From demonstratives to articles in the Celtic languages

What is it about?

Medieval Insular Celtic languages possess definite articles, unlike their ancient Continental counterparts, which lack them. Since the 19th century, scholars have hypothesized that these articles in Insular Celtic languages evolved from earlier demonstratives. This grammaticalization process likely followed the path from demonstrative to definite article. However, systematic surveys of ancient Celtic data to understand this process have been lacking. This study aims to fill that gap by analyzing noun phrases in ancient Celtic languages featuring demonstratives to identify article-like uses and comparing them with medieval Celtic articles, especially in Old Irish. Findings reveal that ancient Celtic demonstratives often function similarly to articles in medieval languages, acting as pronouns and determiners that agree in gender, number, and case with nouns. In Celtiberian, so- and stodemonstratives appear in noun phrases with deictic and anaphoric referents. In Gaulish, so- demonstratives are used for deictic referents, while sindo- is used for anaphoric ones. Demonstratives are not used with semantically defined referents. The grammaticalization process aligns with Dryer’s (2014) hierarchy and, despite limited ancient documentation, confirms the evolution from demonstrative to definite article.

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Why is it important?

This study aims analyzes noun phrases in ancient Celtic languages featuring demonstratives to identify article-like uses and comparing them with medieval Celtic articles, especially in Old Irish.

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