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Pronouns

Pronoun types

Personal pronouns

Possessive personal pronouns

Questioning pronouns

Indefinite pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns

Reflexive pronouns

Intensive pronouns

Pronouns and antecedents

Avoiding confusing antecedent and pronoun situations

Consistent use of the pronoun it

Pronouns - singular or plural

The difference between who and whom

Pronoun consistency

First person

Second person

Third person

All third person

All first person

All third person

All second person

Demonstrative pronouns

Normal pronouns simply represent something. For instance, if I was talking about some guy called Bob, I might say something like:

He is a nice guy.

In this situation ‘he’ represents ‘Bob’. But demonstrative pronouns specifically point to what they are representing. For instance, if I was talking about how taxes were going down:

This is a good thing.

‘This’ specifically points to taxes, rather than just representing them.

There are a few types of demonstrative pronouns. Some are used to point to things that are close to you physically or in time or the subject of the sentence, like ‘this’ and ‘these’. Using ‘this’ or ‘these’ is personal.

These chips are not tasty at all.

To talk about things that are farther away, either in time or physically, you might use the pronouns ‘that’ or ‘those’. Using ‘that’ or ‘those’ is less personal - it seems like the thing you’re pointing to is not as close:

That person is not nice.

Those chips are not tasty at all.

Click here to move on to the next topic: Reflexive pronouns