Talk:That#Let's blow up the "Modern usage" section and start over

Like I said before, "that" is a very common word in the English language. Does anybody knows the question, "Is "that" a very common word?" ExpandD2003 (talk) 10:09, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

{{Did you know nominations/That}}

The opening paragraph states: "it has proximal distance from the speaker", which seems mistaken to me. Later under Modern Usage, "the word is a distal demonstrative pronoun, as opposed to proximal" Shouldn't the first phrase read distal, if anything? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tsawangdorje (talk • contribs) 03:00, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

:Changed; the word was used colloquially. Urve (talk) 03:23, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

This article currently says in Wikipedia's voice: "That can be used as a demonstrative pronoun, demonstrative adjective, conjunction, relative word, and an intensifier", attributing this syntactic gobbledigook to a paper whose relevant part actually reads:

:Arthur Sefton, writing over two hundred years [after Joseph Addison], accepts that as a relative pronoun but instead objects to its use as an intensifier. He constructs sentence (2) to illustrate what he considers the 'legitimate' uses of that, as a demonstrative pronoun, demonstrative adjective, conjunction, relative pronoun and 'relative adverb' (the first that in his sentence).

::(2) On the day that I came, I saw that that that that man did was wrong. (1984, Times Education Supplement)

:The 'illegitimate' use of that, as an intensifier, occurs in expressions such as it's not that important: this use detracts, Sefton claims, from the two essential functions of that, which are 'to join and to demonstrate'. It is interesting that both these authors [sc Joseph Addison and Arthur Sefton] were as secure in their convictions as they were wrong on their facts: that as a relativizer predates the use of the wh- pronouns, and that as an intensifier has essentially the same function as when it is a demonstrative or a conjunction, as this paper will show. [my emphasis]

Blithely ignoring the fact that it's citing as some sort of linguistics insight what was apparently written in an unidentified issue of the TLS by one Arthur Sefton (who he?) and debunked in the very paper it cites, our Wikipedia article takes seriously Sefton's analysis for its section "Modern usage".

When I write above of syntactic gobbledigook, I mean that the analysis is to what is argued for (and not just proclaimed) in a good reference grammar (such as The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language) rather as a phrenological account of some psychological tendency is to what you'd find about the matter in a recent psychology text.

I propose not to improve the "Modern usage" section of this article but to delete it and start it again from scratch. OK? -- Hoary (talk) 00:22, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

"it has distance from the speaker, as opposed to words like this." So, what is the reference for this unreferenced text. I hope people can help this problem to understand the usage of "that" in many ways over "this". Also people can find some reliable reference to support this text. @Hoary 182.253.250.211 (talk) 19:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

:The article says {{Blue|that}} "that has distance from the speaker, as opposed to words like this". The first ({{Blue|blue}}) that in the previous sentence is a subordinator and has nothing to do with distance. (If you remove it, the meaning of the sentence is unchanged.) In "I can hardly believe he was that stupid", that is a determinative and has no meaning of distance. In "What lovely cakes! You take that one and I'll take this one", that is a determinative and its meaning is related to distance. Here, it's what's termed a distal expression; as opposed to this, which is termed proximal. (See "Distal and proximal demonstratives".) Do you want a reference for the contrast between distal that and proximal this? -- Hoary (talk) 23:39, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

:It's referenced under the "Modern usage" section. An article lead doesn't need to contain citations if it's summarizing text lower down. — W.andrea (talk) 16:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

::@W.andrea how you can find the fact which the word "that" has more purpose compared to word "this"? 182.253.54.72 (talk) 02:27, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

:::Not purpose; distance. See the paragraph starting with "That as a demonstrative pronoun ...". — W.andrea (talk) 02:33, 26 December 2024 (UTC)