Subject: sum : ' this ' and ' that '

dear colleagues : last week i sent a query to this list asking you about the fomral opposition between ' this ' and ' that ' in the demonstratives ( june 4 , 6 . 772 , qs : ' this ' , . . . ) . i have received 26 responses by now , and so think it necessary to compile a quick summary today as i will be away from tokyo for more than two weeks starting tomorrow . the original text of my query was as follows : some present-day ' european ' languages have only one set of simple demonstratives and the opposition of ( this ) vs . < that > is expressed by the help of ( here ) and < there > : french ceci ' this ' ce livre-ci ' this book ' cela ' that ' ce livre-l ` a ' that book ' swedish det ha " r ' this ' den ha " r bilen ' this car ' det da " r ' that ' den da " r bilen ' that car ' estonian see siin ' this ' see maja siin ' this house ' see seal ' that ' see maja seal ' that house ' my sweidish - german dictionary ( stora tyska ordboken ) gives ( der hier ) and ( der da ) as colloquial ( familia " r , umgangssprachlich ) german forms which conrrespond to ( den ha " r ) and < den da " r > , respectively . how common is a demonstrative system like this ? incidentally , japanese has a rather sophisticated three-way distinction here : kono hon ' this book ( you see here ) ' sono hon ' that book ( you see there ) , the book ( under discussion ) ' ano hon ' that book ( you see over there ) ' so i ' m afraid i will have to convince my students that the japanese are extravagant even in the way of using demonstratives . though the last paragraph was intended as an allusion to the way japanese tourists spend money overseas , quite a few people , both japanese and non - japanese , took it seriously and tried to convince me that the japanese language ( sic ! ) was by no means " extravagant " because it was not alone in having a three-way distinction in the demonstratives . some even drew my attention to the existence of a language with a five-way distinction . i thank them for the examples of various demonstrative systems they sent me , but this is not the point i wanted to discuss . perhaps i should have stated explicitly that i was interested in the morphology of demonstrative pronouns / adjectives . it is very important that french , for instance , has one basic demonstrative pronoun-adjective , i . e . ( ce ) , on the morph-lexical level , and that the speaker of french may optionally add an element meaning either ( here ) or < there > in order to make finer distinctions ( ce livre-ci , cette table-l ' a ) . in japanese , however , there 's no single basic demonstrative pronoun-adjective like ( ce ) in french : the speaker of japanese must always choose one from the set of three lexically distinct demonstrative forms . this is a big difference , and puzzels many of my students in my estonian syntax class . here are the responses which i think have direct relevance to my interest : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i imagine that your posting was a bit abbreviated , so did not mention the swedish demonstratives denna / detta / dessa and den / det / de , which in any case are grammatically correct but not usual in conversational speech ( " den tiden , " " det aaret , " " de fraagorna " ) . one would expect danish and norwegian to be similar in this regard to swedish , but unfortunately i have little information to contribute . while danish does has both den / det / de and so on plus the option of adding " der " ( " tag den bog , " " naer saa du de mennesker ? " ; " hvad er det der ? " , " jeg tager dem ( der ) " ) , i ' m not certain whether usage is quite the same , that is , whether the " den der " forms predominate as they do in swedish . [ . . . ] certain dialects of american english do use " this here " and " that there , " as attested by the way schoolteachers warn their students not to use those expressions . they ' re nonstandard and are regarded as uneducated usages , though i suspect that they actually come from older dialects of british descent in which they were acceptable . - - brian white ( bfwhite @ watson . ibm . com ) - - the use of compund demonstratives is indeed common in my own mother tongue , norwegian , and i believe in all ' scandinavian ' languages , ie norwegian , danish and swedish . i feel that it is a feature of colloquial speech , and i would be surprised to find it in ( formal ) writing . in fast speech the distinction between the two demonstratives tends to be lost , at least in my own dialect ( bergen , western norway ) : den her bilen - - - - ) 'd enner bilen ' ( this car ) den der bilen - - - - ) 'd enner bilen ' ( that car ) moreover , norwegian ( and , i believe , swedish + danish ) has the distinctions : den bilen vs denne bilen ( that car vs this car ; masc . ) det huset vs dette huset ( that house vs this house ; neu . ) which seem to correspond closely to this / that in english , and are perfectly acceptable in written and spoken norwegian . - - gisle andersen ( gisle . andersen @ eng . uib . no ) - - as a native speaker , i would not really use ( der hier ) even colloquial , ( der da ) is possible , an would more likely contrast with < der dort > , which implies that ( der da ) goes along with < this > and not with < that > ! but in general : it is always a problem for native speakers of german to acquire the this / that distinction , as we do not draw the same boundaries . maybe , a more formal ( in terms of the register ) would be : ( dieses ) ( this ) and < jenes > ( that ) - - this it at least what i use in translations ( and also what my german / english dictionary advises me to do - but never trust a dictionary ) . actually , we do not use ( jenes ) very much , it goes along with very formal speech and maybe even old - fashioned . - - gertraud benke ( gertraud @ leland . stanford . edu ) - - english colloquially , esp . black eng . vernacular , uses ' this here ' and ' that there . ' ' this book here ' vs . ' this book there ' sounds perfectly normal , while ' this here book ' and ' that there book ' sound mostly like american english from the south-east portion of the u . s . - - tim beasley ( tbeasley @ ucla . edu ) - - you might be interested to know that many dialects of english ( appalachian us , and therefore some british dialects as well ) have a similar opposition to the one you ' re talking about : this here dog that there dog there is more than one demonstrative used , but the " here " and " there " seem to be relics of some old germanic usage . - - james kirchner ( jpkirchner @ aol . com ) - - in some dialects of british english ( i ' m not excluding other varieties but i do n't know them well enough ) ' this here ' and ' that there ' are perfectly acceptable eg ' look at this here postcard that she sent me ' ' pick up that there bucket ' these are normal in my dialect - - david britain ( dbritain @ essex . ac . uk ) - - there is another funny case . in colloquial english , you can say " this here x " and " that there x " . in greek , there is " afto edho " ( usually pronounced " aftodho " ) and " ekino eki " ( " ekinoki " ) with the same meaning . ( " dh " = postdental fricative ) - - stavros macrakis ( macrakis @ osf . org ) - - interestingly , afrikaans , as a dutch - based creole , has developed ' hierdie ' ( litt . ' here-that ' ) for ' this ' , whereas dutch itself has no such system , using simply 'd eze ' for ' this ' and 'd ie ' for ' that ' . - - henk wolf ( h . a . y . wolf @ stud . let . ruu . nl ) - - i am not sure i understand the question correctly , but in italian ( northern italian at least ) you can say questo qui - or - questo qua ( this here ) instead of " questo " quello li ' - or - quello la ' ( that there ) instead of " quello " these are both colloquial forms . i cannot really say whether they are used in other parts of italy . - - anna mazzoldi ( mazzoldi @ iol . ie ) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - it seems that with a few execptions ( italian dialects , greek ) , the phenomenon seems characteristic of germanic languages and languages that have gone through strong germanic influence ( french , estonian ) . note incidentally that finnish , which is genetically closely related to estonian , is on the japanese side , and that a similar split seems to exist among the romance languages as well . interesting ? the others gave me examples of " richer " demonstrative systems . if you are interested in those data , please ask me for a copy of the file which contains all the responses in the unedited form . my hearty thanks to the following people who have responded to my query : philippe l . valiquette ( phlcvali @ vm1 . ulaval . ca ) gertraud benke ( gertraud @ leland . stanford . edu ) brian white ( bfwhite @ watson . ibm . com ) tim beasley ( tbeasley @ ucla . edu ) adriano paolo palma ( pyapp @ sun22 . ccunix . ccu . edu . tw ) james kirchner ( jpkirchner @ aol . com ) eugene loos ( eugene . loos @ sil . org ) murat kural ( izzyfk6 @ mvs . oac . ucla . edu ) derek gowlett ( gowlett @ beattie . uct . ac . za ) jeff allen ( jhallen @ indiana . edu ) merce ( prat @ cogsci . ed . ac . uk ) nino ( n . vessella @ agora . stm . it ) david beck ( djbeck @ uvvm . uvic . ca ) debra r west / markell ( markell @ afterlife . ncsc . mil ) anna mazzoldi ( mazzoldi @ iol . ie ) stavros macrakis ( macrakis @ osf . org ) gisle andersen ( gisle . andersen @ eng . uib . no ) david britain ( dbritain @ essex . ac . uk ) henk wolf ( h . a . y . wolf @ stud . let . ruu . nl ) kiyoko takahashi ( gc610817 @ netserv . chula . ac . th ) philippe mennecier ( ferry @ cimrs1 . mnhn . fr ) david parkinson ( dp11 @ cornell . edu ) anton sherwood ( dasher @ netcom . com ) ( nebiye . kurtboeke @ arts . monash . edu . au ) kirk belnap ( belnapk @ yvax . byu . edu ) geoffrey s . nathan ( geoffn @ siu . edu ) ( as of 09 : 30 jst june 8 , 1995 ) best wishes kazuto kazuto matsumura kmatsum @ tooyoo . l . u-tokyo . ac . jp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - institute for cross - cultural studies ( tooyoo gengo ) faculty of letters , university of tokyo hongo 7 - 3 - 1 , bunkyo - ku , tokyo 113 japan tel . + 81 - 3-5800 - 3754 fax : + 81 - 3-5800 - 3740 , 5803-2784 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
