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other?I am told that the age distinction remains more powerful than the economic
distinction and the older woman uses ’tu’ and the younger uses ’Usted’.
The Spanish non-familiar version (“Usted”) is historically related to a form which
was used to refer to neither first person (speaker) nor second person(addressee),but to
the third person (some other).In deictic terms,third person is not a direct participant in
basic(I-you) interaction and, being an outsider, is necessarily more distant. Third person
pronouns are consequently distal forms in terms of person deixis. Using a third person
form, where a second person form would be possible, is one way of communicating
distance(and non-familiarity).This can be done in Eglish for an ironic or humorous
purpose as one person, who’s very busy in the kitchen, addresses another,who’s being
very lazy, as in [2].

[2] Would his highness like some coffe?
The distance associated with third person formsis also used to make potential
accusations(for example,”you didn’t clean up”) less direct, as in[3a.],or to make a
potentially personal issue seem like an impersonal one, based on a general rule, as
in[3b.].
[3] a. Somebody didn’t clean up after himself.
b. Each person has to clean up after him or herself.
Of course, the speaker can state such general ‘rules’ as applying to the speaker
plus other(s),by using the first personal plural (‘we’), as in[4].
[4] We clean up after ourselves around here/
There is, in English, a potential ambiguity in such uses wich allows two different
interpretations.There is an exclusive ‘we’ (speaker plus other(s), excluding addressee)
and an inclusive ‘we’ (speaker and addressee included).Some languages grammaticize
this distinction(for example,Fijian has’keimami’ for exclusive first person plural and ‘keda’
for inclusive first person plural).In English, the ambiguity present in[4] provides a subtle
opportunity for a hearer to decide what was communicated.Either the hearer decides
that he or she is a member of the group to whom the rule applies(i.e. an addressee)
or an outsider to whom the rule does not apply(i.e. not n addressee).In this case the
hearer gets to decide the kind of ‘more’ that is being communicated.
The inclusive-exclusive distinction may also be noted in the difference between
saying ‘Let’s go’(to some friends) and ‘Let us go’ (to someone who has captured the
speaker and friends).The action of going is inclusive in the first,but exclusive in the
second.

Spatial deixis
The concept of distance already mentioned is clearly relevant to spatial
deixis,where the relative location of people and things is being indicated.Contemprorary
English makes use of only two adverbs, ‘here’ and ‘there’, for the basic distinction,but in
older texts and in some dialects, a much larger set of deictic expressions can be
found.Although ‘younger’(more distant from speaker) is still used, words like ‘hither’(to this
place)and ‘thence’(from that place) now sound archaic.These last two adverbs include
the meaning of motion toward or away the speaker.Some verbs of motion,such as
‘come’ and ‘go’, retain a deictic sense when they are used to mark movement toward
the speaker(‘Come to bed!’) or away from speaker(‘Go to bed!’).