A demonstrative pronoun is a pronoun that is used to point to something specific within a sentence.
These pronouns can indicate items in space or time, and they can be either singular or plural.
The demonstrative pronouns are this, that, these and those.
- This is my new house
- That isn’t your dictionary
- Those aren’t my shoes
Now let’s learn all you need to know so you can make sentences with demonstrative pronouns correctly
Table of Contents
When do we use this and these?
We use this (singular) and these (plural) as pronouns to talk about people or things near us
These are some affirmative statements using this and these
- This is the dictionary that I need
- This is my new car
- These are your new responsibilities
- These are my Christmas trees
- This is something I need
- This is a game I want to play every Tuesday night
- These are my favorite toys
These are some negative statements using this and these
- This isn’t a dictionary
- This isn’t my car
- This is not the Ice cream that I wanted
- These aren’t your new responsibilities
- These aren’t my Christmas trees
- These aren’t my toys and my dolls
When do we use that and those?
We use that (singular) and those (plural) to talk about things that are not near us.
These are some affirmative statements using demonstrative pronouns
- That’s a cat
- That’s my Christmas tree
- Those are my friends
- Those are my classroom items
- That was such an interesting experience.
- Please give me one of those.
These are some negative statements using demonstrative pronouns
- That isn’t a cat
- That is not Christmas tree
- Those aren’t my friends
- Those are not my classroom items
- Those aren’t my toys
- Those aren’t my parents
Questions using Demonstrative Pronouns
These are example of questions using demonstrative pronouns
Check these questions using this and these:
- is this my cat?
- Is this my friend?
- Are these my shirts?
- Are these my shoes?
- Are these the sandals that I bought in Miami?
- Are these my earrings?
Check these questions using that and those:
- is that my cat?
- Is that my friend?
- Is that yours?
- Are those my shirts?
- Are those my shoes?
These are questions and answer using demonstrative pronouns
- Is that my cellphone?
- That’s mine, I also have an Iphone
- Are those my shirts?
- Yes, your mom left them here
- Are these my earrings?
- Yes, you left them on the table
Demonstrative Determiners
Note that the demonstrative pronouns have the same spelling as demonstrative determiners.
A determiner used to demonstrate the identity of the thing referenced by the following noun; in English, they include this, these, that and those.
In the sentence “I like this music”, the word “this” is a demonstrative determiner.
More examples:
- Look at that rain!
- I want a pair of those shoes
- This movie is boring.
- That idea is crazy.
- These brownies are delicious.
- Those children are hungry.
