Abstract

Demonstratives constitute a class of linguistic expressions that seems to exist in all languages across the world. This article describes the form, function, and meaning of demonstratives and discusses their frequent development into grammatical markers. Across languages, demonstratives are commonly reanalyzed as definite articles, relative and third-person pronouns, sentence connectives, complementizers, copulas, and many other grammatical markers. This article provides an overview of the grammaticalization pathways that originate from demonstratives and considers their evolution and status in language.

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