In English composition, we have the so-called
demonstrative reference words as handy devices for making our point more immediate and forceful without unduly repeating ourselves. We will recall that they come in these three categories—
the demonstrative adjectives,
the demonstrative pronouns, and
the demonstrative adverbs.
Demonstrative adjectives. This category consists of the modifiers “this,” “that,” “these,” and “those.” They belong to the class of function words called
determiners, which serve to either identify nouns or word groups functioning as nouns or give additional information about them. The demonstrative adjectives always agree in number with the nouns they modify—“this” and “that” for singular nouns, as in “this apple” and “that woman,” and “these” and “those” for plural nouns, as in “those apples” and “those women.”
Also referred to as
the pointing words, the demonstrative adjectives “this,” “that,” “these,” and “those” indicate how near or far an object is from the person describing it, and are particularly useful in spoken language, where the speaker can actually point to the objects or allude to them by tone of voice.
Feel the sense of immediacy the demonstrative adjectives create: “
That car salesman over there is recommending
this model to me instead of
that model over there, but I think all of
these models offered here are priced much higher than
those offered by the other dealer downtown.”
Demonstrative adjectives work wonders even if the speaker or writer isn’t actually present or near the objects being described, giving the reader or listener a much better feel of the experience:
“There was
this lovely woman beside me at the bus stop during
this pounding rain, and right in front of us were
these three men who looked like thugs, eying us with a menace that you could actually feel.
Those moments made me think that it was the better part of valor to flee—never mind what could happen to
that woman beside me—but these two thoughts stopped me from taking that action: ‘What will happen to
this woman if I left her behind?’ ‘Will I ever get over
this shameful act of cowardice that I am about to do now?’”
Demonstrative pronouns. When “this,” “that,” “these,” and “those” point to specific things independently without latching on to specific nouns, they function as
demonstrative pronouns instead, as in the following sentences: “
This is the variety of apples I mentioned to you last night.” “
That is the director that launched a thousand acting careers.” I don’t like
these any more than you do.” “
Those are a few of my favorite things.”
We can clearly see that demonstrative pronouns are particularly suited to spoken prose, when the speaker can actually point to the objects he is describing whether they are near or far, as in “The man’s eldest son passed the entrance test to the state university.
That made him easily the happiest father in the small farming town.” When such a link to an antecedent noun can’t be clearly established, it becomes advisable to supply a new noun. This is where the demonstrative adjective “that”comes in handy, pointing to a word recapping the antecedent statement for greater emphasis: “
That feat of his son made him easily the happiest father in the small farming town.”
Demonstrative adverbs. This class of reference words includes such adverbs as “here,” “there,” “then,” “thus,” and “hence.” These words handily take on the role of those places or situations that the writer or speaker had already described so they need not be needlessly mentioned again: “As I told you before, I want you
here, not
there. You were a free agent
then, but not anymore. You will
thus be reporting to me directly until six months
hence, when your contract expires.”
This essay, 2082nd of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the March 31, 2022 Internet edition of The Manila Times
,© 2022 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
Read this essay online in
The Manila Times:
The power of the demonstrative reference words(Next week:
When to use broader meaning and summary words) April 7, 2022
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