Demonstrative

Demonstrative series in other languages

Latin had several sets of demonstratives, including hic, haec, hoc ("this near me"); iste, ista, istud ("that near you"); and ille, illa, illud ("that over there") – note that Latin has not only number, but also three grammatical genders. The third set of Latin demonstratives (ille, etc.), developed into the definite articles in most Romance languages, such as el, la, los, las in Spanish, and le, la, les in French.

With the exception of Romanian, and some varieties of Spanish and Portuguese, the neuter gender has been lost in the Romance languages. Spanish and Portuguese have kept neuter demonstratives:

Some forms of Spanish (Caribbean Spanish, Andalusian Spanish, etc.) also occasionally employ ello, which is an archaic survival of the neuter pronoun from Latin illud.

Neuter demonstratives refer to ideas of indeterminate gender, such as abstractions and groups of heterogeneous objects, and has a limited agreement in Portuguese, for example, "all of that" can be translated as "todo aquele" (m), "toda aquela" (f) or "tudo aquilo" (n) in Portuguese, although the neuter forms require a masculine adjective agreement: "Tudo (n) aquilo (n) está quebrado (m)" (All of that is broken).

Classical Chinese had three main demonstrative pronouns: proximal 此 (this), distal 彼 (that), and distance-neutral 是 (this or that). The frequent use of 是 as a resumptive demonstrative pronoun that reasserted the subject before a noun predicate caused it to develop into its colloquial use as a copula by the Han period and subsequently its standard use as a copula in Modern Standard Chinese. Modern Mandarin has two main demonstratives, proximal 這/这 and distal 那; its use of the three Classical demonstratives has become mostly idiomatic, although 此 continues to be used with some frequency in modern written Chinese. Cantonese uses proximal 呢 and distal 嗰 instead of 這 and 那, respectively.

Similarly, Northern Wu languages tend to also have a distance-neutral demonstrative 搿, which is etymologically a checked-tone derivation of 個. In lects such as Shanghainese, distance-based demonstratives exist, but are only used constrastively. Suzhounese, on the other hand, has several demonstratives that form a two-way contrast, but also have 搿, which is neutral.

Hungarian has two spatial demonstratives: ez (this) and az (that). These inflect for number and case even in attributive position (attributes usually remain uninflected in Hungarian) with possible orthographic changes; e.g., ezzel (with this), abban (in that). A third degree of deixis is also possible in Hungarian, with the help of the am- prefix: amaz (that there). The use of this, however, is emphatic (when the speaker wishes to emphasize the distance) and not mandatory.

The Cree language has a special demonstrative for "things just gone out of sight," and Ilocano, a language of the Philippines, has three words for this referring to a visible object, a fourth for things not in view and a fifth for things that no longer exist." The Tiriyó language has a demonstrative for "things audible but non-visible"

While most languages and language families have demonstrative systems, some have systems highly divergent from or more complex than the relatively simple systems employed in Indo-European languages. In Yupik languages, notably in the Chevak Cup’ik language, there exists a 29-way distinction in demonstratives, with demonstrative indicators distinguished according to placement in a three-dimensional field around the interlocutor(s), as well as by visibility and whether or not the object is in motion.

Demonstrative determiners and pronouns

It is relatively common for a language to distinguish between demonstrative determiners or demonstrative adjectives (sometimes also called determinative demonstratives, adjectival demonstratives or adjectival demonstrative pronouns) and demonstrative pronouns (sometimes called independent demonstratives, substantival demonstratives, independent demonstrative pronouns or substantival demonstrative pronouns).

A demonstrative determiner specifies a noun as definite, singular or plural, and proximal or distal:

This apple is good.

I like those houses.

A demonstrative pronoun stands on its own, replacing rather than modifying a noun:

This is good.

I like those.

There are four common demonstrative pronouns in English: this, that, these, those.

In formal contexts, such is sometimes used as a demonstrative determiner to indicate something described by the preceding statement(s) (e.g. "It was a scandal, but we don't usually discuss such things."). However, the use of such as a demonstrative pronoun has become archaic outside of certain fossilized expressions (e.g. "such is life"). Historically, so was sometimes used in place of such when used as a demonstrative pronoun, but it has gone through a similar process of fossilization (e.g. "you should have said so").

Some dialects, such as Southern American English, also use yon and yonder, where the latter is usually employed as a demonstrative determiner. Author Bill Bryson laments the "losses along the way" of yon and yonder:

Today we have two demonstrative pronouns, this and that, but in Shakespeare's day there was a third, yon (as in the Milton line "Him that yon soars on golden wing"), which suggested a further distance than that. You could talk about this hat, that hat, and yon hat. Today the word survives as a colloquial adjective, yonder, but our speech is fractionally impoverished for its loss.

Demonstrative adverbs

Many languages have sets of demonstrative adverbs that are closely related to the demonstrative pronouns in a language. For example, corresponding to the demonstrative pronoun that are the adverbs such as then (= "at that time"), there (= "at that place"), thither (= "to that place"), thence (= "from that place"); equivalent adverbs corresponding to the demonstrative pronoun this are now, here, hither, hence. A similar relationship exists between the interrogative pronoun what and the interrogative adverbs when, where, whither, whence. See pro-form for a full table.

Discourse deixis

As mentioned above, while the primary function of demonstratives is to provide spatial references of concrete objects (that (building), this (table)), there is a secondary function: referring to items of discourse. For example:

This sentence is short.

This is what I mean: I am happy with him.

That way of looking at it is wrong.

I said her dress looked hideous. She didn't like that.

In the above, this sentence refers to the sentence being spoken, and the pronoun this refers to what is about to be spoken; that way refers to "the previously mentioned way", and the pronoun that refers to the content of the previous statement. These are abstract entities of discourse, not concrete objects. Each language may have subtly different rules on how to use demonstratives to refer to things previously spoken, currently being spoken, or about to be spoken. In English, that (or occasionally those) refers to something previously spoken, while this (or occasionally these) refers to something about to be spoken (or, occasionally, something being simultaneously spoken).