The Arabic variety spoken in the area of Yafi' (Yemen) shows, for several particles, recurring tight links between deixis, informational hierarchy, and syntactic hierarchy, both diachronically and synchronically. In the light of Robert's (1993, 2000) findings about focusing strategies, these links are discussed in detail for two polyfunctional particles, raʕ, and ta, which can be used, among other things, as demonstratives (ex. 1), presentatives (ex. 2), topic markers (ex. 3), focusing particles (ex. 4) and clause-linking devices for reason clauses (ex. 5), relative clauses (ex. 6) and as quotative markers (ex. 7) (see Vanhove 1996, 2004, 2010). Informed by typological findings (e.g. Bril ed. 2010), the presentation will show how, in a language where subordinating constructions and markers are also available, topicalisation and focusing strategies may become the preferred strategies for clause-linking, especially in reason, relative and completive clauses, and what is the contribution of Yafi' Arabic to the general typology of the grammaticalization of deictic devices.