Demonstrative Pronouns for beginners

demonstrative determiners demonstrative pronouns demonstratives that these this those

A demonstrative pronoun is a pronoun mostly used to point to something based on its distance from the speaker. In English, these pronouns have four forms.

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"Demonstrative Pronouns" in English Grammar

What Are Demonstrative Pronouns?

Demonstrative pronouns are pronouns that we use to point at something or someone. They can help the speaker show how near or far something/someone is.

English Demonstrative Pronouns

English language has four demonstrative pronouns. You can see them in the table below:

	Singular	Plural
Near	This	These
Far	That	Those

Singular Demonstrative Pronouns

If we want to point to one thing/person, we use 'this' and 'that.'

If a thing/person is close to us, we use this
If a thing/person is far from us, we use that

demonstrative pronoun "this" in a sentence

Now, let us take a look at some examples:

This is a pen.

That is an umbrella.

Plural Demonstrative Pronouns

If we want to point to things/people, we use 'these' and 'those.'

If they are close to us, we use these
If they are far from us, we use those

Now, let us take a look at some examples:

These are keys.

Those are bags.

Demonstrative Pronouns with 'Be'

We can form a sentence using demonstrative pronouns with the verb 'be' and form questions simply by changing the place of 'be' and demonstrative pronouns. Look at these examples:

This is a dictionary. → Is this a dictionary?

These are English books. → Are these English books?

Tip!

If we want to give a short answer to a question with these and those, we use they.

Are these English books? Yes, they are. or No, they aren't.

Personal Pronouns

A personal pronoun is a word that substitutes a name to avoid repetition. Personal pronouns show us the grammatical person and gender of the name they refer to.

Subject Pronouns

Pronouns that are used in the position of a subject in sentences are called subject pronouns. In this article, you find all your answers about subject pronouns.

Object Pronouns

Pronouns that can take the place of an object are called object pronouns. In this article, you will get to know different kinds of object pronouns.

Reflexive Pronouns

Reflexive Pronouns are used to show that the subject and object of a sentence are exactly the same person or thing or there is a direct connection between them.

Emphatic Pronouns

'Emphatic pronouns' are used to refer to a noun or a pronoun mentioned earlier. So they give more detailed information.

Interrogative Pronouns

There are five interrogative pronouns in English. Each is used to ask a specific question. In this lesson, we will learn more about these pronouns.

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