That Awful Mrs. Eaton!

''That'' is an English language word used for several grammatical purposes. These include use as an adjective, conjunction, pronoun, adverb, and intensifier; it has distance from the speaker, as opposed to words like ''this''. The word did not originally exist in Old English, and its concept was represented by '. Once it came into being, it was spelt as (among others, such as ''þet''), taking the role of the modern ''that''. It also took on the role of the modern word ''what'', though this has since changed, and ''that'' has recently replaced some usage of the modern ''which''. Pronunciation of the word varies according to its role within a sentence, with two main varieties (a strong and a weak form), though there are also regional differences, such as where the sound is substituted instead by a in English spoken in Cameroon.

Modern usage

The word ''that'' serves several grammatical purposes. Owing to its wide versatility in usage, the writer Joseph Addison named it "that jacksprat" in 1771, and gave this example of a grammatically correct sentence: "That that I say is this: that that that that gentleman has advanced, is not that, that he should have proved." ''That'' can be used as a demonstrative pronoun,
demonstrative adjective,
conjunction,
relative pronoun,
relative adverb,
and an intensifier.

*''That'' as a demonstrative pronoun refers to a specific object being discussed, such as in "that is a cat"; the word is a distal demonstrative pronoun, as opposed to proximal, because there is distance between the speaker and the object being discussed (as opposed to words such as ''this'', where there is a relative sense of closeness).
*When used as a demonstrative adjective, ''that'' describes which specific object is being discussed; for example, in the phrase "that spotted dog is Fido", ''that'' specifies which particular dog is Fido among all spotted dogs.
*In its usage as a conjunction, it connects clauses together, such as in "I know that Peter is right". In sentences with several clauses, ''that'' is also used as a discriminator to differentiate between subjects of a clause.
*As a relative pronoun, ''that'' introduces restrictive clauses, such as in "the different factors that are fundamental and specific to particular features"; in a study of medical science journals in Britain leading up to 2004, it was found that ''that'' had been largely replaced by the word ''which'' when used in this context, while writing that is increasingly formal—ranging from verse to fiction to nonfiction—finds ''that'' usage decreasing as ''wh-'' words ( interrogatives) relatively increase.
*''That'' is used as a relative adverb, such as in "it doesn't cost that much". When used in this way, ''that'' requires inferences be drawn by the listener to determine the meaning of the speaker.
*The word also intensifies elements of a sentence, similar in function to the word ''so'', such as when one says "I was that ill ... I couldn't even stand up." But just as in its use as a relative adverb, ''that'' as an intensifier is best understood when the addressee infers meaning from its usage. In the example given, ''that'' intensifies and refers to a possible view already held by the addressee (whether the speaker was not seriously ill), even though the speaker does not explicitly confirm or intensify this previously-held belief.

Historical usage

In Old English, ''that'' did not exist, and was only represented by '. It originated in the north of England sometime before the 1200s and spread around the country in the thirteenth century; it then rapidly became the dominant demonstrative pronoun. Before the writings of Ælfric of Eynsham, ' was normally regularized as ' in writing, but by the time Ælfric lived, ' was common. As a pronoun, was widely used in Old English, though it was later replaced by ''wh-'' words. Where ' had only stood in for subjects of a clause, instead took on the role of both a subject and an object, and when ' and were both used, was always relative in orientation. The symbol ''ꝥ'' () was used as an abbreviation, before it was phased out by the Romantic ''þ^t''. Similarly, ''yͭ'' was a ligature to represent ''that'', as seen in the gravestone of William Shakespeare: "". In Middle English, ' was entirely replaced by (among other representations), before again being replaced by the modern ''that''. Among all relative markers in the English language, including '' who'', ''which'', ''whose'', and ''what'', ''that''—through its ancient form of '—appears to be the oldest.

In Old English translations of Latin (but only sparsely in original Old English texts), the phrase ' is frequently used—typically meaning "only"—but its origins and characteristics are not well-understood. Frequently, the construction of ' was in the original Latin, which referred then to a following clause. The use of ' was for cases in which there was exclusivity (to distinguish between general and specific objects), but translators also used it in situations where exclusivity was already given through other syntactical elements of the sentence. In these texts, seems to be used pleonastically (redundantly), and it began to be used as an independent adverb. In the context of weather events, was never used, such as in the example sentence ' (translated as "that rains").

Similarly, for several centuries in Old English and early Middle English texts, the phrase (translated as "among that") persisted. In the hundreds of years of its existence, it was used infrequently, though the usage was stable. Even in Old English, usage of ' ("while") was much more commonplace, with its frequency some six times as large as in a surveyed corpus. experienced grammaticalisation (turning a word into a grammatical marker), and as a result of its low usage, possibly underwent a period of specialization, where it competed with other grammaticalised phrases.

After verbs such as ''said'', and more generally in introducing a dependent clause, contemporary English grammar allows the speaker to either include ''that'' or to omit it. This construction—as in "I suspect (that) he is right"—is called the zero form when ''that'' is not used. While there has been some analysis of the relative frequency of Old and Middle English usage of the zero form, these studies are of limited value, since they rely on unique text corpora, failing to give a general view of its usage. In the late period of Middle English, the linguist Norihiko Otsu determined, the zero form was generally as popular as the form in which ''that'' is included. The zero form was common in documents closely relating to speech, such as sermons, suggesting spoken English often omitted ''that'' in these contexts.

Pronunciation

''That'' has several pronunciations. While in received pronunciation, it is pronounced either as or , in Cameroonian English, for example, the is alveolarised as , resulting in a pronunciation of . The weak and strong forms (the two of received pronunciation) of ''that'' vary according to their grammatical roles, with one as a demonstrative and the other as an anaphoric (referencing adverb). In this way, represents a determining pronoun (such as in "what is that?"), while is a subordinating word (as in "that is as it should be").

See also

* Dependent statement
* Deixis

References

Citations

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External links

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English grammar
English words