Glossary of Linguistic Terms

Person Deixis

Definition: 

Person deixis is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as

  • the speaker
  • the addressee, and
  • referents which are neither speaker nor addressee.
Discussion: 

Person deixis is commonly expressed by the following kinds of constituents:

  • Pronouns
  • Possessive affixes of nouns
  • Agreement affixes of verbs