I fulfils its communicative role in the deictic mode. It is the communicative role of any singular term to communicate thoughts. This requires that the audience know the positive answer to the question: ‘which individual is being spoken of?’, that is, the term must achieve discriminability of reference for the audience. Deictic terms require salience if they are to achieve discriminability of reference for the audience, i.e., it is as the individual made salient that one must identify the referent of a use of a deictic term. It is as the individual made salient that one must identify the referent of a use of I.
Keywords: deictic term, communicative role, thoughts, discriminability, audience, salience, singular personal pronouns