Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Joe,

You asked:

"OK, you got my attention with the change in header.  Now, please 
pardon me and catch me up on (at least one thing): where is/what is 
the 'deictic point', in general terms, or as specifically used by 
Peter and/or Rolf?"

Well, I was made to seem ignorant earlier by not knowing this one. 
Rolf seems to use it as a name for the time of speaking or writing (or 
presumably the notional time of writing in the case of fiction etc). 
Thus in English "I came" refers to an event before the deictic point = 
time of speaking and so is past, and "I will come" refers to an event 
after the deictic point and so is future. Another case of a long word 
for something very simple, it seems. Perhaps Rolf can explain if there 
are more subtleties involved in the concept.

Peter Kirk