Demonstrative
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Template:ExamplesSidebar Demonstratives are deictic words 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.
The demonstratives in English are "this", "that", "these" and "those", possibly followed by "one(s)" in case of pronouns, as explained below.
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Distal and proximal demonstratives
Some languages make a two-way distinction between demonstratives. Typically, one set of demonstratives is proximal, indicating objects close to the speaker (English this, French celui-ci); and the other series is distal, indicating objects removed from the speaker (English that, French celui-là).
Other languages, like Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Korean, Japanese, and some dialects of Jin Chinese, 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 Japanese:
- kono ringo "this apple"
- sono ringo "that apple (near you)"
- ano ringo "that apple (over there, away from both of us)"
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, le, la, les in French and il, la, i, le in Italian.
Although generally speaking the neuter gender has been lost in these languages, Spanish and Portuguese still have neuter demonstratives, in Spanish éste (masculine), ésta (feminine), esto (neuter) and in Portuguese este (masculine), esta (feminine), isto (neuter). Neuter demonstratives refer to ideas of indeterminate gender, such as abstractions and groups of heterogenous 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:
- 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.
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 French, for example, you would say cette table-ci to mean this table, but celle-ci as an answer to the question Which table? (i.e. as a pronoun).
In Japanese the three demonstrative pronouns kore, sore and are, are different from the corresponding demonstrative adjectives kono, sono and ano.
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).
Discourse deixis
Template:Seealso 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.
- 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.de:Demonstrativpronomen nl:Aanwijzend voornaamwoord ja:指示語 nn:Demonstrativ