Diachronics of demonstratives
Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 5:10 pm
Do you know any attested examples of creation of new demonstrative pronouns? What were their diachronic sources?
Den is still also a demonstrative meaning "that", apart from its use as a definite article. So we get three levels of deixis: den här "this", den där "that", and den "that"; I'm not sure how to describe the difference between the last two.Echobeats wrote:Swedish has innovated den här and den där, which literally mean "the here" and "the there" (den originally itself meant "that", but it's been weakened to a definite article used when an element precedes the noun within the DP, such as an adjective).
You don't see it much in writing, but it's very commonly used by many Norwegians as well. I use "den her" etc. almost exclusively.Echobeats wrote:Swedish has innovated den här and den där, which literally mean "the here" and "the there" (den originally itself meant "that", but it's been weakened to a definite article used when an element precedes the noun within the DP, such as an adjective). The equivalents den her and den der are not used in (formal) Norwegian or Danish, AFAIK.
This happens quite often in Swedish as well.Magb wrote:An interesting thing, which is quite relevant to the OP's question, is the fact that I'll sometimes leave out the "den", leaving just "her"/"der".
In Swedish, the only possible construction is den här bilen. However, when den is "omitted", the result is, as in Norwegian, bilen här. Which makes me suspect that what is going on - in both languages, since this construction probably has a common origin in all of Scandinavian - is not actually any omission of the article, but merely that it's replaced by an adverb specifying its place.while in Swedish den här bil(en) is more common. That's why when the den is omitted, the her must always go after the NP. *her bilen is impossible.
This construction sounds awfully like what I am used to using when speaking informally in English, where this and that have become so semantically bleached that when using them to express place they are normally combined with a postposed here, there or over there, which are optional when another form expressing place is used. Without them, in informal speech for me, this and that only express some sort of semantic distance and not actually place.Dingbats wrote:This happens quite often in Swedish as well.Magb wrote:An interesting thing, which is quite relevant to the OP's question, is the fact that I'll sometimes leave out the "den", leaving just "her"/"der".
In Swedish, the only possible construction is den här bilen. However, when den is "omitted", the result is, as in Norwegian, bilen här. Which makes me suspect that what is going on - in both languages, since this construction probably has a common origin in all of Scandinavian - is not actually any omission of the article, but merely that it's replaced by an adverb specifying its place.while in Swedish den här bil(en) is more common. That's why when the den is omitted, the her must always go after the NP. *her bilen is impossible.
In Swedish you can also say, for example, bilen där borta, bilen i skogen, bilen på andra sidan vägen; surely this is possible in Norwegian too? It's the same construction: a postposed adverbial.
Perhaps you're thinking of Welsh? Because in Goidelic languages, sin and seo are demonstratives, e.g. "Sin mo theach" "That's my house." It's the compound forms anseo and ansin which mean respectively "here" and "there".Echobeats wrote:Gaelic has done the same thing, except I get the impression this is older.
an "the"
seo "here"
sin "there"
an X seo "this X"
an Y sin "that Y"
anseo "this" (standalone)
ansin "that" (standalone)
Sure, that sounds plausible. You could be right that bilen der isn't derived from den bilen der. Though it's worth noting that, at least for me, bilen der borte and den bilen der borte differ slightly in meaning, kind of like the difference between den and den der, respectively. The difference between den der and den, to me, feels partly like a difference between seen/unseen, in that den der is more likely to be used for something you're pointing at, while den can be more abstract about the location of the thing, although there's a lot of usage overlap. Meanwhile, bilen der and den bilen der seem to me to differ only in register, with bilen der being more colloquial. For me, it kind of mirrors the situation where the definite article den can be omitted before NPs with adjectives in them: Ser du (den) grønne bilen?, and such. Omitting the den is more colloquial.Dingbats wrote:In Swedish, the only possible construction is den här bilen. However, when den is "omitted", the result is, as in Norwegian, bilen här. Which makes me suspect that what is going on - in both languages, since this construction probably has a common origin in all of Scandinavian - is not actually any omission of the article, but merely that it's replaced by an adverb specifying its place.
In Swedish you can also say, for example, bilen där borta, bilen i skogen, bilen på andra sidan vägen; surely this is possible in Norwegian too? It's the same construction: a postposed adverbial.
I use "this here" and "that there" only emphatically. Overuse of them reminds me of jocular mockery of rural Midland and Southern speech.Travis B. wrote:This construction sounds awfully like what I am used to using when speaking informally in English, where this and that have become so semantically bleached that when using them to express place they are normally combined with a postposed here, there or over there, which are optional when another form expressing place is used. Without them, in informal speech for me, this and that only express some sort of semantic distance and not actually place.Dingbats wrote:This happens quite often in Swedish as well.Magb wrote:An interesting thing, which is quite relevant to the OP's question, is the fact that I'll sometimes leave out the "den", leaving just "her"/"der".
In Swedish, the only possible construction is den här bilen. However, when den is "omitted", the result is, as in Norwegian, bilen här. Which makes me suspect that what is going on - in both languages, since this construction probably has a common origin in all of Scandinavian - is not actually any omission of the article, but merely that it's replaced by an adverb specifying its place.while in Swedish den här bil(en) is more common. That's why when the den is omitted, the her must always go after the NP. *her bilen is impossible.
In Swedish you can also say, for example, bilen där borta, bilen i skogen, bilen på andra sidan vägen; surely this is possible in Norwegian too? It's the same construction: a postposed adverbial.
Note that this contrasts with formal English for me, where this and that much more strongly express place without needing an accompanying here, there, or over there.
To elaborate:
I would normally informally use, when referring to place, this car here, that car there, or that car over there. Likewise, while I would use this car in the street or that car in the street, the forms this car here in the street, that car there in the street, and that car over there in the street and the forms this car in the street here, that car in the street there, and that car in the street over there are also grammatical and put more emphasis on place.
Conversely, while I do say this car and that car, they do not actually say anything about place in informal speech, and indeed may differentiate two cars of equal, unspecified, or unclear physical distance from one without indicating anything about where they are. They only indicate anything about where the cars are in formal speech.
When used for mockery, I am used to this here and that there both coming before the noun, as in *this here car and *that there car, which is simply ungrammatical to me; this contrasts to the circumposed forms this car here and that car there and the use of this here and that there alone, which are very natural to me.TaylorS wrote:I use "this here" and "that there" only emphatically. Overuse of them reminds me of jocular mockery of rural Midland and Southern speech.
Them as a demonstrative actually is used quite frequently back in Wisconsin, including in Milwaukee dialect, but it is very heavily marked for social class, being typically not used by middle or upper-class people there. I myself do not use it at all except jocularly, unlike this ... here, that ... there, and that ... over there.Radius Solis wrote:Demonstratives may also, very conceivably, arise from third-person pronouns. Though my sole example is limited, it seems plausible since the reverse direction (demonstratives becoming third person pronouns) is a common diachronic path.
My one limited example is from English, in which "them" can be used as a demonstrative. A very folksy-sounding one, but it does pop up in places:
- How do you like them apples?
- Them bones, them bones, them dry bones
- There's gold in them thar hills.
All idioms, but it can be productive, despite sounding extremely rural. "Them crows done 'et up my corn!"
Unlikely, as I don't know Welsh. I may have just got it wrong...linguoboy wrote:Perhaps you're thinking of Welsh? Because in Goidelic languages, sin and seo are demonstratives, e.g. "Sin mo theach" "That's my house." It's the compound forms anseo and ansin which mean respectively "here" and "there".Echobeats wrote:Gaelic has done the same thing, except I get the impression this is older.
an "the"
seo "here"
sin "there"
an X seo "this X"
an Y sin "that Y"
anseo "this" (standalone)
ansin "that" (standalone)
In modern Welsh, by contrast, yma is "here" and yr X 'ma is "this X". Though there's also an exact parallel to anseo in fan'yn (< (yn) y fan hyn "(in) the place this").
I'm pretty sure I've heard of the construction Echobeats is talking about, and Wikipedia supports that. From here:Echobeats wrote:Unlikely, as I don't know Welsh. I may have just got it wrong...linguoboy wrote:Perhaps you're thinking of Welsh? Because in Goidelic languages, sin and seo are demonstratives, e.g. "Sin mo theach" "That's my house." It's the compound forms anseo and ansin which mean respectively "here" and "there".Echobeats wrote:Gaelic has done the same thing, except I get the impression this is older.
an "the"
seo "here"
sin "there"
an X seo "this X"
an Y sin "that Y"
anseo "this" (standalone)
ansin "that" (standalone)
In modern Welsh, by contrast, yma is "here" and yr X 'ma is "this X". Though there's also an exact parallel to anseo in fan'yn (< (yn) y fan hyn "(in) the place this").
I'm not disputing that the construction exists, only the syntactic interpretation. There's simply no context I know of in which sin is an adverb meaning "there".Boskobènet wrote:I'm pretty sure I've heard of the construction Echobeats is talking about, and Wikipedia supports that. From here:
Tá an fear sin beag.
"That man is small."
As far as I know, such a use of sin is impossible. Since Irish has a distinct copulative particle (i.e. is) the only interpretation I can find for this sentence would be "That, a small house, is..."EDIT: Could one say something like "Tá sin theach beag"? That is, can sin directly modify something, or is it a pronoun?
Ah, so sin and seo are strictly pronouns meaning "this" and "that", and an fear sin is more like "the that man" than "the man here". Strange though, that ansin and anseo would be the adverbs "here" and "there", given their (superficial, at least) resemblance to an X sin / seo. Could it originally have been "the this/that (place)", with "place" later being dropped?linguoboy wrote:I'm not disputing that the construction exists, only the syntactic interpretation. There's simply no context I know of in which sin is an adverb meaning "there".Boskobènet wrote:I'm pretty sure I've heard of the construction Echobeats is talking about, and Wikipedia supports that. From here:
Tá an fear sin beag.
"That man is small."
As far as I know, such a use of sin is impossible. Since Irish has a distinct copulative particle (i.e. is) the only interpretation I can find for this sentence would be "That, a small house, is..."EDIT: Could one say something like "Tá sin theach beag"? That is, can sin directly modify something, or is it a pronoun?
Beware the small words in Irish, for homophones abound. (The worst example is a, which has more than a half dozen unrelated meanings.)Boskobènet wrote:Ah, so sin and seo are strictly pronouns meaning "this" and "that", and an fear sin is more like "the that man" than "the man here". Strange though, that ansin and anseo would be the adverbs "here" and "there", given their (superficial, at least) resemblance to an X sin / seo. Could it originally have been "the this/that (place)", with "place" later being dropped?
I had assumed that the frequent use of postposed here, there, and over there including when demonstratives or even (other) prepositional phrases marking place are used was just normal informal English. I did not really realize that it was even regionally marked.Travis B. wrote:When used for mockery, I am used to this here and that there both coming before the noun, as in *this here car and *that there car, which is simply ungrammatical to me; this contrasts to the circumposed forms this car here and that car there and the use of this here and that there alone, which are very natural to me.TaylorS wrote:I use "this here" and "that there" only emphatically. Overuse of them reminds me of jocular mockery of rural Midland and Southern speech.