indikoidasanan

Indikoidasanan is a proposed linguistic concept describing a mode of signaling in which a speaker indicates a target word or its intended meaning without speaking the word aloud, using nonverbal cues and surrounding context.

Mechanisms include deictic gestures (such as pointing or specific hand shapes), gaze direction, body orientation toward the referent, prosodic cues on adjacent speech, and reliance on shared situational knowledge. Listeners infer the intended word from these cues. An example: in a kitchen, one person looks at a mug and nods while saying nothing; the other deduces the intended word “mug” from the gesture and context.

Relation to existing concepts: Indikoidasanan intersects with deixis and indexicality, but emphasizes omitting the word itself as part of a deliberate communicative strategy. It is mainly discussed in theoretical discussions and may have implications for studies of multimodal communication and repair in conversation.

Etymology and status: The term is a coined label suggesting “indicate” and “word” from English and related language roots; its use is not standard in established grammars and remains a tentative concept requiring empirical validation. Potential research areas include cross-linguistic variation, sign languages, multimodal interaction, and applications in human–computer interfaces.