What Is a Shifter?

Lacan: Once the structure of language is recognized in the unconscious, what sort of subject can we conceive of for it? What kind of a human being. Can we derive from that. And then you'll see Lacan immediately shifts to the vertical pronoun I which is a shifter. That allows you to shift your car into a different year. The same way that a vertical bar or an eye might allow you to shift into a different years. A shifter is a certain type of utterance. It's an indexical. Voila. You have me until 1230 and by God you're going to get your money's worth.