that

{{Short description|Word used in English language for several purposes}}

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 {{Lang|ang|þe}}. Once it came into being, it was spelt as {{Lang|ang|þæt}} (among others, such as {{Lang|ang|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 a strong form, {{IPAc-en|ð|æ|t|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-that.wav}} and a weak form, {{IPAc-en|ð|ə|t|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-that.wav}}.

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."{{sfn|Cheshire|1995|p=370}} That can be used as a demonstrative pronoun,

demonstrative adjective,

conjunction,

relative word,

and an intensifier.{{sfn|Cheshire|1995|p=370}}

That as a demonstrative pronoun refers to a specific object being discussed, such as in "that is a cat";{{sfn|Weinstein|1974|p=180}} 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).{{sfn|Pavesi|2013|p=105}}
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.{{sfn|Reimer|1991|pp=194–195, 201}}
In its usage as a conjunction, it connects clauses together, such as in "I know that Peter is right".{{sfn|Mańczak|1973|p=58}} In sentences with several clauses, that is also used as a discriminator to differentiate between subjects of a clause.{{sfn|Otsu|2002b|p=226}}
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,{{sfn|Sonoda|2004|p=1}} while writing that is increasingly formal—ranging from verse to fiction to nonfiction—finds that usage decreasing as wh- words (interrogatives) relatively increase.{{sfn|Van den Eynden Morpeth|1999|p=121}}
That is used as a relative adverb, such as in "it doesn't cost that much".{{sfn|Cheshire|1995|p=378}} When used in this way, that requires inferences be drawn by the listener to determine the meaning of the speaker.{{sfn|Cheshire|1995|p=378}}
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."{{sfn|Cheshire|1995|p=378}} 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.{{sfn|Cheshire|1995|p=378}} 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.{{sfn|Cheshire|1995|p=378}}

Historical usage

File:The Book of Margery Kempe, Chapter 18 (clip).png]]

File:Shakespeare-Tomb-Stratford.jpg]]

In Old English, that did not exist, and was only represented by {{Lang|ang|þe}} (the).{{sfn|Suárez|2012|p=80}}{{efn|The Th (digraph) was written using the letter thorn, {{angbr|þ}}.}} 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.{{sfn|Cheshire|Adger|Fox|2013}} Before the writings of Ælfric of Eynsham, {{Lang|ang|þæt}} was normally regularized as {{Lang|ang|þe}} in writing, but by the time Ælfric lived, {{Lang|ang|þæt}} was common.{{sfn|Morris|1868|p=ix}} As a pronoun, {{Lang|ang|þæt}} was widely used in Old English, though it was later replaced by wh- words.{{sfn|Suárez|2012|p=80}} Where {{Lang|ang|þe}} had only stood in for subjects of a clause, {{Lang|ang|þæt}} instead took on the role of both a subject and an object,{{sfn|Suárez|2012|p=89}} and when {{Lang|ang|þe}} and {{Lang|ang|þæt}} were both used, {{Lang|ang|þæt}} was always relative in orientation.{{sfn|Seppänen|2004|p=73}}

The symbol {{angbr|ꝥ}} (OE thaet.png, Thorn with stroke or 'barred thorn') was used as an abbreviation, before it was phased out by the Romantic {{char|þͭ}} (File:Middle English that.svg).{{sfn|Honkapohja|2019|pp=60–61}}{{efn|A letter thorn 'crowned' with a letter t, {{unichar|00FE}} + {{unichar|036D|cwith=◌}} }} During the latter Middle English and Early Modern English periods, thorn, in its common script or cursive, form, came to resemble a y shape. With the arrival of movable type printing, the substitution of {{angbr|y}} for {{angbr|Þ}} became ubiquitous, leading to the common ye, as in 'Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe'.{{efn|One major reason for this was that {{angbr|y}} existed in the printer's types that William Caxton and his contemporaries imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, while {{angbr|Þ}} did not.{{cite book |title=The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System |isbn=9780367581565 |chapter=Chapter 25: Typography and the printed English text |first=Will |last=Hill |date=30 June 2020 |chapter-url=https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |page=6 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |quote=The types used by Caxton and his contemporaries originated in Holland and Belgium, and did not provide for the continuing use of elements of the Old English alphabet such as thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, and yogh <ʒ>. The substitution of visually similar typographic forms has led to some anomalies which persist to this day in the reprinting of archaic texts and the spelling of regional words. The widely misunderstood ‘ye’ occurs through a habit of printer’s usage that originates in Caxton’s time, when printers would substitute the (often accompanied by a superscript ) in place of the thorn <þ> or the eth <ð>, both of which were used to denote both the voiced and non-voiced sounds, /ð/ and /θ/ (Anderson, D. (1969) The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p 169) |access-date=7 July 2022 |archive-date=10 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710022857/https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf |url-status=dead }}}} Thus {{angbr|yͭ}} replaced {{angbr|þͭ}} as the ligature to represent that,{{sfn|Sutherland|2020|p=vii}} as seen in the gravestone of William Shakespeare: "{{Lang|en-emodeng|Bleste be yͤ man yͭ spares thes stones}}".{{sfn|Bovilsky|2011|p=292}} In Middle English, {{Lang|ang|þe}} was entirely replaced by {{Lang|enm|þat}} (among other representations), before again being replaced by the modern that.{{sfn|Suárez|2012|p=80}} Among all relative markers in the English language, including who, which, whose, and what, that—through its ancient form of {{Lang|ang|þæt}}—appears to be the oldest.{{sfn|Cheshire|Adger|Fox|2013}}

In Old English translations of Latin (but only sparsely in original Old English texts), the phrase {{Lang|ang|þæt an}} is frequently used—typically meaning "only"—but its origins and characteristics are not well-understood.{{sfn|Rissanen|1967|p=409}} Frequently, the construction of {{Lang|ang|þæt an}} was in the original Latin, which referred then to a following clause.{{sfn|Rissanen|1967|p=412}} The use of {{Lang|ang|þæt an}} 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.{{sfn|Rissanen|1967|p=425}} In these texts, {{Lang|ang|þæt}} seems to be used pleonastically (redundantly), and it began to be used as an independent adverb.{{sfn|Rissanen|1967|p=417}} In the context of weather events, {{Lang|ang|þæt}} was never used, such as in the example sentence {{Lang|ang|þæt rigneð}} (translated as "that rains").{{sfn|Naya|1995|p=28}}

Similarly, for several centuries in Old English and early Middle English texts, the phrase {{Lang|ang|onmang þæt}} (translated as "among that") persisted.{{sfn|Nykiel|2018|pp=575, 586}} In the hundreds of years of its existence, it was used infrequently, though the usage was stable.{{sfn|Nykiel|2018|p=575}} Even in Old English, usage of {{Lang|ang|hwile}} ("while") was much more commonplace, with its frequency some six times as large as {{Lang|ang|onmang þæt}} in a surveyed corpus.{{sfn|Nykiel|2018|p=586}} {{Lang|ang|Onmang þæt}} experienced grammaticalisation (turning a word into a grammatical marker),{{sfn|Nykiel|2018|p=586}} and as a result of its low usage, possibly underwent a period of specialization, where it competed with other grammaticalised phrases.{{sfn|Nykiel|2018|p=588}}

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.{{sfn|Otsu|2002a|p=225}} This construction—as in "I suspect (that) he is right"—is called the zero form when that is not used.{{sfn|Otsu|2002a|p=225}} 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.{{sfn|Otsu|2002a|pp=225–226}} 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.{{sfn|Otsu|2002a|p=227}} The zero form was common in documents closely relating to speech, such as sermons, suggesting spoken English often omitted that in these contexts.{{sfn|Otsu|2002a|p=232}}

Pronunciation

That is pronounced either as {{IPAc-en|ð|æ|t|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-that.wav}} (strong form) or {{IPAc-en|ð|ə|t|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-that.wav}} (weak form) according to its grammatical role, with one as a demonstrative and the other as an anaphoric (referencing adverb).{{sfn|Poussa|1997|p=691}} In this way, the strong form represents a determining pronoun (such as in "what is that?"), while the weak form is a subordinating word (as in "I think that it's a mistake").{{sfn|Cornish|2018|p=438}}

The pronunciation of the voiced dental fricative {{IPA|/ð/}} may vary, such as being stopped in Cameroonian English, resulting in a pronunciation of {{IPA|[dat]}}.{{sfn|Ngefac|2005|p=44}}

References

Notes

=Citations=

=Works cited=

{{cite journal |last1=Bovilsky |first1=Lara |title=Early modern ecostudies: From the Florentine Codex to Shakespeare (review) |journal=Shakespeare Quarterly |date=2011 |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=292–295 |doi=10.1353/shq.2011.0017|s2cid=191566397 }}
{{cite journal |last1=Cheshire |first1=Jenny |title=That jacksprat: An interactional perspective on English that |journal=Journal of Pragmatics |date=March 1995 |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=369–393|doi=10.1016/0378-2166(95)00032-1 }}
{{cite journal |last1=Cheshire |first1=Jenny |last2=Adger |first2=David |last3=Fox |first3=Sue |title=Relative who and the actuation problem |journal=Lingua |date=March 2013 |volume=126 |pages=51–77 |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2012.11.014}}
{{cite journal |last1=Cornish |first1=Francis |title=Revisiting the system of English relative clauses: Structure, semantics, discourse functionality |journal=English Language and Linguistics |date=November 2018 |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=431–456 |doi=10.1017/S136067431700003X|s2cid=125481529 |url=https://hal-univ-tlse2.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01923355/file/Final%20corrected%20vsn%20of%20English%20Relatives.pdf }}
{{cite book |last1=Honkapohja |first1=Alpo |editor1-last=Stenroos |editor1-first=Merja |editor2-last=Mäkinen |editor2-first=Martti |editor3-last=Thengs |editor3-first=Kjetil Vikhamar |editor4-last=Traxel |editor4-first=Oliver Martin |title=Current explorations in Middle English |date=2019 |publisher=Peter Lang |location=Berlin |isbn=9783631784730 |chapter=Anchorites and abbreviations: A corpus study of abbreviations of Germanic and Romance lexicon in the Ancrene Wisse}}
{{cite journal |last1=Mańczak |first1=Witold |title=The use and omission of the conjunction that |journal=Linguistics |date=1973 |volume=11 |issue=95 |pages=51–58|doi=10.1515/ling.1973.11.95.51 |s2cid=144204069 }}
{{cite book |last1=Morris |first1=Richard |title=Old English homilies and homiletic treatises (Sawles Warde, and þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd: Ureisuns of Ure Louerd and of Ure Lefdi, &c.) of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries |date=1868 |publisher=Early English Text Society |location=London}}
{{cite journal |last1=Naya |first1=Belén Méndez |title='Hit' AND 'ðæt' anticipating subject clauses in OE: True syntactic equivalents? |journal=Neuphilologische Mitteilungen |date=1995 |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=23–37 |jstor=43346052 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43346052 |issn=0028-3754}}
{{cite journal |last1=Ngefac |first1=Aloysius |title=Homophones and heterophones in Cameroon English |journal=Alizés: Revue angliciste de la Réunion |date=2005 |pages=39–53}}
{{cite journal |last1=Nykiel |first1=Jerzy |title=Onmang Þaet – Incipient grammaticalisation in Old and Middle English |journal=Transactions of the Philological Society |date=November 2018 |volume=116 |issue=3 |pages=574–593 |doi=10.1111/1467-968X.12140|s2cid=149971418 }}
{{cite journal |last1=Pavesi |first1=Maria |title=This and that in the language of film dubbing: A corpus-based analysis |journal=Meta: Journal des traducteurs |date=2013 |volume=58 |issue=1 |pages=103–133 |doi=10.7202/1023812ar|doi-access= }}
{{cite journal |last1=Reimer |first1=Marga |title=Demonstratives, demonstrations, and demonstrata |journal=Philosophical Studies|date=1991 |volume=63 |issue=2 |pages=187–202 |doi=10.1007/BF00381687 |jstor=4320229 |s2cid=170148319 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4320229 |issn=0031-8116|url-access=subscription }}
{{cite journal |last1=Rissanen |first1=Matti |title=Old English þæt an 'only' |journal=Neuphilologische Mitteilungen |date=1967 |volume=68 |issue=4 |pages=409–428 |jstor=43342366 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43342366 |issn=0028-3754}}
{{cite journal |last1=Seppänen |first1=Aimo |title=The Old English relative þe |journal=English Language and Linguistics |date=May 2004 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=71–102 |doi=10.1017/S136067430400125X|s2cid=122524683 }}
{{cite journal |last1=Sonoda |first1=Kenji |title=The restrictive relative pronouns that and which in BrE |journal=Bulletin of the School of Allied Medical Sciences Nagasaki University |date=2004 |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=1–4}}
{{cite journal |last1=Suárez |first1=Cristina |title=The consolidation of þat as an invariable relativizer in the history of English |journal=Nordic Journal of English Studies |date=1 January 2012 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=79–107 |doi=10.35360/njes.256|doi-access=free }}
{{cite thesis |last=Sutherland |first=Kristina Regan |title=Conduct and carnival: Domestic soft power in early modern comedies |date=2020 |type=PhD |publisher=University of Georgia}}
{{cite book |last1=Otsu |first1=Norihiko |editor1-last=Saito |editor1-first=Toshio |editor2-last=Nakamura |editor2-first=Junsaku |editor3-last=Yamazaki |editor3-first=Shunji |title=English corpus linguistics in Japan |date=2002a |publisher=Rodopi |location=Amsterdam |isbn=9789042013698 |chapter=On the absence of the conjunction that in late Middle English}}
{{cite journal |last1=Otsu |first1=Norihiko |title=On the presence or absence of the conjunction þæt in Old English, with special reference to dependent sentences containing a gif-clause |journal=English Language and Linguistics |date=November 2002b |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=225–238 |doi=10.1017/S1360674302000217|s2cid=120420972 }}
{{cite book |last1=Poussa |first1=Patricia |editor1-last=Hickey |editor1-first=Raymond |editor2-last=Puppel |editor2-first=Stanislav |title=Language history and linguistic modelling |date=1997 |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |location=Berlin |chapter=Derivation of it from Þat in eastern dialects of British English}}
{{cite book |last1=Van den Eynden Morpeth |first1=Nadine |editor1-last=Tops |editor1-first=Guy A.J. |editor2-last=Devriendt |editor2-first=Betty |editor3-last=Geukens |editor3-first=Steven |title=Thinking English Grammar To Honour Xavier Dekeyser, Professor Emeritus |date=1999 |publisher=Peeters |isbn=9789042907638 |chapter=Jack Sprat that and the humble wh- relatives: Reconstructing social contexts by means of commercial CD-ROMS}}
{{cite journal |last1=Weinstein |first1=Scott |title=Truth and demonstratives |journal=Noûs |date=1974 |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=179–184 |doi=10.2307/2214785 |jstor=2214785 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2214785 |issn=0029-4624|url-access=subscription }}

Category:English grammar

Category:English words

Category:Declarative subordinators