Abstract This paper gives an overview over two different kinds of protagonists' perspective taking in narrative texts, Free Indirect Discourse (FID) and Protagonist Projection (PP) / Viewpoint Shifting (VS) , and the most important analyses of these phenomena that have been proposed within the framework of formal semantics and pragmatics. While FID is a special form of reporting self‐reflexively conscious thoughts and utterances which in contrast to indirect and direct discourse is not overtly marked as such, PP/VS renders the content of protagonists' perceptions and beliefs. The paper discusses empirical differences between these two kinds of protagonists' perspective taking with respect to syntactic embeddability and the licencing of deictic expressions and considers various analytical options to capture these differences.