addition to everything indicated, we cannot ignore that there are fundamentally three types of indexicals:
-Deictics of time, which include adverbs of time. Examples are: today, tomorrow, yesterday... A sentence with this type of indexical would be: “My cousin will come home to sleep tomorrow”, where the indexical would be tomorrow.
-The deictics of person, among which are personal pronouns, demonstratives and also possessives. Examples are I, you, mine, that... A phrase to understand these other types would be the following: “You are his friend”, where the indexicals would be both you and his.
-The indexicals of space, where they come to encompass what are the adverbs of place such as here, there, further away... A phrase to be able to understand this other class would be: "Manuel, take the book there", where the indexical would be over there.