WORD CLASS: DEMONSTRATIVES

1. In Standard Catalan, possessives tend to be used in two degrees of deixis, like in French, but unlike Spanish and Portuguese, which admit three degrees of deixis. Anyway, grammar handbooks pick up three degrees, where the second one has little usage, though it can be found in southern geolects.

2. The following list shows the three degrees, though, as it has just been pointed out, the second one tends to be substituted by the third one.

1º DEGREE

SINGULAR

MASC.     aquest

FEM.        aquesta

PLURAL

 MASC.     aquests

 FEM.        aquestes

2º DEGREE

SINGULAR

MASC.     aqueix

FEM.        aqueixa

PLURAL

 MASC.     aqueixos

 FEM.        aqueixes

3º DEGREE

SINGULAR

MASC.     aquell

FEM.        aquella

PLURAL

 MASC.     aquells

 FEM.        aquelles

The form aquests is pronounced /ə’kεts/ when followed by a word beginning with a consonant; otherwise, it is pronounced /ə’kεsts/.

3. Valencian keeps the three degrees relatively alive, but the forms of the possessives are slightly different. For the two first degrees it uses the shortened forms este, esta…; eixe, eixa…

4. There is no difference in form when used either attributively or predicatively. In both cases, demonstratives keep unchanged.

5. Examples thereof:

no m’agrada aquesta, sinó aquella	I don’t like this one, but that one
aquests nanos fan molt de soroll	these little children make a lot of noise
aquells ocells són exòtics	those birds are exotic

6. There are also two demonstratives that are used solely predicatively, with no referent. Traditional Grammar tags them as neuter. They also refer to the three degrees of deixis, though the second one has a quite reduced used in the language, as well:

1º DEGREE    això

2º DEGREE    açò

3º DEGREE    allò

això no és possible	that’s not possible
no diguis allò que no creus	don’t say what you don’t believe/ think
això que contes és un miracle	what you tell is a miracle
no entenc això	I don’t understand that