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Article published In: From and Towards Demonstratives: Grammaticalization processes and beyond
Edited by Veronica Orqueda and Berta González Saavedra
[Journal of Historical Linguistics 15:2] 2025
► pp. 343–362

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From demonstratives to articles in the Celtic languages

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Complutense de Madrid
ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Published online: 26 May 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.24033.luj
Abstract
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 sto- demonstratives 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, Matthew. 2014. Competing methods for uncovering linguistic diversity. The case of definite and indefinite articles (Commentary on Davis, Gillon, and Matthewson), Language 90.41: 232–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar hierarchy and, despite limited ancient documentation, confirms the evolution from demonstrative to definite article.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical standpoints
  • 3.Demonstratives in ancient Celtic languages
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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