Demonstratives and Intensives

Table of contents

1. Demonstratives
   1. hic, haec, hoc
   2. ille, illa, illud
2. Intensives

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Demonstratives

In the last unit, you learned about personal and reflexive pronouns. There are other kinds of pronouns that indicate a different kind of relationship to the antecedents that the pronouns are replacing; we’ll encounter two new ones in this unit.

For example, there are irregular pronouns called demonstratives that serve to point out something that is nearby or far away from the speaker (from the Latin demonstrāre, “to point out”). Note that these pronouns can stand on their own, or they can also function as adjectives that modify an explicit noun. If a pronoun, we can sometimes treat it like a substantive adjective and supply a word like “man/men”, “woman/women”, “person/people”, or “thing/things”, depending on the gender and number of the pronoun, if our translation calls for it.

hic, haec, hoc

The demonstrative hic, haec, hoc - “this, these”, points out something that is close to or nearby the speaker.

• hic puer, “this boy”
• haec puellae, “these girls”
• hoc oppidum, “this town”
• hic (masculine nominative singular), “this man” or “this person”
• hī (masculine nominative plural), “these men” or “these people”

As mentioned above, though, the declension of hic, haec, hoc is irregular, as perhaps you can already tell from the -c ending on the nominative singular forms. Here is the declension chart:

Some items of note:

• Like is, ea, id and -īus adjectives, hic has the same form across all three genders in the genitive singular (huius), dative singular (huic), dative plural (hīs), and ablative plural (hīs).
• The macron (long mark) in the masculine and neuter ablative singular (hōc) is the only thing we can use to differentiate that form from the neuter nominative and accusative singular (hoc, with a short o).
• The form haec appears in the feminine nominative singular, neuter nominative plural, and neuter accusative plural.

Again, the demonstratives can be used as either a pronoun, which stands alone, or as an adjective, which modifies an explicit noun. The latter allows you to match the form of hic with a noun in gender, case, and number, but the former asks you to use the pronoun’s gender and number to supply a word in translation. Here are some examples:

• puer hōs taurōs duxit. “The boy led these bulls.”
• puella nōmina hōrum audīvit. “The girl heard the names of these people.” or “The girl heard the names of these men.” (hōrum = masculine genitive plural)
• agricola hoc oppidum relīquit. “The farmer left this town.”
• agricola haec fēcit. “The farmer did these things.” (haec = neuter accusative plural)

ille, illa, illud

The demonstrative ille, illa, illud, “that, those”, points out something that is far away from the speaker.

• illī puerī, “those boys”
• illa puella, “that girl”
• illud oppidum, “that town”
• illae (feminine nominative plural), “those women”
• illa, “that woman” (if feminine nominative singular) or “those things” (if neuter nominative/accusative plural)

Like hic, haec, hoc, ille, illa, illud is declined irregularly:

The declension of ille follows more regular 2-1-2 ending patterns than hic does, with some exceptions:

• Note the -ud ending on the neuter nominative and accusative singular (illud).
• ille declines like an -īus adjective in the genitive singular (illīus) and the dative singular (illī).
• Note the macron on the -ā in the feminine ablative singular (illā), as that is the only way to differentiate it from illa in the feminine nominative singular, neuter nominative plural, and the neuter accusative plural.

The use of ille indicates distance between the speaker and the object to which they are referring; while “this”or “these” as translations for hic indicate proximity, “that” or “those” for ille indicate distance:

• puer illās arbōrēs vīdit. “The boy saw those trees.”
• puellae nōmen illīus audīvērunt. “The girls heard the name of that man/woman/person.” (illīus = masculine/feminine/neuter genitive singular)
• agricola illud oppidum relīquit. “The farmer left that town.”
• agricola nautae illa dedit. “The farmer gave those things to the sailor.” (illa = neuter accusative plural)

Forms of hic and ille can also be used together to indicate “the former … the latter” with ille first and hic second:

• puer equōs duxit, et puella dormīvit. pater hanc nōn vīdit, sed illum vīdit.
  • The boy led the horses, and the girl slept. The father did not see the latter, but he did see the former.
  • (hanc = feminine accusative singular, with puella as its antecedent; illum = masculine accusative singular, with puer as its antecedent)

Think about why this makes sense! ille points to something that is far away, so in this use, it points to the item in a series that is farther away in distance in the sentence, i.e., “the former”, as opposed to “the latter”, which is closer.

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Intensives

Another kind of pronoun (that can either stand on its own as a pronoun or function as an adjective that modifies an explicit noun) is the intensive or intensifying pronoun, ipse, ipsa, ipsum, that draws special attention to the word being modified or the pronoun itself. You can imagine that the intensive turns the noun that it modifies or replaces into boldface type or underlines it or puts exclamation points above it to draw your attention to it. It can be translated as “the [noun] him/her/itself/themselves” or “the very [noun].” Take a look at the following examples:

• ipse puer, “the boy himself” or “the very boy”
• ipsa puella, “the girl herself” or “the very girl”
• ipsa oppida, “the towns themselves” or “the very towns”

The paradigm chart looks similar to that of ille:

If you use the translation “the very [noun]”, be careful not to confuse this adjective with the common adverb “very”, as in “They are very happy.” In addition, do not confuse the “-self” translations with the reflexive pronoun that you learned about in the last unit. The intensive serves to underline or put a big exclamation point over the noun that it’s modifying or replacing; the reflexive specifically refers back to the subject of the sentence.

Note the following examples, using proper names Marcus and Titus (which decline as second declension nouns) to show the difference between the intensive and the reflexive:

• Marcus Titum ipsum vīdit. “Marcus saw Titus himself” or “Marcus saw the very Titus”
  • ipsum functions as an intensive adjective here, emphasizing or intensifying Titum.
• Marcus ipsum vīdit. “Marcus saw the man himself / the person themself” (if ipsum = masc. acc. sg.) or “Marcus saw the thing itself” (if ipsum = neut. acc. sg.)
  • ipsum functions as an intensive pronoun that emphasizes a different entity other than Marcus, the subject. Even if you consider ipsum masculine singular, it cannot reflect the action of vīdit back at Marcus. For that, you’d need the reflexive:
• Marcus sē vīdit. “Marcus saw himself.”
  • sē, a reflexive pronoun, indicates that the object of vīdit is the same person as the subject (i.e., Marcus).

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