> MTU...I did not hear about deictic pronouns in my grammar course > there. However, someone mentioned it being a linguistics term and it > does ring a bell from the History of Language course I took at MTU, > which was taught by a linguist. Although, it still sounds a lot like > something one has to see a doctor for! Melissa
As of May 4th this year, I will have earned a Master's Degree in Technical Writing. I have never heard the term, either! I just looked it up, though. deictic pronoun SYNTAX/SEMANTICS: a pronoun whose reference must be fixed through the context of the utterance. EXAMPLE: the purported referents of you and me in "You will get to know me better," are the speaker and the addressee(s) of this utterance. Deictic pronouns are often opposed to anaphoric pronouns. See Deixis. anaphoric pronoun SEMANTICS: a pronoun which 'refers back' to another constituent in the sentence. EXAMPLE: if "his" in "John loves his mother" has the same referent as John, it is an anaphoric pronoun. Pronouns which are not anaphoric pronouns are called deictic pronouns. Deixis GENERAL: The phenomenon that elements in a language may have a reference which is dependent on the immediate context of their utterance. EXAMPLE: personal pronouns (I , you, he, etc.), demonstratives (this, that, etc.), spatial expressions like here and there, temporal expressions like yesterday and now, and tense (past, present) are deictic expressions. Another word for deixis is indexicality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notice: This e-mail message, together with any attachments, contains information of Merck & Co., Inc. (One Merck Drive, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, USA 08889), and/or its affiliates (which may be known outside the United States as Merck Frosst, Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD and in Japan, as Banyu - direct contact information for affiliates is available at http://www.merck.com/contact/contacts.html) that may be confidential, proprietary copyrighted and/or legally privileged. It is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity named on this message. If you are not the intended recipient, and have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by reply e-mail and then delete it from your system. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ______________________________________________ Author Help files and create printed documentation with Doc-To-Help. New release adds Team Authoring Support, enhanced Web-based help technology and PDF output. Learn more at www.doctohelp.com/tcp. DITA West 2007--Use a discount code of "TECHCOMMPROS" to get a discount rate of $200 off the $900 registration price. http://www.travelthepath.com/conf/dita2007.shtml _______________________________________________ Technical Communication Professionals Post a message to the list: email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, unsubscribe, archives, account options, list info: http://techcommpros.com/mailman/listinfo/tcp_techcommpros.com Subscribe (email): send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe (email): send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Need help? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] Get the TCP whole experience! http://www.techcommpros.com
