Deictic Expressions in E.M. Forster's " The Suppliant"

Abstract

Deixis is a technical term (from Greek) that means pointing Via language" (Yule, 1996: 9). " The deictic qualities of a Sentence Point to its location in relation to a spatio-temporal-personal context." ( Flower, 1971: 61). This indicates that there is spatial, temporal and person deixis. Spatial deixis can be expressed by means of adverbs of place such as here and there as well as demonstrative pronouns this and that; furthermore, Verschueren ( 1999: 19 ) affirms that verbs of motion such as come, go and others can be mentioned to express spatial deixis. Temporal deixis is indicated by adverbs of time such as now, then and others. On the other hand, Quirk et al ( 1985: 184 ) point out that the present and past tenses can express temporal deixis. Person deixis operates on pronouns for the first person I who is speaking ( or writing ) and functioning as a subject of the verb; the second person you , the addressee, that functions either subject or object, and the third person he , she or it .