Demonstratives 912 DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNSa A demonstrative pronoun followed by deis used in French in examples like the following: mon
chien et celui de mon frère, where English would have ‘my dog and my brother’s’ (= the one of
my brother).
b The forms celui-ci/ceux-ci/celle(s)-ci andcelui-là/ceux-là/celle(s)-làare used to distinguish
between ‘this one/these ones’ and ‘that one/those ones’, respectively. Such a distinction is
mainly restricted to formal French.
e.g. Quel modèle préférez-vous – celui-ci ou celui-là?
c The pronoun forms with -cimay also be used to mean ‘the latter’ and the forms with -làto
mean ‘the former’, e.g. J’ai parlé à Marie et à sa mère; celle-ci m’a invité à dîner demain soir.
Here celle-cirefers to the nearestfeminine noun, sa mère, and hence translates into English as
‘the latter’.
d The neutral pronouns ceciand cela/çado not mean ‘this’ and ‘that’, respectively. Celaand ça
may be translated as either‘this’ or‘that’, and are far more common than ceci, which is only
used to refer forwardto something not yet mentioned.
e.g. Je vais vous dire ceci: ne faites pas attention à lui
e The distinction between celaand çais one of register, not of meaning. Celais the norm in
careful written French. The contracted form çais characteristic of the spoken language and of
informal written French.
f The neutral pronoun ce(eliding to c’before a vowel) is used with the verb être. It is also found
in literary usage in the phrases ce disantand ce faisantinstead of disant cela, faisant cela.
See for further information: Coffman Crocker, pp. 58–9, 270–2
Ferrar, pp. 211–15
Hawkins and Towell, pp. 43–4, 83–4
Judge and Healey, pp. 36–8, 76–82
L’Huillier, pp. 350–3, 538–49
Price, pp. 163–70
Turk and Vandaele, pp. 48–52
EXERCISES1 Fill in the gaps in the following sentences with the appropriate demonstrative pronoun or
adjective.
a Cette chambre-ci ne me plaît pas. Je préfère __.
b Ne lui posez pas de questions. Elle n’aime pas ____.
c J’ai demandé à tous _____ qui habitent dans immeuble, mais personne ne l’a vu.
d Tout __ est vraiment très impressionnant.