deixis
/ˈdaɪksɪs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.27 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Deixis allows for economy of speech but may introduce ambiguity in recorded speech when referring to something physical."
- "Deixis is a technical term (from Greek) for one of the most basic things we do with utterances. It means 'pointing' via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this 'pointing' is called a deictic expression. When you notice a strange object and ask, 'What's that?', you are using a deictic expression ('that') to indicate something in the immediate context. Deictic expressions are also sometimes called indexicals. They are among the first forms to be spoken by very young children and […]"
- "For those who treat language as a generative system for objectively describing the world, deixis is a big black fly in the ointment. Deixis introduces subjective, attentional, intentional and, of course, context-dependent properties into natural languages."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek δεῖξις (deîxis, “pointing, indicating, reference”), from δείκνυμι (deíknumi, “I show”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: δεῖξις