Pronoun: Demonstrative near

GrammarPronoun – Demonstrative near singular

Demonstrative pronouns are pronouns, like this or that, which are used to point to something. Many languages mark them for proximity to the speaker, that is, whether they are referring to something near or far, such as this (near) and that (far). They may also be marked for number, such as these (near pl) and those (far pl). Greek makes these same distinctions with the addition of case.

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MorphologyPronoun – Demonstrative near singular

• The demonstrative pronoun forms are built off the definite article. The basic pattern is that you add either του or ταυ to the beginning of the definite article.
• Whether you add του or ταυ depends on the vowel you find in the article: If the vowel makes an ‘o’ sound, then you add του (e.g. τού-τῳ). If the vowel makes an ‘a’ or ‘e’ sound, you add ταυ (e.g. ταύ-τῃ).
• The only exceptions to this pattern are with the masc and fem nom forms. These forms are more like the 3rd person pronouns except for the beginning of the forms.
• αὐ-τός – 3ms pronoun; vs. οὗ-τος – ms near demonstrative pronoun

fromLesson 13.3

MorphologyPronoun – Demonstrative near plural

• The same principle introduced for the sg demonstrative pronouns applies to the pl forms as well (see 13.3.3.1): combine ταυ- with forms of the article ending in an ‘a’ vowel and του- with the forms ending in an ‘o’ vowel.
• masc and fem nom exceptions: τ goes in the middle of the form rather than the beginning, e.g. του- becomes ουτand ταυ- becomes αυτ-. These are attached to the article with an initial rough breathing mark. (NOTE: Again, do not confuse the demonstrative pronouns οὗτοι/αὗται ‘these’ with the 3rd person pronouns αὐτοί/αὐταί ‘they.’)

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SyntaxPronoun – Demonstrative near (Relation to article and order)

There are two important syntactic characteristics of the demonstrative. First, it is normally used with the definite article, so a phrase like ‘this person’ is οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος. Translating each of these morphemes into English would yield ‘this the person,’ which is ungrammatical English. Some languages, like Greek (and Hebrew), allow the demonstrative to co-occur with the definite article, and other languages, like English, do not. The proper translation would be ‘this person.’ The second characteristic is that the demonstrative can either come before the article or after the noun but not between the article and the noun, e.g. either οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος or ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος, but not *ὁ οὗτος ἄνθρωπος.

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SemanticsPronoun – Demonstrative near (Referencing something in the world or discourse)

The basic function of the demonstrative pronoun is to point to things, whether things in the world or things in the preceding discourse (these two uses make it similar to ἐκεῖ ‘there’; see Semantics B for a more robust introduction to the demonstrative):

• (111) Pointing to things in the world
• τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου
• This is my body (Matt 26:26)

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SemanticsDemonstrative pronouns (reference to person; introduction of content)

Demonstrative pronouns like οὗτος ‘this’ can be used very similarly to third person pronouns like αὐτός ‘he’ in Greek. One example of this is how people are referred to. Sometimes we see ‘this’ where we might expect ‘he’ (at least in English):

fromLesson 14.2