Sornicola, Rosanna. 2011. Per la storia dei dimostrativi romanzi: i tipi neutri [tso], [so], [ço], [tʃo] e la diacronia dei dimostrativi latini.Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 127. 1–80. §2.1.2.
This demonstrative determiner/pronoun is used to refer to a person or thing, or persons or things, away from both speaker and listener. It contrasts withhic(“this”), which refers to people or things near the speaker, andiste(“this/that”), which refers to people or things near the listener.
As Latin had no person pronouns specifically meaning "he", "she" or "it", any ofille,iste,hic or (most frequently)is could assume that function. In Vulgar latin,ille weakened its meaning and frequently came to mean merely "the" (as a determiner) or "he/she/it" (as a pronoun). This is in fact the origin ofFrenchle(“the”) andil(“he”),Spanishel(“the”) andél(“he”), etc. The original meaning of a far demonstrative was maintained when augmented withecce oreccum, cf.Italianquello,Spanishaquel,Old Frenchcel.
In Classical usage,ille can have a secondary, appreciative function of casting the referent in a positive light:ille homō can mean "that (famous/renowned) man". The opposite, pejorative function is assumed byiste, andiste homō frequently means "that (no good) man". Such functions were not present in Vulgar Latin, andiste came to mean "this" (cf.Spanisheste,Portugueseeste).
Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894),Latin Phrase-Book[1], London:Macmillan and Co.
Pericles, the greatest man of his day:Pericles summus vir illius aetatis
a man of considerable learning for those times:vir ut temporibus illis doctus
hence these tears; there's the rub:hinc illae lacrimae (proverb.) (Ter. And. 1. 1. 99; Cael. 25. 61)
what will become of him:quid illo fiet?
I console myself with..:hoc (illo) solacio me consōlor
the memory of this will never fade from my mind:numquam ex animo meo memoria illius rei discedet
for a Roman he is decidedly well educated:sunt in illo, ut in homine Romano, multae litterae (De Sen. 4. 12)
those views are out of date:illae sententiae evanuerunt
those ideas have long ago been given up:illae sententiae iam pridem explosae et eiectae sunt (Fin. 5. 8. 23)
Solon, one of the seven sages:Solo, unus de septem (illis)
he possesses sound judgment in matters of taste:elegantia in illo est
there is a flavour of Atticism about his discourse:ex illius orationibus ipsae Athenae redolent
that Greek proverb contains an excellent lesson:bene illo Graecorum proverbio praecipitur
my relations with him are most hospitable:mihi cum illo hospitium est, intercedit
the aristocracy (as a party in politics):boni cives, optimi, optimates, also simplyboni (opp.improbi);illi, qui optimatium causam agunt
this much he said:haec (quidem) ille
this passage is obscure:hic (ille) locus obscurus est
(ambiguous) I console myself with..:haec (illa) res me consolatur
(ambiguous) Plato's ideal republic:illa civitas Platonis commenticia
(ambiguous) Plato's ideal republic:illa civitas, quam Plato finxit
Sihler, Andrew L. (1995),New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press,→ISBN
De Vaan, Michiel (2008),Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill,→ISBN,page298
