An indexical is an expression whose referent (or denotation) is determined by the context in which it is used. The term indexical, when used by a Cyclist, may refer to:
- a natural language indexical, which is an indexical expression occurring in natural language. For example, “I went to the store today” contains two (natural language) indexicals, I and today – the referent of each of these terms is not fixed but is instead determined by the context in which that statement is made. (Note that even though the context helps fix the denotation of ‘the store’ here, the denotation of that expression is also fixed by the descriptive content of the expression. This is not the case for ‘I’ and ‘today’.)
- a CycL indexical, which is an instance of
#$CycLDenotationalTermthat can denote different things in different contexts. See the reference document on CycL indexicals for more information.