ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the most salient issues regarding referential deixis and anaphora in Spanish. ‘Deixis’ involves pointing to a referred object to establish joint attention on shared indexical grounds. Deictic forms signal objects and events as referred to in person, distance, time, and even social representation. Given the array of linguistic forms (verbs of motion, pronouns, demonstratives or adverbials), they impose different types of conceptualizations. The assumption of a three-way system for deixis in Spanish is questioned to propose a more complex representation that involves not only distance but also degrees of subjectivity and degrees of focality. The semantic content of demonstratives imposes important differences in the way mental contact is established. Verbs of motion establish a variety of ways to calculate a trajectory either from the deictic center or from a different point of reference. In text, deictic forms serve the purpose of referring to entities along the discourse chain. Personal pronouns help track down elements well-established in the shared context. By contrast, adjectival demonstratives introduce new topics, while pronominal demonstratives can be used for both proximal anaphoric and cataphoric purposes.
