Difference between Demonstrative Pronoun and Demonstrative Adjective

Demonstrative pronoun and demonstrative adjective both sound identical and both modify the noun, but in a different way. The main difference between a demonstrative pronoun and a demonstrative adjective is that a demonstrative pronoun can stand alone, whereas a demonstrative adjective is followed by the noun. Let us understand the demonstrative pronoun and adjective in detail.

Demonstrative Pronoun

A demonstrative pronoun is a pronoun that represents something, which is already mentioned. It is used to indicate something important in a sentence. These types of pronouns can be either plural or singular that points out items in distance or time. Suppose a thing or many things are represented in a sentence, so the demonstrative pronoun will be either far or near in distance or time. For near in distance or time – words like ‘this’ or ‘these’ will be used and for far in distance or time – words like ‘that’ or ‘those’ will be used.

•    A demonstrative pronoun will always identify a noun. It is used in place of a noun.

•    A demonstrative pronoun is primarily used to explain a thing, place or an animal. Besides, it is also used to describe a person who is identified.

Examples:

•    This is my house. (Singular)

•    Could you give me that? (Singular)

•    These are my favorites. (Plural)

•    Those belong to Cathy. (Plural)

Demonstrative Adjective

A demonstrative adjective is an adjective that is used to identify or demonstrate specific things, animals or people. The adjectives that modify nouns are ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘those’ and ‘these’. These words come before the nouns in the sentence. Like demonstrative pronoun, the demonstrative adjective also uses ‘this’ and ‘that’ for singular nouns and ‘these’ and ‘those’ for plural nouns.

•    A demonstrative adjective is useful when you want to make it clear which noun (place, person or thing) you would like to describe.

•    A demonstrative adjective identify the words omitted in a sentence or highlight their importance.

Examples:

This is the best gift of my life. (Singular)

That dress is so classy. (Singular)

Those earrings suit me very well. (Plural)

These books contain interesting stories. (Plural)

From above mentioned points, it is proved that demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative adjectives use the same words (this, that, those, these) to modify nouns. However, the difference between these two is that demonstrative pronouns come before a verb or these stand alone. On the other hand, demonstrative adjectives always appear before a noun.

Difference between Demonstrative and Relative Pronoun

Demonstrative pronoun points to a person or subject which is at a distance from you and you would highlight the distance between you by saying so. For example, let’s say you and one of your classmates is sitting on a coffee table and you see that there is another person sitting at one corner of the cafe and you recognize him. So you would introduce to your friend as “that guy at the corner used to be my batch mate during my school days”. Now when you walk up to the guy and introduce your friend you would say “This guy is my best buddy”.  These kinds of pronouns imply a special stress in spoken English. Demonstrative pronoun may sound like a demonstrative adjective but is used differently in the sentence. It acts as a pronoun taking the place of a noun.

Relative pronouns are used in complex sentences where it introduces a subordinate clause. In such cases you do not show the distance between you and another person or object rather you point to subject of the action. In simple words that is used to combine two different sentences into a single sentence. Let us consider the two sentences mentioned below:

•    I was preparing for the civil service examination.

•    I cleared the civil service examination.

Now using the relative pronoun that we can combine the above two sentences as follows:

•    I was preparing for the civil service examination that helped me clearing the civil service examination.

Relative pronoun provides more information to the sentence when used after the noun. The expanded form of relative pronouns is called as indefinite relative pronouns. For example, consider the below sentences:

•    He did whatever he thought was correct.

•    Whomever the boss thinks is sincere, will get awarded by him.