Formal and Historical Determiner Forms | Catalan Grammar

Catalan legal documents, older literature, and deliberately elevated prose contain forms that are rare in present-day conversation: aital, sengles, hom, ço, llur and ambdós. They do not all belong to the same grammatical class. Some determine a following noun, while others replace an entire noun phrase; reading them correctly depends on knowing both their syntax and their register.

This page uses contemporary Central Catalan as its baseline. Unlabelled alternatives are neutral standard Catalan; (formal), (literary), and (archaic) forms should be used only in the settings indicated. The central insight is that a determiner does more than translate one English word: it locates a noun in the discourse, quantifies it, or links it to an earlier set.

A compact recognition paradigm

Form	Agreement	Function	Usual modern equivalent	Register
aital / aitals	Number only; no gender contrast	“such,” before a noun or standing for a person/thing of that kind	tal / tals, aquest tipus de	(archaic), sometimes (literary)
sengles	Plural-only; one form for both genders	One corresponding item for each member of a previously identified set	un/una ... cadascun/cadascuna	(formal, literary)
hom	Invariable	Indefinite human subject: “one,” “people”	es verb, a generic third-person plural	(formal), (literary)
ço	Invariable neuter pronoun	“that which,” especially in ço que	allò que, el que	(archaic), (literary)
llur / llurs	Agrees in number with the possessed item	Third-person possessive with a plural possessor	el seu / la seva / els seus / les seves	(formal), (literary)
ambdós / ambdues	Masculine/feminine plural	Both members of a pair	tots dos / totes dues	(formal)

The table deliberately separates form from function. The final -es of sengles, for example, does not make it feminine: the same form precedes informes and propostes. Conversely, hom and ço do not modify a following noun at all, despite often appearing in lists of old “determining” words.

Aital: “such” in an older voice

Aital (archaic; literary when revived) corresponds broadly to modern tal. It has one singular form for both genders and the plural aitals: aital decisió, aital comportament, aitals mesures, aitals arguments. It normally precedes the noun because it classifies the referent as being “of that kind.” In present-day prose, tal or aquest tipus de is almost always more natural.

No esperava aital resposta després de tants anys de silenci.

I did not expect such a reply after so many years of silence. (literary)

En aitals circumstàncies, hom difícilment podia actuar d'una altra manera.

In such circumstances, one could hardly have acted otherwise. (literary)

The plural aitals is real agreement, but gender remains unmarked. Do not invent aitala or aitales. Historical texts may show aital beside another demonstrative or article in structures no longer productive. For active modern use, do not imitate that stacking: write aquesta mena de decisió or tal decisió. The determiner stacking page explains productive modern combinations.

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Treat aital primarily as a reading word. Replacing it with tal should leave the basic meaning intact; if it does not, check whether the old text is using aital pronominally rather than before a noun.

Sengles: distribution, not simple plurality

Sengles (formal, literary) assigns one item to each member of a set already available in the discourse. If two researchers submit sengles informes, each researcher submits one report. It has one form for both genders but is restricted to plural noun phrases; it occurs directly before a plural noun, normally without an article or numeral.

Les dues pèrites van adjuntar sengles informes a l'expedient.

The two experts each attached a report to the case file. (formal)

Els finalistes van rebre sengles diplomes en acabar l'acte.

The finalists each received a diploma when the ceremony ended. (formal)

Compare the following minimal pair:

Els dos ponents van presentar sengles propostes.

The two speakers presented one proposal each. (formal; exactly one per speaker)

Els dos ponents van presentar dues propostes.

The two speakers presented two proposals. (The sentence does not say how the proposals were distributed.)

This anaphoric link to a prior set is essential. Sengles is not merely a grander word for “several,” and its resemblance to English single is misleading: sengles carpetes means “one folder each,” not “single folders” in isolation. In neutral speech, say una carpeta cadascun or una carpeta cadascuna.

Hom: an impersonal subject

Hom (formal, literary) is an indefinite human pronoun used as the grammatical subject. It is comparable to formal English “one,” French on, or an English generic “people,” but not to the English noun home. Because it is already the subject, it does not introduce another noun. The verb appears in the third-person singular.

D'aquestes dades, hom en pot deduir que el consum s'ha estabilitzat.

From these data, one can infer that consumption has stabilized. (formal/academic)

Quan hom rellegeix la novel·la, hi descobreix detalls que abans havien passat desapercebuts.

When one rereads the novel, one discovers details that had previously gone unnoticed. (literary)

In ordinary contemporary Catalan, an impersonal construction with es is less conspicuous: D'aquestes dades, es pot deduir... A generic third-person plural is also common: Diuen que demà plourà. Do not attach an article to pronominal hom: l'hom belongs to other historical or nominal analyses, not to this productive formal construction.

Ço: a neuter pronoun, not an article for nouns

Ço (archaic; occasionally literary) refers neutrally to a thing, fact, or content. It survives most recognizably in ço que, “that which/what,” and in the formula ço és, “that is.” It has no feminine or plural forms because it does not identify a gendered count noun.

Ço que més el sorprengué fou el silenci de la sala.

What surprised him most was the silence in the room. (archaic/literary)

El pagament s'efectuarà en dos terminis, ço és, al juny i al setembre.

Payment will be made in two installments, that is, in June and September. (formal, old-fashioned)

Modern alternatives are allò que més el va sorprendre... and és a dir... Do not use ço as if it were Spanish neuter lo before an adjective: modern Catalan uses constructions such as el més important or allò important, depending on meaning.

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Ço que contains a neuter antecedent plus a relative: roughly “that which.” It is not the same item as the demonstratives açò (regional: Valencian), això, and allò. The cedilla and the syntactic distribution both matter.

Llur and ambdós: formal forms that still inflect

Llur and llurs (formal, literary) point back to a plural possessor. Their number follows the thing possessed, not the owners: els autors i llur llibre but els autors i llurs llibres. Like an unstressed possessive, llur normally occurs before the noun without a definite article.

Els hereus van renunciar a llur dret, però van conservar llurs accions de l'empresa.

The heirs waived their right but kept their shares in the company. (formal/legal)

Ambdós and ambdues (formal) mean “both”: ambdós informes and ambdues parts. Neutral Central Catalan usually prefers tots dos informes and totes dues parts. (regional: Valencian; formal AVL usage) invariant ambdós before a feminine plural noun is also admitted, but a Central-baseline text should consistently use ambdues with a feminine noun rather than alternating paradigms without reason.

Ambdues assessores jurídiques van lliurar llurs al·legacions definitives dins el termini.

Both legal advisers submitted their final arguments within the deadline. (formal)

This last sentence shows several kinds of agreement at once: ambdues, assessores, jurídiques, and definitives are feminine plural; llurs is plural because al·legacions is plural, not because there are two advisers.

Position and register create meaning

English places many modifiers before the noun, but Catalan does not copy that order mechanically. These special determinative forms precede the noun because they establish reference or quantity; ordinary descriptive adjectives commonly follow it: sengles informes detallats, ambdues propostes revisades. Moving a descriptive adjective can change focus or produce a literary effect, but it does not license detallats sengles informes.

Register is equally structural. A sentence containing hom, aital, and llur may be grammatical, yet sound intentionally old or institutional. Mixing that voice with highly colloquial wording can be comic unless the contrast is deliberate.

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When modernizing an old sentence, replace the whole noun-phrase strategy, not isolated words: en aitals circumstàncies hom... naturally becomes en aquestes circumstàncies, es..., not a hybrid with one archaic form left behind.

Common Mistakes

1. Treating sengles as “several.”

❌ Durant la setmana vam visitar sengles museus.

Incorrect if the intended meaning is merely ‘several museums’: no prior set licenses the one-each distribution.

✅ Durant la setmana vam visitar diversos museus.

During the week we visited several museums.

2. Making sengles agree in gender.

❌ Les candidates van presentar senglas propostes.

Incorrect — sengles is invariable.

✅ Les candidates van presentar sengles propostes.

The candidates each presented a proposal. (formal)

3. Copying English article distribution with llur.

❌ Els socis van defensar la llur decisió.

Incorrect in the neutral formal pattern taught here — llur normally appears without the article.

✅ Els socis van defensar llur decisió.

The partners defended their decision. (formal)

4. Treating hom as a noun with plural agreement.

❌ Hom consideren que la mesura és insuficient.

Incorrect — impersonal hom takes a third-person singular verb.

✅ Hom considera que la mesura és insuficient.

One considers the measure insufficient. (formal)

5. Inventing gender forms or mixing paradigms.

❌ Aitala norma fou aprovada per ambdós diputades.

Incorrect — aital has no feminine form; in a Central-baseline phrase, use ambdues with a feminine noun.

✅ Aital norma fou aprovada per ambdues diputades.

Such a rule was approved by both female representatives. (deliberately literary/formal)

Key Takeaways

Aital and ço are chiefly recognition items for historical or literary reading. Hom, llur, and ambdós/ambdues remain available in marked formal prose. Sengles has the narrow meaning “one each” and needs a previously identified set. Above all, determine whether a form modifies a noun or replaces a whole noun phrase before deciding what may stand beside it.

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