Description

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 usually employed for spatial deixis (using the context of the physical surroundings), but in many languages they double as discourse deictics, referring not to concrete objects but to words, phrases and propositions mentioned in speech. In linguistics, a deictic expression is an expression that refers to the personal, temporal, or spatial aspect of an utterance, and whose meaning therefore depends on the context in which it is used. ...

The demonstratives in English are "this", "that", "these" and "those", possibly followed by "one(s)" in case of pronouns, as explained below.

A case of disputed English grammar arises when there is disagreement about whether a given construction constitutes correct English. ... Verbs in the English language are a lexically and morphologically distinct part of speech which describes an action, an event, or a state. ... In English, verbs are conjugated for tense, aspect, mood, and voice, and in some cases to agree with their subjects in person and number. ... English has a large number of irregular verbs. ... In the English language, a modal auxiliary verb is an auxiliary verb (or helping verb) that can modify the grammatical mood (or mode) of a verb. ... In English as in many other languages, the passive voice is the form of a transitive verb whose grammatical subject serves as the patient, receiving the action of the verb. ... The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to modern German or Icelandic. ... The English personal pronouns are classified as follows: First person refers to the speaker(s). ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... A compound is a word composed of more than one free morphemes. ... An honorific is something that is attached to the name but is not normally used elsewhere, e. ... This article is focused mainly on usage of English relative clauses. ...

Distal and proximal demonstratives

Many languages, including English, 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 removed from the speaker (English that).

Other languages, like Spanish, make a three-way distinction. Typically there is a distinction between objects proximal to the speaker, objects proximal to the hearer, and objects distal to both. So for example, in Spanish:

Esta manzana

"this apple"

Esa manzana

"that apple (near you)"

Aquella manzana

"that apple (over there, away from both of us)"

Portuguese, Japanese and Seri also make this distinction, but German and French, like English, do not. Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico. ...

Some languages make no spatial distinction.

In Modern German (and the Scandinavian languages), the pronoun is distance-neutral, but the deictic value may be defined more precisely by means of adverbs:

dieses Mädchen (hier) ~ dieses Mädchen (da)

"this/that girl"

There are even languages which make a four-way distinction, such as Northern Sami: Northern Saami (also, Sámi or Sami, formerly Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. ...

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)"

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, and whether the object can be pointed at as a whole or only in part. The Inuit language Inuktitut is particularly well known for its 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. Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri people in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico. ...

Demonstrative series in other languages

Latin 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 genders). The second set of Latin demonstratives (ille, etc., meaning that), developed into the definite articles in most Romance languages, such as el, la, los, las in Spanish, and le, la, les in French. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzards 1996 performance released on video and CD. The video/DVD and CD performances were both recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, England. ... The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ...

Although generally speaking the neuter gender has been lost in Romance languages, Spanish and Portuguese still have neuter demonstratives, in Spanish éste (masculine), ésta (feminine), esto (neuter). Neuter demonstratives refer to ideas of indeterminate gender, such as abstractions and groups of heterogeneous objects.

Determinative adjectives and pronouns

It is relatively common for a language to distinguish between demonstrative adjectives (or determinative demonstratives) and demonstrative pronouns (or independent demonstratives).

A demonstrative adjective modifies a noun: An adjective is a part of speech that modifies a noun, usually by describing it or making its meaning more specific. ...

This apple is good.

I like those houses.

"This boy is stronger than hari."

A demonstrative pronoun stands on its own, replacing rather than modifying a noun: In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ...

This is good.

I like those.

There are five demonstrative pronouns in English; this, that, these, those and the less common yonder (the latter is usually employed as a demonstrative adjective; even so it is rarely used in common English).

As is obvious from the examples, English employs the same words for both types of demonstratives. Sometimes a difference is made specific by using the pronoun one (this one, those ones).

This is not the case in many other languages.

In Spanish the difference is less marked; except for the series of singular neuter independent pronouns (esto, eso, aquello), the rest of the demonstrative pronouns are identical to the adjectives (except in writing, where a diacritic accent mark is used to mark the pronouns). A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent mark, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ...

Discourse deixis

Main article: Deictic expression

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: In linguistics, a deictic expression is an expression that refers to the personal, temporal, or spatial aspect of an utterance, and whose meaning therefore depends on the context in which it is used. ...

This sentence is short.

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

In the above, this sentence refers to the sentence being spoken, and 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.