Demonstrative
Encyclopedia
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic
words (they depend on an external frame of reference
) that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others. Demonstratives are employed for spatial deixis
(using the context of the physical surroundings of the speaker and sometimes the listener) and for discourse
deixis (including abstract concepts
) where the meaning is dependent on something other than the relative physical location of the speaker, for example whether something is currently been said or was said earlier.
The demonstratives in English
are this, that, these, those, yonder, and the archaic yon, along with this one or that one as substitutes for the pronoun use of this or that.
and Chinese
, make a two-way distinction between demonstratives. Typically, one set of demonstratives is proximal, indicating objects close to the speaker (English this), and the other series is distal, indicating objects further removed from the speaker (English that).
Other languages, like Portuguese
, Armenian
, and Georgian
, make a three-way distinction. Typically there is a distinction between proximal or first person (objects near to the speaker), medial or second person (objects near to the addressee
), and distal or third person (objects far from both). Italian
also provided for a medial (codesto/codesta for things, costui/costei for people), but it was discarded in the 19th century. So for example, in Portuguese: .
in Armenian (based on the proximal "s", medial "d/t", and distal "n"):
and, in Georgian:
Japanese
, Spanish
, Tamil
and Seri
also make this distinction (although in Brazilian Portuguese "este" (this) is sometimes reduced to "es'e", making it look like "esse" (that). French
has a two-way distinction, with the use of postpositions "-ci" (proximal) and "-là" (distal) as in cet homme-ci and cet homme-là. English has an archaic but occasionally used three-way distinction of this, that, and yonder.
Arabic makes the same two-way distinction as English. For example هذه البنت (haðihi l-bint) 'this girl' versus تلك البنت (tilka l-bint) 'that girl'.
In Modern German (and the Scandinavian languages), the demonstrative is generally distance-neutral, and the deictic value may be defined more precisely by means of adverbs:
A distal demonstrative exists in German
, cognate to the English yonder, but it is used only in formal registers.
There are languages which make a four-way distinction, such as Northern Sami
:
These four-way distinctions are often termed proximal, mesioproximal, mesiodistal, and distal.
Many non-European languages make further distinctions; for example, whether the object referred to is uphill or downhill from the speaker, whether the object is visible or not (as in Malagasy
), and whether the object can be pointed to as a whole or only in part. The Eskimo–Aleut languages, and the Kiranti
branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family
are particularly well known for their many contrasts.
The demonstratives in Seri
are compound forms based on the definite articles (themselves derived from verbs) and therefore incorporate the positional information of the articles (standing, sitting, lying, coming, going) in addition to the three-way spatial distinction. This results in a quite elaborated set of demonstratives.
had several sets of demonstratives, including hic, haec, hoc; ille, illa, illud; and iste, ista, istud (note that Latin has not only number, but also three grammatical gender
s). The second set of Latin demonstratives (ille, etc., meaning that), developed into the definite article
s in most Romance languages
, such as el, la, los, las in Spanish
, and le, la, les in French
.
Although, with the exception of Romanian
, the neuter gender has been lost in the Romance languages, Spanish and Portuguese still have neuter demonstratives, in Spanish éste/este (masculine), ésta/esta (feminine), esto (neuter), Portuguese (este, esta, isto, esse, essa, isso, aquele, aquela, aquilo). Neuter demonstratives refer to ideas of indeterminate gender, such as abstractions and groups of heterogeneous objects.
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 and distal 那; its use of the three Classical demonstratives has become mostly idiom
atic, although 此 continues to be used with some frequency in modern written Chinese.
Hungarian
has two demonstratives that do not inflect with gender or number: ez (this) and az (that), but take on case suffixes with possible orthographic changes; e.g., ezzen (on this), abban (in that).
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."
A demonstrative determiner modifies a noun:
A demonstrative pronoun
stands on its own, replacing rather than modifying a noun:
There are five demonstrative pronouns in English: this, that, these, those, and the less common yon or yonder (the latter is usually employed as a demonstrative determiner; even so it is rarely used in most dialects of English, although it persists in some dialects such as Southern American English
.). Author Bill Bryson
laments the "losses along the way" of yon and yonder:
for a full table.
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).
Deixis
In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place...
words (they depend on an external frame of reference
Linguistic frame of reference
Linguistic frame of reference is a frame of reference as it is expressed in a language.A frame of reference is a coordinate system used to identify location of an object....
) that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others. Demonstratives are employed for spatial deixis
Deixis
In linguistics, deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place...
(using the context of the physical surroundings of the speaker and sometimes the listener) and for discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
deixis (including abstract concepts
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
) where the meaning is dependent on something other than the relative physical location of the speaker, for example whether something is currently been said or was said earlier.
The demonstratives in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
are this, that, these, those, yonder, and the archaic yon, along with this one or that one as substitutes for the pronoun use of this or that.
Distal and proximal demonstratives
Many languages, such as EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, make a two-way distinction between demonstratives. Typically, one set of demonstratives is proximal, indicating objects close to the speaker (English this), and the other series is distal, indicating objects further removed from the speaker (English that).
Other languages, like Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Armenian
Armenian language
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
, and Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
, make a three-way distinction. Typically there is a distinction between proximal or first person (objects near to the speaker), medial or second person (objects near to the addressee
Addressee
In linguistics, an addressee is an intended direct recipient of the speaker's communication. A listener is either an addressee or a bystander.Second-person pronouns refer to an addressee or a group including an addressee...
), and distal or third person (objects far from both). Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
also provided for a medial (codesto/codesta for things, costui/costei for people), but it was discarded in the 19th century. So for example, in Portuguese: .
- Esta maçã
- "this apple"
- Essa maçã
- "that apple (near you)"
- Aquela maçã
- "that apple (over there, away from both of us)"
in Armenian (based on the proximal "s", medial "d/t", and distal "n"):
- այս խնձորը
- "this apple"
- այդ խնձորը
- "that apple (near you)"
- այն խնձորը
- "that apple (over there, away from both of us)"
and, in Georgian:
- amisi mama
- "this one's father"
- imisi coli
- "that one's wife"
- magisi saxli
- "that (by you) one's house"
Japanese
Japanese grammar
The Japanese language has a regular agglutinative verb morphology, with both productive and fixed elements. In language typology, it has many features divergent from most European languages. Its phrases are exclusively head-final and compound sentences are exclusively left-branching. There are many...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and Seri
Seri language
Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people by between 716 and 900 people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.-Classification:...
also make this distinction (although in Brazilian Portuguese "este" (this) is sometimes reduced to "es'e", making it look like "esse" (that). French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
has a two-way distinction, with the use of postpositions "-ci" (proximal) and "-là" (distal) as in cet homme-ci and cet homme-là. English has an archaic but occasionally used three-way distinction of this, that, and yonder.
Arabic makes the same two-way distinction as English. For example هذه البنت (haðihi l-bint) 'this girl' versus تلك البنت (tilka l-bint) 'that girl'.
In Modern German (and the Scandinavian languages), the demonstrative is generally distance-neutral, and the deictic value may be defined more precisely by means of adverbs:
- dieses Mädchen hier ~ dieses Mädchen dort/da
- "this girl [here]" ~ "that girl [there]"
A distal demonstrative exists in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, cognate to the English yonder, but it is used only in formal registers.
- jenes Mädchen
- "yonder girl"
There are languages which make a four-way distinction, such as Northern Sami
Northern Sami
Northern or North Sami is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland...
:
- Dát biila
- "this car"
- Diet biila
- "that car (near you)"
- Duot biila
- "that car (over there, away from both of us but rather near)"
- Dot biila
- "that car (over there, far away)"
These four-way distinctions are often termed proximal, mesioproximal, mesiodistal, and distal.
Many non-European languages make further distinctions; for example, whether the object referred to is uphill or downhill from the speaker, whether the object is visible or not (as in Malagasy
Malagasy language
Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
), and whether the object can be pointed to as a whole or only in part. The Eskimo–Aleut languages, and the Kiranti
Kiranti languages
The Mahakiranti or Maha-Kiranti languages are a proposed intermediate level of classification of the Tibeto-Burman languages. They are the languages most closely related to the Kiranti languages proper, which are spoken by the ethnic Kirat...
branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family
Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
are particularly well known for their many contrasts.
The demonstratives in Seri
Seri language
Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people by between 716 and 900 people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico.-Classification:...
are compound forms based on the definite articles (themselves derived from verbs) and therefore incorporate the positional information of the articles (standing, sitting, lying, coming, going) in addition to the three-way spatial distinction. This results in a quite elaborated set of demonstratives.
Demonstrative series in other languages
LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
had several sets of demonstratives, including hic, haec, hoc; ille, illa, illud; and iste, ista, istud (note that Latin has not only number, but also three grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s). The second set of Latin demonstratives (ille, etc., meaning that), developed into the definite article
Definite Article
Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
s in most Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, such as el, la, los, las in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and le, la, les in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
Although, with the exception of Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, the neuter gender has been lost in the Romance languages, Spanish and Portuguese still have neuter demonstratives, in Spanish éste/este (masculine), ésta/esta (feminine), esto (neuter), Portuguese (este, esta, isto, esse, essa, isso, aquele, aquela, aquilo). Neuter demonstratives refer to ideas of indeterminate gender, such as abstractions and groups of heterogeneous objects.
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of 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
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
before a noun predicate
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
caused it to develop into its colloquial use as a copula by the Han period
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
and subsequently its standard use as a copula in Modern Standard Chinese. Modern Mandarin has two main demonstratives, proximal 這 and distal 那; its use of the three Classical demonstratives has become mostly idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
atic, although 此 continues to be used with some frequency in modern written Chinese.
Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
has two demonstratives that do not inflect with gender or number: ez (this) and az (that), but take on case suffixes with possible orthographic changes; e.g., ezzen (on this), abban (in that).
The Cree language
Cree language
Cree is an Algonquian language spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Labrador, making it the aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada. It is also spoken in the U.S. state of Montana...
has a special demonstrative for "things just gone out of sight," and "Ilocano
Ilokano language
Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....
, a language of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, 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."
Demonstrative determiners and pronouns
It is relatively common for a language to distinguish between demonstrative determiners (or demonstrative adjectives, determinative demonstratives) and demonstrative pronouns (or independent demonstratives).A demonstrative determiner modifies a noun:
- This apple is good.
- I like those houses.
A demonstrative pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
stands on its own, replacing rather than modifying a noun:
- This is good.
- I like those.
There are five demonstrative pronouns in English: this, that, these, those, and the less common yon or yonder (the latter is usually employed as a demonstrative determiner; even so it is rarely used in most dialects of English, although it persists in some dialects such as Southern American English
Southern American English
Southern American English is a group of dialects of the English language spoken throughout the Southern region of the United States, from Southern and Eastern Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to the Gulf Coast, and from the Atlantic coast to most of Texas and Oklahoma.The Southern dialects make...
.). Author Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson
William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
laments the "losses along the way" of yon and yonder:
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-formPro-form
A pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context...
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).