The demonstrative pronouns are often used attributively, as a determiner in a NP. In the literature, the demonstratives hierdie and dié are often lumped together as proximal demonstratives, with daardie being the distal demonstrative (De Stadler 1989:138). However, Kirsner (2014:45-46) makes a convincing argument that hierdie and dié should not be lumped together so easily. The hier here in hier+die does indicate proximity (as in 2a), and the daar there in daar+die indicates distance (as in 2b). The variant dié is, then, unspecified for distance (Kirsner 2014:48). In example (2c) it is used to specify a date that is clearly far removed, indicating that it does not necessarily refer to proximate entities. The reason why there is an impression that dié has a proximate connotation could be that speakers tend to talk about and refer to things that are close to them more often than things that are further away, so even though dié is not specified for distance, it would be used with reference to proximate entities more often than distant entities.

Apart from the standard forms in example (2), there are also more informal variants of the demonstratives. The variants of hierdie are typically just shortened spellings or spelling imitating pronunciation closely (3a-b), also present for daardie (3c). However, a more significantly shortened version of daardie is daai (3d), widely used in spoken language especially but also in more informal written language. Another informal variant is doerie (3e), analogical to daardie but with the first element doer being an informal locative adverb referring to a location that is particularly far away.

The variant daai is occasionally used in compounds, such as daaikant that side. In (4) it is used alongside the compound diékant this side, illustrating that while dié is not necessarily specified for proximity, it is indeed sometimes used with the implication of proximity, especially when contrasted with daardie or daai.

There are two types of indepent use of demonstrative pronouns in Afrikaans. The one, uncontroversial use includes anaphoric reference to something that appears earlier in the sentence, with a specifying function, such as (5a-c).

The other independent use of demonstratives is with purely deictic reference, without a noun or NP – not functioning as a determiner or modifier in any way. While this use of dié (6a) is uncontroversial, it is discouraged with hierdie and daardie in some prescriptive sources (Carstens 2018). However, this usage still widely occurs in Afrikaans data (6b-c). In fact, the independent use of demonstratives is so well established that it is used similarly to nouns, for instance as plurals (6d-f).

The informal variants of the demonstratives are used in the independent senses as well, illustrated in (7).