In this chapter, I will focus on two main topics: personal deixis and demonstratives. Personal deixis in Japanese is somewhat unique in that Japanese does not have a personal pronoun system as do many European languages such as English. I will provide an account of how personal deixis is expressed in a language lacking per- sonal pronouns. Demonstratives are a category of spatial deictic having to do with the partitioning of deictic space in which to situate the object referred to. Demonstrative partitioning in Japanese has been characterized by some as a kind of personal
deixis, with the so-called so- demonstratives exhibiting properties of both spatial and personal deixis, but I will argue against this view in this chapter.