# onen vs. ten



## shimon

in the small book I'm studying the author (1949, Arturo Cronia, a pioneer in slavonik studies in italy) says "onen" occurs less frequently than "ten", because the latter means both "this" and "that". But I feel there must be a difference between these two sentences:   *ten **kupec je velmi bohatý ** / onen kupec je velmi bohatý. *And by the way doesn't the adjective * bohatý *have a short form * bohat*? * * *** *


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## ilocas2

ten kupec je velmi bohatý, onen kupec je velmi bohatý - both sentences mean virtually the same, but "onen kupec" is somewhat old-fashioned.

"bohatý" has a short form "bohat", but again, it is archaic.


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## shimon

thanks for your help


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## werrr

I dare to disagree. The word *onen* is not old-fashioned in the literary register of Czech and it actually has different meaning.
The problem is that it is, apart of a few of constructions, old-fashioned in the lower registers of the language and that a lot of people like to thoughtlessly imitate the literary language by replacing all the demonstratives *ten* with *onen* without paying respect to the difference in meaning.

(It's really interesting that only a few are able to spot the difference between *ten kupec* and *onen kupec* despite everyone's awareness of the difference between *ten svět* and *onen svět*.)

*Ten* is a mere demonstrative which points to a specific object, it corresponds to English pronouns *this (one)* and *that (one)*, or functions as mere definite article.

*Onen* points to an exempted object which in some way stays in opposition to the other objects of the same kind. It corresponds to English expressions like *the one (of)*, *the other/next/latter (one)*, *the one beyond* or even *another (one)*. It is also used to exempt some exceptional (famous, celebrated, legendary, prominent, outstanding…) object, e.g. *onen (slavný) básník* (= the one famous poet).

*Onen* is commonly used in all registers of Czech in the constructions like *ten… a onen* (this one… and that one; the former… the latter) or *to a ono* (one thing and another).

Construction *ten onen* (any; one of many; many a; quite a few, all sorts of…) is common in literary Czech and rare in colloquial Czech. On the other hand, the sub-standard form *ten oný* is quite frequent colloquialism as is the compound *tentononc* (thingummy; gizmo…).



> And by the way doesn't the adjective bohatý have a short form bohat?


All adjectivals have a short form which is actually the basic/original form and the short form of *bohatý* is indeed *bohat*.


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## shimon

thank you werr, your answer is very helpful


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