One of the four schematic categories in the perspectival system. This category relates to the location that a perspective point occupies relative to a given utterance. The linguistic system of deixis, for example, works by signaling perspective relative to the speaker’s location, and deictic expressions are then interpreted with respect to that point of reference. For instance, in the following examples the perspective point from which the scene is described is different. In (1), the perspective point is located inside the room, while in (2) the perspective point is located outside the room.

1. The door slowly opened and two men walked in
2. Two men slowly opened the door and walked in This distinction in perspective point is achieved by closed class forms. In (1), the subject of the sentence is the door, which is the theme: a passive entity whose location or state is described. In this example, open is an intransitive verb: it requires no object. In example (2), the subject of the sentence is two men, which is the agent: the entity that intentionally performs the action of opening the door. In this example, open is transitive (it requires an object: the door). What comes first in the sentence (the subject) corresponds to what is viewed first by the human experiencer, and this provides us with clues for reconstructing the perspective point. In (1), as the initiator(s) of the action are not mentioned, we deduce that the initiators of the action are not visible. From this we conclude that the perspective point must be inside the room. In (2) the initiators of the event are mentioned first, so we deduce that the perspective point is exterior to the room.