Perspective has been a central topic in functionalist linguistics as least since authors such as Jespersen (1922), Jakobson (1957) and Benveniste (1966), and for good reason: if we assume that language is intrinsically shaped by the communicative situation, the way in which locutions index their sender (and/or addressee) and convey their communicative intentions lies at the heart of grammatical description. Paradigms such as Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004) and Functional (Discourse) Grammar (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008) have formalized this insight by specifying grammatical meaning both at a conventional symbolic/representational level and at a speaker-hearer oriented, interpersonal/ intersubjective level, which accounts for the pragmatic embeddedness of perspective constructions in the speech situation. A recent strand of cognitive-functionalist literature further explores the relation between (inter)subjective perspectival conceptualization and grammar under the label of ‘viewpoint’ (Dancygier et al. 2016; Dancygier & Sweetser 2012). The papers in this special issue explore this staple functionalist topic from a slightly different angle. Based on original fieldwork by the authors in South America (Van linden), in the Himalayas in Asia (Konnerth and Zemp), and in Africa (Nikitina), they address instances of perspective constructions in which there appears to be a clash between the referential identification of the conceptualiser that is conventionally signalled by the grammatical form and the interpretation of the conceptualiser value that is realised in context.