Demonstratives

Definite articles Definite articles typically arise from demonstratives meaning that.

Demonstratives have a deictic function, and include tēnei, this (near me), tēnā, that (near you), tērā, that (far from us both), and taua, the aforementioned.

Demonstrative The demonstratives, ca and ta, are used without distinction.

Eventually articles may evolve anew from demonstratives.

However, the article la main "the", demonstratives such as tiu main "that" and prepositions (such as ĉe main "at") must come before their related nouns.

In English, articles are frequently considered a part of a broader speech category called determiners, which combines articles and demonstratives (such as "this" and "that").

In English, the demonstratives "this", "that" change to "these", "those" in the plural, and the indefinite article "a", "an" is either omitted or changes to "some".

Less flexibility occurs with numerals and demonstratives, with numeral–noun and demonstrative–noun being the norm, as in English.

Reinforced demonstratives such as accu-ille became necessary once ille came to be used as an article as well as a demonstrative.

Some languages decline many different parts of speech including adverbs and demonstratives: *This-by elderly-by man-by is buying a-em very-em expensive-em watch-em.

Standard Italian, for example, has only a two-way distinction "this" vs. "that", as in English, with second-person and third-person demonstratives combined.

Taken from Rhodes (1977) Cree-origin demonstratives can be added to noun phrases, in which case the Cree gender (animate or inanimate) is that of the corresponding Cree noun.

The most salient English examples are the adverbs “here” and “there” and the demonstratives “this” and “that” - although those are far from being the only deictic words.

They are also formed by adding suffixes to demonstratives : chay ("that") – chaypi ("there"), kay ("this") – kayman ("hither").

The ye occasionally seen in pseudo-archaic usage such as " Ye Olde Englishe Tea Shoppe" is actually a form of þe, where the letter thorn (þ) came to be written as a y. Multiple demonstratives can give rise to multiple definite articles.

Using the demonstratives as articles may have still been considered overly informal for a royal oath in the 9th century.

Verbs agree with the noun class of their subjects and objects; adjectives, prepositions and demonstratives agree with the noun class of their nouns.