noun
- words or expressions whose meaning depends on the context in which they are used, especially referring to the speaker, time, or place
Usage: linguistics; philosophy
Examples
- Words like ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘here’, and ‘now’ are common indexicals.
- The meaning of indexicals changes depending on who is speaking.
- Philosophers study how indexicals create problems for theories of meaning.
- In the sentence ‘I am here now’, all three words are indexicals.
- Understanding indexicals is crucial for analyzing how language relates to context.
- The pronoun ‘this’ is an indexical that refers to different objects in different situations.