An English Grammar

by William Malone Baskervill; James Witt Sewell

INFLECTIONS OF ADJECTIVES.

153 .Adjectives have two inflections,—number and comparison.

NUMBER.—This, That.

History of this—these and that—those.

154. The only adjectives having a plural form are this and that (plural these, those).

This is the old demonstrative; that being borrowed from the forms of the definite article, which was fully inflected in Old English. The article that was used with neuter nouns.

In Middle English the plural of this was this or thise, which changed its spelling to the modern form these.

Those borrowed from this.

But this had also another plural, thās (modern those). The old plural of that was tha (Middle English tho or thow): consequently tho (plural of that) and those (plural of this) became confused, and it was forgotten that those was really the plural of this; and in Modern English we speak of these as the plural of this, and those as the plural of that.