Деиксис и определеност на имената в българския и сърбохърватския език

The deictic function of the demonstrative pronouns този/тоя in Bulgarian and of taj/ovaj in Serbo-Croatian is analyzed and their relationship to noun definiteness is considered. As a mark of indication, the demonstrative pronoun limits the scope of concepts and turns the general concepts into particular ones. In that individualizing and identifying function the pronoun serves as a means of noun definiteness. The identification is achieved in different ways depending on the shades of meaning of deixis: through direct indication, through observation of the author’s and characters’ interior monologues. The incomplete identity of the demonstrative pronoun with the definite article (in Bulgarian) and with the zero form of definiteness (in Serbo-Croatian) show that it has an independent status in the system of identification means. Its analogous behaviour in Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, two languages with typologically different noun systems, shows the regular nature of its use.