are but two in English, this and that, with their plural forms, these and those. To them, American adds a third, them, which is also the personal pronoun of the third person, objective case.[1] In addition it has adopted certain adverbial pronouns, this-here, these-here, that-there, those-there and them-there, and set up inflections of the original demonstratives by analogy with mine, hisn and yourn, to wit, thisn, thesen, thatn and thosen. I present some examples of everyday use:
Them are the kind I like.
Them men all work here.
Who is this-here Smith I hear about?
These-here are mine.
That-there medicine ain't no good.
Those-there wops has all took to the woods.
I wisht I had one of them-there Fords.
Thisn is better'n thatn.
I like thesen better'n thosen.
The origin of the demonstratives of the thisn-group is plain: they are degenerate forms of this-one, that-one, etc., just as none is a degenerate composition form of no(t)-one. In every case of their use that I have observed the simple demonstratives might have been set free and one actually substituted for the terminal n. But it must be equally obvious that they have been reinforced very greatly by the absolutes of the hisn-group, for in their relation to the original demonstratives they play the part of just such absolutes and are never used conjointly. Thus, one says, in American, "I take thisn" or "thisn is mine," but one never says "I take thisn hat" or "thisn dog is mine." In this conjoint situation plain this is always used, and the same rule 39
- ↑ It occurs, too, of course, in other dialects of English, though by no means in all. The Irish influence probably had something to do with its prosperity in vulgar American. At all events, the Irish use it in the American manner. Joyce, in English As We Speak It in Ireland, pp. 34-5, argues that this usage was suggested by Gaelic. In Gaelic the accusative pronouns, e, i and iad (=him, her and them) are often used in place of the nominatives, se, si and siad (= he, she and they), as in "is iad sin na buachaillidhe" ( = them are the boys) . This is "good grammar" in Gaelic, and the Irish, when they began to learn English, translated the locution literally. The familiar Irish "John is dead and him always so hearty" shows the same influence.
