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Give yourself a pat on the back if you have gone through and understood all the lessons on Twi pronouns thus far. We have looked at:
Now, let’s look at demonstrative pronouns in Twi.
What is a Demonstrative Pronoun?
A demonstrative pronoun is a pronoun that is used to point to something specific in a sentence. The most popular demonstrative pronouns there are in English are this, that, these, those.
Important Note
It is very important that you don’t confuse demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative adjectives/determiners. While the same set of words are used for both, demonstrative adjectives are used to modify nouns, while demonstrative pronouns replace nouns.
Let’s differentiate between them with some examples
| DEMONSTRATIVE ADJECTIVES | DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS |
| this car is expensive | this is expensive |
| those books are mine | those are mine |
| Kofi gave her that ring | Kofi gave her that |
As you can see from the examples above, demonstrative adjectives in English are directly followed by the nouns they modify, while demonstrative pronouns, having replaced nouns, stand on their own.
Twi Demonstrative Pronouns
| TWI | ENGLISH |
| yei | this |
| yeinom | these |
| (É›)no | that |
| ɛnonom | those |
Usage Examples
| TWI | ENGLISH |
| mepÉ› yei | I want/like this |
| yei ne m’akoma so adeɛ | this is my heart’s desire |
| ɔtɔnn yeinom nyinaa | he/she sold all these |
| yeinom nyinaa yÉ› ne dea | all these are his/hers |
| *ɛno na mepɛ | that is what I like; it is that which I like |
| *ɛnyɛ ɛno ne no? | isn’t that it? (lit: is it not that is (which is) it?) |
| ɛnonom yɛ dɛ kyɛn yeinom | those are delicious than these |
| pam ɛnonom | sew those |
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