Chapter 4: Demonstrative Pronouns

This is perhaps the most important chapter in this grammar book. Demonstrative pronouns are very often the sticking point for students of Anglo-Saxon. If you take some extra time with this chapter and make sure that you understand the concepts behind demonstrative pronouns, and if you make sure that you memorize and can recognize the paradigms, you will be well on your way to being able to translate Old English sentences fluently.

Demonstrative Pronouns are "pointing words": they indicate proximity relationships.

Alfred gave this jewel to the bishop and that one to his ealdorman.

"This" and "that" are demonstrative pronouns. They demonstrate (point out) nouns.

The words that translate as "a," "an," and "the" are considered to be demonstratives in Anglo-Saxon (we call them articles in Modern English). Why? Because in Old English "se" ("the") can stand by itself and doesn't need a noun to follow it; therefore it gains pronoun status.

For example: "Who did it?" ==> "The man did it" is perfectly acceptable in Modern English.
In Old English, however, you can leave out man: "Who did it?" ==> "Se did it." This sentence could be translated as "The did it," but because "se" indicates the masculine gender, we can translate it as "the masculine one did it" or "he did it."

Sometimes in Old English a demonstrative will be followed by a noun, and you can translate it as "the" or "that" or "a." But other times you will need to supply a noun "the one," "that one."

Remember that demonstrative prounous are providing you with useful information about the case of a word, and thus telling you if the demonstrative and the word it is describing (if it is describing a word) is a subject, object or possessive.

Demonstrative Pronouns Paradigms

Singular Demonstrative Pronouns: "The" or "That"

Plural Demonstrative Pronouns: "The" or "That"

Singular Demonstrative Pronouns: "This"

Plural Demonstrative Pronouns: "These"

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