demonstracyjne

Demonstracyjne is a term used in Polish grammar to describe words that reference or point to entities in discourse. As an adjective, it signals demonstrative meaning, indicating which person or thing is being discussed, often including information about proximity to the speaker or emphasis in discourse. The word can also appear in the broader umbrella of deictic expressions, which anchor meaning to the speaker’s context.

In Polish, demonstracyjne belongs to the class of demonstratives, functioning as both a przymiotnik demonstracyjny (demonstrative adjective) and a zaimek demonstracyjny (demonstrative pronoun). Demonstratives agree with the noun in gender, number, and case when used as adjectives, and can replace nouns when used as pronouns. Typical forms in singular include near forms such as ten (masculine), ta (feminine), to (neuter), while plural forms include ci and te for masculine and feminine/neuter, with corresponding case endings in usage.

Common examples illustrate its function: ten dom (this house), ta książka (this book), to auto (this car). Plural near forms appear in te domy (these houses) or ci ludzie (these people). Distal forms, such as tamten dom (that house), express greater distance. The demonstracyjne category thus helps encode reference and spatial or discourse-related distance within sentences.

Beyond Polish, demonstratives are a cross-linguistic category, with languages varying in how many terms they provide and how they encode distance, number, and gender. In Polish grammar, demonstracyjne words are central to linking discourse to the referents they describe.