Demonstratives

Demonstratives in Gaelic can take the form of (i) demonstrative adjectives, (ii) demonstrative pronouns, or (iii) demonstrative adverbs. Demonstrative adjectives pattern similarly to other adjectives in Scottish Gaelic in that they modify a noun and succeed it in the sentence. Demonstrative pronouns behave in a similar fashion to their pronoun counterparts in that they can take the place of a determiner phrase. The behavior of demonstrative adjectives is the most exceptional of the demonstratives in that they mark a difference between adverbs of location (I am here) versus adverbs of motion (I went there).

Scottish Gaelic marks demonstratives in reference to distance from the speaker. As seen in the table below, the three different levels correspond roughly to the English 'here', 'there', and 'yonder'. An interesting feature of these three levels is that they can be used to indicate spatial as well as temporal distance. When the 3rd degree demonstrative adjective (XXX) is used to describe a noun, then typically the noun is something out of sight for both the speaker and the listener. The 2nd degree demonstrative adjective (XXX), on the other hand, marks the noun in question as being something far away but within sight.